"Sure," Hagar shot back. "It's the crap people tell themselves will make you feel better so they can wash their hands of, you know, asking." That might have been unnecessarily cruel for a night like this, but fatigue had a way of sharpening Hagar's uneven edges and reducing her tolerance for subtle bullshit.
And obviously this had to be bullshit. People didn't go around handing her things for the sake of looking into her fine eyes. They didn't even notice her eyes.
Whatever Alice told herself, her flushed cheeks and wandering gaze gave away a whole story. It took Hagar a minute to realize that she wasn't just glancing idly over her shoulder; that someone was coming towards them.
She turned just in time to see Mouse advancing with a sure, slight stagger in his gait. "You," he slurred, "I'll have words with you."
Oh, here we go, Hagar thought to herself, Luck shits on me again. "Not tonight, sweetheart. You go on home and we'll--"
"I said," Mouse bellowed, "I'll have words. You and that--that hussy. Wha's her name--Masser--Maserati? Mazda?"
Hagar took pity on him. She couldn't say why. "Mustang?"
"Yeah, her... you tell her she better watch herself." A finger lifted in guise of warning, but Mouse was so liquored up, it fell well short of threatening. "You tell her!"
"I'll tell her," Hagar assured him. "Why don't you go on home--"
"Don't tell me what to do, whore," he growled. He seemed a bit more like a petulant child than a grown man with fists that could flatten Hagar with a single blow, but his ire was roused all right. He squinted over Hagar's shoulder to where Alice stood, still fidgeting, no longer meek. "Who're you?"