Then he spat it onto the patio beside my shoe.
“You call this edible?” he demanded.
The conversations around us began to quiet.
“It isn’t finished,” I said.
His eyes hardened.
He had been drinking, but alcohol did not create Ivan’s cruelty.
It only stripped away the manners he used when he needed people to admire him.
“Always an excuse,” he said.
I saw his hand move and tried to step backward.
He caught my wrist before I could get away.
At first, I thought he was going to squeeze it hard enough to frighten me and then release it.
That was the kind of thing he had done before.
A grip beneath a dinner table.
A hand around my arm in the garage.
A shove delivered where no one else could see it clearly.
But this time there were witnesses, and something about their presence made him bolder instead of cautious.
