I’d just set a drink down when I felt it.

A pinch.

Right on swell of my ass.

It wasn’t a vague touch, or brush. Something you could push away.

It was a legit, hard pinch.

I whirled around to stare at a group of guys sitting at a table. No one moved. They sat completely still, staring down at their beers.

They weren’t even acting normal. They weren’t talking. They weren’t drinking. They were all just sitting motionless. Then, all at once, every single one of them looked up at me at the same time and started laughing.

My mouth fell open and I stormed into the back, whipped through the bookcases, and stood in Luke’s office.

“What?” He asked, not even looking up from his papers.

“Some guy just pinched my ass.”

He raised an eyebrow and looked up at me. “Okay?”

“Aren’t you going to do something about it?”

“No?” He shrugged. “What would I do about it? I didn’t see it happen.”

“Your employee is telling you that it happened. That should be enough.”

“Maybe in some places that would be enough, but not here, not for me. Lemme tell you something: if you don’t show ‘em who’s boss, they’ll walk all over you.”

I shook my head and held my hands up. “Who, Luke? Customers? People in general? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Everybody wants everything all the time. If you let them have it, if you don’t own your own life, how can you expect them to respect you?”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Was he really saying that I deserved this?

“So,” I said through gritted teeth, “let me be 100% clear. You’re telling me to take care of this myself.”

Luke crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Gee. I guess I am.”

We stared at each other for a long moment before he added, “Take care of it yourself. There. Better?”

“Okay.” I whirled around and stormed out of Luke’s office, heading straight towards the bar.

“Teddy bear,” I said. “Watch what happens, will you?”

“Huh?” he said as I poured a Maker’s Mark into a glass and headed over to the table I’d originally been serving before I got pinched. I placed the Maker’s Mark down and the women who were drinking there looked up at me, confused.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “This is on the house.”

And then it happened again. A hard pinch on my ass, only this time the guy had the nerve to twist. Like a titty twister, but on my ass. Who knew what the hell the guy was thinking.

I whirled around, but Ted had already come around from the bar and was essentially running full speed at the table.

He hit the guy in the chair closest to me, hard.

The guy hit the ground with a smack and before he knew what was happening, Ted mounted him and started punching him in the face. One of the guy’s friends picked up a bottle and hit Ted over the head with it. The bottle shattered and Ted went down. The guys panicked when that happened and ran, leaving me there on the ground with a now bleeding Ted who was no longer conscious.

Luke rolled up next to us and glared down at me.

“What have you done?” he hissed.

“I did what you said. I dealt with it myself. This is what happens.”

“No,” Luke snapped, “and get your filthy hands off my son. You didn’t deal with anything. You sent Ted in to do your dirty work for you.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but before I got a chance, Luke grabbed onto my arm, gripped it tightly, and lifted me up. He forced me towards the front door.

“You’re fired,” he yelled.

“I’m what?” I pushed back against him.

He slipped his hand into his pocket, pulled out some dollar bills, wadded them in a ball, and threw them at me. “There. That’s more than enough to cover your last paycheck. Get out of here.”

I stood frozen.

“Get out!”