Chapter 104

I handed off the camera back to Terra, which she happily took but then immediately got concerned as she saw the expression on my face and that I was looking past her. I quickly made my way through the ladies and got up next to the edge of the dock where the four good ol’ boys were pulling up.

Now, I had a few options for how to deal with them. The first was to go Macho Alpha and try and tell them off and protect my group. I liked to think of that as being ‘Papa Lion’ when I was at work in the casino and to be frank it was rarely a good choice considering when I was at work I was on the hook for every misstep one of my events had that could have been managed. Yelling at clients, or threatening fights, was a terrible way at keeping a job. The second option I had was to try and ignore it, which obviously wasn’t going to happen either. Even if all the girls had been strangers I’d never met I wouldn’t want to see them getting harassed. And they weren’t strangers. Cassidy was there, and Wanda, and Becca and Cattie and Ami and-

Jesus, I might be going a little overboard, I thought.

The third option was to weak-will it. Try and keep the peace but also maintain some sort of boundary so that the guys could feel macho without actually doing any damage to the ladies. That was how way too many managers ended up doing things in the service industry. I’d seen too many bar managers and house managers bend over backwards to keep an obvious asshole customer from making a complaint after abusing a staff member. There was no way I would step into shoes like that.

So what was my last option?

“Well, hey there fellas,” I said, putting on a very loud and very chipper voice. “I’ll be honest, I’m not much for rope tugging, but if you whip it on up here I’ll happily tug your rope, wrap it around this here pole and make sure you’re good and happy.”

The fourth option was Controlled Chaos. Use innocence and logic to turn a group of shitters on each other and deflect it away from staff.

“What?” the guy who talked said, furrowing his brow and looking at me like I had two heads.

“I said whip your rope on up here and I’ll give it a tug just like you asked,” I said with a huge, golden retriever grin and peppy demeanour I wasn’t feeling on the inside. I ended the sentence in my head with, ‘You filthy fucking degenerate.’

“Hah!” one of his buddies laughed. “Fella wants to give you a tug, Jim!”

“I ain’t no faggot,” Jim sputtered. He turned to me, glaring. “Are y’ queer or something, you fuck?”

Now, the dock had gotten a lot quieter when I started speaking so loudly, and all the girls were glaring at the guys.

“You kiss your mother with that mouth, asshole?” Heels asked from nearby.

“Fuck you, paki bitch,” one of Jim’s other friends said.