Landlocked (Atlas Link Series Book 2) Read Free

that’ll get warm if you don’t drink it, right?”
    “Hm?” he mumbled, eyes glued to a jukebox in the corner like he’d never seen one before.
    “If you don’t like the beer, I’ll drink it and order you something else.” Like a froofy mudslide or something. Anything he could stomach.
    Still no real response came, so I snapped my fingers in front of his face.
    He startled. “I’ll drink it.”
    “Yeah,” I said. “When you’re thirty.”
    Trevor grabbed hold of the glass bottle and pressed it to his lips. Five seconds later he slowly pulled it away. A look of utter disgust crawled across his face as he made swallowing beer look like a nasty chore. I mean, it was a mega hoppy IPA he’d ordered all willy-nilly.
    I exhaled and stuck my tongue to the inside of my cheek as I looked away. I never should have brought him. If his inability to finish a beer wasn’t embarrassing enough, his incessant staring at other bar-goers was sure to land us in a fight his ego couldn’t handle. Having a kind-of-girlfriend with the strength of five men did that to you.
    A glance at my watch revealed the time:
ten-thirty
. Much earlier than I would have liked to head back, but I seriously doubted Trevor would make it to last call.
    I reached into my pocket, withdrew some singles, and placed them on the bar top. The bartender came by to take them, and I waved a thank-you with two fingers. I hopped off the barstool and gestured toward the door. “Come on, let’s go home.”
    Trevor shook his head. “It’s too early.”
    “You’re not having fun.”
    “I didn’t know this was supposed to be,” he countered. “I thought you wanted to come here to forget.”
    “I do. But right now I’m a little bit more worried about you accidentally starting a fight with these guys than I am about my inability to handle two years of SeaSat5’s absence.” I tugged on his arm. “Let’s go.”
    Trevor dismounted his stool and brushed off my hand.
    One of the guys Trevor had stared at slid in between us. He was decked out head-to-toe in leather, with a black goatee curling around his mouth. He had to be about thirty-five or forty.
Gross
.
    “Seems to me a guy such as yourself, so lucky to land a looker like that,” the dude said, thumbing at me, “shouldn’t be brushing off the touch of a lady.”
    “Yeah, whatever,” Trevor mumbled to him.
    I could have smacked Trevor. Truly, I could have. “Leave him alone.”
    He turned to me. “Oh come on, pretty lady. Why don’t you go home with a real man?” A slimy grin marred his face.
    Double-gross
. “Man, back off,” I told him.
    The guy advanced, so close that when he leaned into my ear, I could smell the nacho cheese sauce from the bar’s dinner special lingering on his breath. “Kid’s a scrawny mess. I can show you some—”
    “Finish that sentence,” I said as I brought my hands up between us and pushed against his chest, “and I’ll hit you so hard you won’t be able to speak for a month.”
    Trevor moved around us. “Don’t talk to her like that.”
    The dude chuckled and lifted his hands. “Okay, okay, Peter Pan. Take your bitch home with you.”
    My jaw set hard, muscles twitching. Trevor must have seen it happening before the guy did, but my fist flew faster than Trevor’s hand could grab. My punch connected with his nose, the force of five men concentrated into a closed fist. The dude cradled his gushing nose with wide, disbelieving eyes. I spun on my heels and gestured for Trevor to follow me out the door. Trevor couldn’t handle bar-life, and I couldn’t handle being treated like an object.
    The second we made it into the parking lot Trevor jogged so he was in front of me. “What the hell was that?”
    I shrugged. “He annoyed me.”
    “I had it.”
    A smile broke on my face. “Yeah, okay Trevor.” I rolled my eyes and sidestepped him. The only thing he had was a severe case of bar-phobia.
    He stepped in front of me again. “He could have hurt