BULLSEYE

Bad Boys

I sat in a crowded room, people bustling around me. Smelling of sweat, alcohol and the road. All though there was a drink in my hand and I casually tipped it back every few seconds, my eyes still scanned the crowd behind me. I was a man who could not move from his post.

The froth of my beer boiled up against the rim of my cup. Gradually, I took it up, my hands un-shaking. Holding the cold rim against my broken lips, I drank. The liquor burnt the sides of my throat. I let out an impending sigh.

Instantaneously, wind blew at my face. Lashing out like a monsters claw, it battered against my sinewy cheek. The sound of the door slamming against the wall almost made my skin rattle. As if on impulse, I grabbed the gun that lay beside me. A man strolled into the bar, and regardless of the crowd of bustling people he was the only one I could see. The notorious navy racing jacket adorned his figure.

Abruptly, the crowd relaxed. The ravish silence dwindled and the chaos grew once more but all that I watched was him. My gun still clasped in my hands.

He made his way to the table, his heels making the ground shake beneath him. He swung his limp body into the chair opposite me. Crouching over the bar table, strands of wiry black hair flickering over his forehead.

"Whiskey," he commanded. Flashing the bar tender a lavish grin.

"Tall glass, make it strong," And with that I lapsed out of my shook, realising the gun was still in my hand. I slammed it back down on the table. Staring at the man out of the corner of my eye. Like predicting an impending storm, I knew who it was. Mr Fabulous. Honestly, what a rookie.

With that, he turned to me to. His eyes were like a fire embedded in my soul.

"Fancy meeting you here," Doc husked. I did not even turn to look at him.

"I seem to be in many places," I returned. Clasping my drink in an antiquated way. Doc let out a hearty chuckle but when it was returned only with a mere glare, he sighed. Seeming to sink down in his chair, growing smaller. A silence passed between us, a silence so long and so bloody full. A silence that unnerved me so much, I felt almost forced to break it.

"So racing?" I inquired. My voice only barely audible over the clammer of the inn. A sound that was like a cacophony above my head. Mr Fabulous's eyes squinted, flaring with an odd type of fire.

"Racing," he repeated, almost wistful. I nodded, grey hair flickering against my forehead. I took another swing from my glass. Swirling the last drops in the bottom of my glass.

"Do you, uh, go fast?" I questioned. To which he smiled, a mercilessly grin. It almost looked as though he was about to laugh.

Word's pressed against Doc's lips. Three piston cups, he thought, three consecutive piston cups. Damn you. Just the highest award in all of racing. Alas, he said none of this. On the contrary, he retorted a quite different remark.

"Do you?" He inquired. I was about to ignore him when my gun glistened in the sun, my sheriff badge pressed against my chest. Much to my own folly, I decided to answer.

"When I have to," I whistled, "When the bad guys are reluctant to be caught," At these words Doc leaned back in his chair.

"You don't have to worry here," he sighed. As if I had ever, ever, thought him capable of transgression or any act of malcontent. I knew his type.

"This bad boy has every intention in being caught," he whistled. His racing jacket having the audacity to slip down his shoulders, revealing his glistening collarbone. A ray of freckles outlining them. The act was done in such a way that it was though he was flirting with me. However, before I had time to press my charges, a woman gazed at Mr. Fabulous from the other-side of the bench.

The curls of Flo's black hair, flowed along the outlines of her dark face. She smiled up at Doc, then at me. She had no care to bob like an idle waitress but instead skidded a glass of whiskey across the table. The glass stopped just before it hit Doc's outrageous form.

"There you go Hud. Enjoy it," she smirked.

"Sarge," she acknowledge, with a casual tip of her head. And with that slipped away from the desk, undoubtedly going to help another weary traveller. Loading their glasses with liquor.

It was then that I made my move to leave. Grabbing my gun off the bench, the cold metal pressed against my skin. I swung my hopeless body out of the chair. I did not even look at the rookie as I left, he returned the favour. His eyes wholly on his drink. Almost as if he had forgotten what he had said a few seconds ago.

My head buzzing, I moved away from the inn's cacophony. Away from the odour of a thousand travellers. My gun swung at my side. I passed through the inn unnoticed, out into the night.