Beyond the Horizon | Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw

Part Three - Great Balls of Fire!

'This is going to be a painfully long mission if you keep paying this much attention to Rooster,' I think to myself. As Hangman goes back to the pool table and re-racks the balls, I walk up to Penny, the bartender.

"Hey, Dice! Long time no see," Penny greets me with a contagious smile.

"Penny! How're you? How's Amelia?" I ask, leaning on the bar.

"We're good! Bar's been busy, and Amelia's got summer break soon," Penny says as she takes a card from an older guy who sits across the bar from me. He looks up at me, curiosity showing it's colors in his eyes after hearing me question Penny about her and her daughter. I give him a friendly smile. After a few seconds, Penny returns to the owner of the card she had just taken. Briefly, I overhear her mention something about how his card had been declined. I didn't catch the context of the situation, but I stood there for a moment, wondering what kind of situation this man could've gotten himself into that left him with a declined card at a bar. After giving his card back, Penny comes back to me and asks me what I'd like to drink. I put in an order for a beer, the same one that Hangman had gotten me earlier.

While she walks off on a mission to find the beer fridge, I turn around to watch my new friends play pool. I can see Rooster standing in a dangerous position behind Phoenix who's winding up for her shot. She looks over at me, I smile, and she rams her arm back, hitting Rooster in the crotch with the back of the cue. He doubles over in pain and I don't hesitate to hold in my laughter.

Facing the bar again, I smile slightly as my laughter dies off. Meanwhile, a man, about the same age as Phoenix or Rooster, approaches me, staring intently.

"Well, aren't you just gorgeous," he says with a vile smile. I say nothing in response, but try to step to the side to create some distance between us. "Oh come on, love, no need to be uptight. Sit down, have a drink with me." Anger starts to rise in me after hearing him call me "uptight". He brings his hands up and starts to run his hand along my upper arm.

"No thanks, I have a drink coming," I say, continuing to look straight ahead. I try to drop the inevitable attitude that I know will make an appearance if this conversation continues on any longer. I keep trying to move away from him in a non-noticeable way, but to no avail. I'm now sandwiched on my other side by a woman, and have no room to move closer to her.

Just in time, Penny comes to my rescue with my beer in her hand. I take it with a smile. Before taking a drink, I make eye contact with the guy still sitting on the other side of the bar. I offer him a friendly smile and hold up my drink to him, as if to say "cheers!" He chuckles and nods his head.

"Come on, gorgeous, I think you want to come home with me," the man beside me continues.

Finally, I sigh as I turn to him and say, "keep talking like that and you'll be going home with a $600 bar bill for disrespecting a member of the Navy," as I point at the sign in the middle of the bar.

He cranes his neck to look at what I'm pointing at. I use his distraction to rush out from beside him. I turn and take one step but before I can make the second, I bump into what feels like a human wall.

"I'm so sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going," I say as I inspect my uniform to make sure I haven't spilled on myself. Thankfully, I haven't. I raise my eyes to see who it is I've bumped into and I'm surprised to be greeted by the chocolate brown eyes of Rooster.

He gently places his hands around my triceps, preventing me from stepping away from him. The distance between us is only a few inches. I can feel the warm air of his breath brushing against my nose as he holds me there. Rooster looks up at the guy that was hitting on me before and says, "was that guy bothering you? Are you ok?" He asks with a furrowed brow, bringing his gaze back to me, looking deeply into my eyes, as if searching for an answer that couldn't be verbalized.