Strictly Pleasure

Part 9

Whether Travis intentionally ignored Heidi or simply did not hear her, he continued on, "No, seriously, good for you. I'm sure they find you tight enough for them but us regular sized fell-"

Jek interrupted the troll's unnecessary topic of conversation with a  derisive scoff. Heidi's eyes wheeled up to her companion, still avoiding Travis's gaze. Her eyes grew large, registering the foreign expression on Jek's face. The look in his eyes was off as he stared at the unwelcome interloper. Like a cat idly interested in a bug that they'd soon squish. She glanced at his friends across the club, wondering if she should stop Jek before something terrible happened. If even one of them saw the warning signs, surely their expression would tell her.

"What." Slowly, Travis turned to the previously ignored orc, a sneer already in place on his grey lips.

"Nothing, nothing. You just look smaller than the average-sized troll, that's all." Jek made a motion with his hand, his forefinger and thumb a few inches apart. He chuckled and only lowered his hand to scratch carelessly at his ear, though the fact he used his middle finger didn't escape Heidi's attention.

Travis's eyes flickered to the motion of Jek's finger, his frown deepening as the juvenile gesture registered. "You know, I used to be a big Theoretical Menace fan, 'til I saw you turned into a porn hocker."

"They say do what you love. I love music and sex. How about you, little guy?" The smile grew across Jek's lips as he pushed away from the table and stood.

That movement caught the attention of Calib and Torrik, Heidi realized, as the faun and gargoyle looked toward Jek. Something in their body language - a sudden straightening of their spines or a brief flinch in their expression - betrayed their masked concern. With the way Jek leaned over Travis, that smile never leaving his lips as he loomed over the troll, Heidi suspected she knew why they were concerned. Despite his smile, the air around Jek snapped like a dog barely held by a chain.

Travis didn't back down as Jek stood. Instead, he proudly jutted his chin out and met the orc's gaze head on. "I work in sales. Didn't Heidi tell you? Or did she leave out how she used me as a money ticket for years?"

Hazarding a glance to Heidi, Jek found her red-faced and unable to look up from the table. Travis continued on, apparently taking Jek's glance toward the woman as a betrayed expression rather than one of concern. "I housed her and her half-orc brat for years while she couldn't even hold a job for more than a few months."

Heidi sat straighter when he mentioned her son, then her attention snapped to Travis when he claimed she couldn't hold a job. Getting to her feet, she held the bottle of soda in her hand like a grounding rod. "That's not true, I—"

"Oh, sorry, you did freelance work and sold crafts online for a year. Maybe two?" Travis snorted and rolled his eyes, clearly not very sorry. He turned his attention back to Heidi, his real target. She flinched under his gaze, her cheeks deepening in color the more he spoke. " Not that your little self-employment endeavors paid much."

"That's enough," Jek snarled, jutting out an arm between the two former lovers to act as a physical barrier. Heidi still hadn't looked up from her feet, her hands fiddling with the bottle in her hands. If she didn't have so much attention on her, Jek was willing to bet she would have run already.

Travis was undeterred as he leaned toward Heidi, over Jek's established boundary. "I was the one footing the cost of whatever you and Malachai racked up. Don't even preten—"

"I said that's enough." Without thinking, the arm Jek used as a barrier shot up. His hand grabbed the troll by the collar of his shirt and, single-handedly, he lifted the other man off his feet. A ripple of gasps wobbled through the crowd, an unwanted reminder of the audience they had.