Nick jumped and swore. “Hey, don’t touch my car!” He must’ve decided the man couldn’t hear him because he started unrolling his window.
“What are you doing?” Riley chirped. “Just drive away.” No need to talk to the crazy snake man.
Nick continued unrolling the window, letting a stream of cold air inside. “Dude, if you dent my car, I’ll buff it out with your face.”
“That so?” the man growled back.
“Yeah,” Nick said. “It is.” The guy was shorter and thinner than Nick and considerably more drunk, but that didn’t mean that getting out of the car was a good idea.
“Drive away,” she said again. “You have nothing to prove to Mr. Snake Head.” A crowd was gathering around the parkinglot. A woman had her phone out, either recording the event or calling the police.
The man hit Nick’s car again, this time on the hood. “Listen to your girlfriend and drive away, coward.”
Nick went for his door handle. Riley grabbed his arm. “He might have a weapon.”
Mr. Snake Head’s friend came over and spoke to the man in lowered tones. He might have been trying to calm him down or perhaps was giving him fighting tips.
Nick stuck his head out the window. “Hey, you gotta weapon?”
Did Nick expect the hoodlum accosting the car to answer that question honestly?
The man pulled a pair of brass knuckles from his pocket, slipped them on with a flourish, and flipped Nick off again.
Who carried that sort of thing around with them?
“Brass knuckles?” Nick scoffed. “I’ve got a car. That beats your weapon, so you’d better get out of my way.” He took the car out of gear.
“What are you doing?” Riley sputtered. He wasn’t really going to run over the man, was he?
Nick let the car edge forward. “The problem with an electric car is that you can’t rev it when you want to sound threatening.”
The man backed up in alarm, still swearing. His bloodshot eyes bulged in his head.
“Stop it!” Riley grabbed the armrest. “Committing homicide on the first date is a major turn-off.”
Nick drove ahead and swerved past the man, gliding through the parking lot like the whole thing had been a joke. “What about on the second date?”
“Not then either.” She spun in her seat to see what Snake Man was doing. His friend was holding him back from chasingafter the car. The man waved an arm in the air and yelled things at them.
Nick rolled up his window and pulled into the street. “How about the third date?”
“I thought you wanted to go rock climbing and snowboarding. When did homicide become a date option?”
He threw his head back and laughed. “I like you, Riley. You’re funny.”
They’d put enough distance between themselves and the bar that she stopped worrying Snake Man would run after them. She slumped in her seat and let out a long breath. What had just happened? This couldn’t be normal behavior for Nick, could it? He was a successful businessman, not some drunken idiot looking for trouble.
He turned in his seat to look at her. “This is where you say, ‘I like you too, Nick. Let’s do this again soon.’”
“The dancing part or the murder part? I need time to plan my alibis.”
He laughed again. “Always thinking ahead.”
No, she was deflecting the question because she didn’t want a second date. Getting into fights with strangers in the parking lot, yeah, not a fan. Zero stars. Would not recommend the experience.
Nick took one hand off the wheel, bent down, and picked up something underneath his seat. Riley knew the car was self-driving, but she still had to resist the urge to grab the wheel. He wasn’t looking where the car was going at all.
“What are you doing?” she asked.