The Year I Stopped Being His novel Chapter 22

"Sloane, over here!"

Lexi had arrived early. Her loud voice easily cut through the bustling restaurant. Hearing the familiar call, a radiant smile finally blossomed on Sloane's face.

"Lexi!"

Sloane walked over and sat down across from her friend. Lexi ordered extra ribs and brisket from the server, then dumped a massive portion of freshly grilled meat onto Sloane's plate.

"Eat up! I haven't seen you in weeks, and you're thin as a rail. A strong breeze could blow you away!"

Sloane chuckled. "You're not wrong, the wind in Stockholm was fierce. I actually almost got blown away!"

Amid the warm steam from the grill, some color finally returned to Sloane's pale face.

They chatted as they ate. Sloane had no intention of burdening her best friend with the truth about her terminal illness, so she just casually vented about her recent trip to Sweden.

Lexi was furious on her behalf and demanded to know what Sloane planned to do next.

Right then, a commotion broke out at the table next to them.

"Come on, Zoe, you have to drink this! Declining is just disrespecting me!"

A man in his forties with a slight beer belly, wearing a polo shirt and a flushed red face, was shoving a glass of alcohol toward a young woman. The girl looked barely in her twenties. Dressed in a cheap business suit, she looked utterly mortified as she continuously shrank back.

"Mr. Wallace, I really don't drink..."

"That's exactly why you need to practice! What kind of sales rep doesn't drink?" The man, called Mr. Wallace, laughed boisterously, draping an arm around the young girl's shoulders. "Look, Mr. Lancaster and the others are watching. Don't be a buzzkill."

The other men at the table cheered him on. The girl's eyes went red, her entire body stiffening like a wooden board.

"Employee?" Lexi raised an eyebrow, glancing at the girl's name tag. "Oh, so you're her boss. Does your company handbook state that managers get to grope their subordinates?"

"You!" Walter's face turned purple with rage. He reached out to shove Lexi's shoulder. "You're asking for it—"

Lexi was a boxer; her bodily reflexes bypassed her brain entirely. The moment his hand brushed her, she executed a flawless defensive weave, and purely out of instinct, threw a right hook.

Thwack!

A solid punch landed squarely on Walter's jaw.

The man, who weighed easily over two hundred pounds, was sent staggering backward. He tripped over a chair, entirely losing his balance, and crashed backward like a clumsy bear—

Crash!!!