[B.S. #1] Tied Up in Knotts by Dale Cadeau

hiding and get out of here as fast as you can.” James’s voice sounded brittle as if he didn’t have any patience with Danny’s group.
    Danny took his hand from under his hoodie.
    “Well, you must be the brains behind this gang.” James kept his eyes on Danny as he spoke to the group with steel in his voice.
    One of the guys who had stopped in the midst of throwing Avery’s clothes around tried to make himself look taller and yelled, “What are you going to do? Yous don’t look that scary to me.”
    In the blink of an eye, Angel threw his knife from behind Clay and James. The knife was accurate. It hit the guy in his left shoulder and knocked him to the bed behind him. Grabbing his shoulder he cried out.
    Danny seemed to shrink when he took in his friend withering in pain on Avery’s bed.
    Holding his hands palm up toward them, Danny turned and went to his friend to help him up off the bed.
    “We know the lady. She asks us in for coffee. No need to get so jumpy. We weren’t doing anything,” Danny told them with a friendly smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
    James looked over at Avery. “I thought you had better friends than this? Did you invite them in for coffee?”
    Clay and Angel didn’t take their eyes off the men now gathering in the middle of the room.
    Avery gasped at James. How could the man be so stupid? With her feet planted firmly on the kitchen floor, Avery put her hand on her hips and glared at James. “No, I did not invite them in for coffee. What do you think I am, stupid?” Avery was going to go on, but James raised his hand, stopping her.
    Looking back to the others in the room, he addressed Danny. “I guess you got the invite wrong? This lady is moving and any coffee she made was for us. I’m very pissed that you drank it all. If you don’t want to see us mad, you’ll leave right now and apologize to the lady.”
    Danny looked over all the large men standing at the door. He was holding up his buddy, but also thinking over their odds. He knew it was a lose-lose situation. With one guy down they could never take them.
    Stepping forward, balancing his friend up, Danny turned to Avery and leered at her. “Sorry, I guess I mistook your invite.”
    At the door, he waited for James, Clay, and Angel to move. On the other side in the hallway, he could see two other large men. They both had guns hidden under their crossed arms with the barrels pointed in his direction. Danny’s eyes darted to James.
    “You don’t play fair.”
    James and the others stepped to the side and allowed Danny’s gang to pass. When Danny passed him, Angel put a hand out to stop him, gripping the knife still embedded in his friend’s shoulder, he pulled it out by its handle.
    “Hey, that hurt,” the guy yelled at Angel.
    Angel just stepped back and wiped the blood off the knife on the guy’s hoodie. Snapping it closed, he put it back in his pant pocket. “Next time you’ll remember to see if you’re welcome or not before entering a lady’s apartment.”
    “You and your gang don’t play fair,” James mocked back at him. “You don’t like to play when the odds are not in your favor. Next time, pick on someone your same size and gender, so we know that you don’t make a habit of only going after defenseless women. You could ruin your reputation that way.”
    Danny looked back. James could tell by his purple face that he wouldn’t take the insults. He was already scheming and would be back at another time. Pushing his friends ahead of him, they left by the stairs.
    James bit off anything else he was going to say when he noticed that Avery stood in her kitchen, her head hanging down. He couldn’t see her face, her long blonde hair covered most of it, but he could hear her sobs.
    With two giant strides, James enfolded her in his arms, pushing her hair away from her face. Feeling her this close for the first time was like heaven. James felt her soft curves melt into his harder body. She smelled like lemons