“Olly—”
My brother shook his head and ushered us away from the club. “Let’s go, Rosie. I’ll tell you everything but not here, okay?”
Lucas’s hand grazed the small of my back. “I called an Uber the moment Olly got out that door. It’ll be here in a few minutes,” he said as he came up behind us and led us away from the entrance to the club.
He took his coat off and threw it in my arms. “Put it on your brother.”
“Who’s this?” Olly asked.
I looked at my brother just in time to see him take in Lucas’s suit. Then, glancing at me and inspecting my attire. He came to a stop. “Oh God, you were on a date.”
I picked up my pace, pulling him after me, the answer to that question too complicated for me to elaborate. “And now I’m here. I’m so glad you called, Olly.”
Just as Lucas was nodding, I heard heavy steps behind us. I turned around—we all did—and took in the man that had just exited the club and was now looking our way.
“Jimmy,” Olly muttered. “Fuck.”
“Well, well,” Jimmy drawled. “Olly, if you were going to invite your pretty sister to watch a show, you should have given me a heads-up.” He looked me up and down with a sneer. “I would have cleaned up.”
I recognized him as the man who had picked up my brother outside Penn Station weeks ago.
Both my brother and Lucas moved forward, partly in front of me.
But I managed to make eye contact with Jimmy. I knew a bully when I saw one.
“Not even a hello?” He clicked his tongue. “That’s not very friendly, now, is it?”
Lucas, who I noticed now had been inching toward Jimmy, came to a stop a few feet in front of Olly and me.
I watched the muscles in his back straighten, his shoulders somehow expanding. “Don’t talk to her,” Lucas said in a hard voice I’d never heard from him. “Don’t even look her way. You have something to say to her, or Olly, you go through me.”
Jimmy snickered. “Well then, tell pretty boy next show is in fifteen. The crowd is already feral, so he better throw on some more oil and get in.” Next show. It really dawned then, Olly, my brother, a performer. A stripper. “Or now that his girl is tucked away he’s not taking the stage anymore?”
Tucked away. Oh, Olly. Whatever trouble he’d gotten into was over protecting a girl, of course, it was.
Jimmy’s words were still echoing in the night when a vehicle came to a stop behind us.
I watched the man’s eyes narrow.
Lucas didn’t turn to look at us—at me—when he said, “Rosie, get your brother in the car.”
Still shocked, I hesitated. Lucas stood there like a statue, serving as a wall between Jimmy and me and my brother.
“ángel,” Lucas’s deep and commanding voice came again, breaking through my hesitance. “Car, now. Please.”
Snapping into action, I linked arms with my brother and headed for the Uber. Once my brother was sitting inside, I turned back to check on Lucas. He remained in the same position, only now Jimmy was right in front of him, the two of them talking. Nothing more than gritted words between their teeth, not loud enough for me to make out a single thing.
I didn’t like it. Not one bit. Every cell in my body demanded that I go to Lucas and drag him away.
“Stay in the car, Olly,” I said, and gestured for the driver to wait.
I had dragged Lucas into this mess, and I’d be damned if something happened to him because of me. I had almost made it to Lucas, my arms ready and stretched in his direction, reaching for him, when Jimmy threw back his shoulders and shoved at Lucas’s chest.
The man I loved so much for his kindness, his warmth, his selfless heart, stumbled back before straightening. And instead of retaliating, instead of returning the shove or throwing a punch, he took another step back.
“You’re a lucky man,” Lucas told him, ice in his voice. “I promised her I wouldn’t engage.”
The other man scoffed, the sound weak and his next words uncertain: “Oh yeah?”
Lucas stared down the other man for a long moment, and then, he turned, leaving him behind. He was keeping his promise to me; he wasn’t engaging.
But then, so quickly the motion hardly registered, Jimmy charged forward, his boot making impact against Lucas’s calf. His right calf.
Lucas went down, falling to his knees with hardly a sound. His head hung low between his shoulders, and his chest heaved.
My vision blurred, my ears rang, and everything turned red. As if I were no longer myself, I darted forward.