Free THE COLLAPSE: Swantown Road by Frank Kaminski

maybe something.  My boyfriend’s here.”  She answered.
    “Oh, I didn’t realize you had one.”  Stephen politely stated, but looked disappointed.
    “He’s not really my boyfriend.  Well, kinda.  It’s complicated.” 
    “I understand.  He looks pretty rough.”  Stephen said, observing the large, angry man shoving his way through the crowd toward their table.  Stephen quickly scanned the bar for Fish, but couldn’t find him.  Maybe he was in the bathroom or something.
    “I’m sorry.”  Tarra said quietly to Stephen, just as her boyfriend, Luke arrived at their table.  Luke looked at all the empty bottles and shot glasses on the table, then turned his intoxicated glare to Stephen, who was also intoxicated but passively looked away because he wanted no trouble.
    Luke swayed as he spoke to Tarra, “Looks like you did some good mooching off these tourists, Butterfly.  Nice.  Now let’s go.”
    “Ok, just go outside, I’ll be there in a minute.”  Tarra snapped at him, reluctantly.
    “You’ve got one minute.  Like, as in, sixty seconds,”  Luke said, and gave Stephen one last look of disgust before leaving and heading towards the door.
    Tarra looked hurt as she explained to Stephen that she owed him money, and that he has all kinds of connections in Alaska.  He was not a man to be messed with.  She also threw in a quick line (and guilt trip) about Stephen being gone with his ship in a couple days but she would still be stuck there.
    Stephen acknowledged that he understood her predicament, and gave her a quick, friendly hug before she gathered up her belongings and left the table.  On her way out, she looked him deep in the eyes and said, “I wish things were different.”
    Stephen watched her as she reluctantly made her way through the crowd and out the door.  He was sad.  There was something about Tarra that Stephen had never experienced before.  He really, really liked her.  He also wished things were different, and that they could have at least exchanged contact information or something.  He scolded himself for being so weak and letting her go away so easily.
    Suddenly, Stephen noticed another man moving from the pool table area quickly toward the door.  It was Fish!  And it looked like he was on a mission.  Stephen immediately realized what had happened.  Fish must have been playing pool and saw Tarra leave.
    As Tarra left the bar and lit up a cigarette, she dreaded leaving Stephen.  He was a total sweetheart, super intelligent and good looking too!  She didn’t have to dumb down her conversation when talking with him, as she had to do with most of the roughnecks and fisherman she dated.  She could be herself. 
    Tarra was about to make an extremely poor decision by getting into a very intoxicated boyfriend’s car when she heard a shout behind her.
    “Hey!  What the fuck, yo?”  It was Fish, and he was moving quickly towards her boyfriend’s car.  Her boyfriend saw him approaching and got back out of the vehicle, ready and hungry for a confrontation.
    “Why you gonna leave my buddy hangin’ like that?”  Fish shouted at Tarra as he walked up.  He was swaying also, almost as much as Luke was.  Although Fish was a decent-sized man, Luke’s arms were bigger, and he was a bit more rough around the edges than Fish.  Tarra didn’t know much about Fish, but based on general appearances, she figured that Luke had a good chance of taking him in a fight.  Additionally and more importantly, Luke never fought fair, and that worried Tarra.
    Tarra shouted at Fish, “Just go back inside, jackass!  This isn’t your problem.”
    “The hell it ain’t!  Who’s this turd?”  Fish pointed at Luke, who was slowly making his way around the hood of his car towards them.  Tarra became nervous, she didn’t want to see Fish get hurt, he was only trying to help out his friend.  She then saw the bar door burst open and Stephen emerged, loud music blaring from behind him