Turning around, Nathaniel looked at the people who had come to them. He was glad to see that they were not among the group of people he wanted to talk to. They were two mens around forty years old with sailor outfits and unkempt beards. They were also very drunk. Letting Nathaniel turn, the man that had his hand on his shoulder start to squeeze his shoulder even harder.
"You shouldn't do that." Scott advised offhandedly, taking a gulp of his beer.
"And why is that? Are you his bodyguard or something?" The other asked taking a critical look at Scott's figure.
"Hum, kind of but I'm nice enough to warn you to stop what you're doing before you finish on the ground." Scott smiled.
"Are you threatening us?" The man demanded aggressively.
"No, he's trying to warn you quite kindly by the way." Nathaniel interjects in the conversation. "You know you should slow down with beer, being drunk this early in the day is not a healthy response to whatever is going on in your life."
"You know nothing about my life fu**ing bastard!" He yells at Nathaniel's face, squeezing his shoulder even harder.
"Okay that's it. Let go of me, now." Nathaniel said, his blue eyes sharpening.
"And what if I refuse?" He asked with a crooked grin.
"When you are going to wake up, you should take a long and hard look at your life and try to fix it. Assaulting a boy less than half your age is beneath you and beneath the code of conduct of the navy."
"You're dea…" The man yelled, arming his fist to punch Nathaniel in the face.
Unfortunately for him, he never had the chance to finish what he was yelling when Nathaniel clapped his two hands on his ears, stunning him and making him grunt in pain. Nathaniel followed by a chop to his neck that made him crumple to the ground. It was at the same moment that a punch was rushing to Nathaniel's head. Sidestepping it, He took the extended arm and twisted it to the side making the other fall on his knee, unable to counter the force of the move. Using the opportunity he created, Nathaniel took the man's head in a choke hold with his knee and started to squeeze. Thrashing uncontrolably to get out of the hold, the man could not make Nathaniel budge until he stopped moving and faint on the ground, Nathaniel releasing him.
Once it was done, the atmosphere in the bar was still and silent. Sighing to himself, Nathaniel picked the two bodies using their vest as leverage and dragged them to a bench where he made them lie down. Going back to the counter, Nathaniel could feel the seven people in the table not far away sending speculative glances his way.
"Are they going to be alright?" The bartender asked with a hint of steel in his voice.
"Yes but they are going to wake up in two hours with a hell of a headache. Do these two have a tab here and how much is it?"
"Yes they have and I believe it is around seven hundred dollars. Why?"
"I'm going to pay it, just make sure to water the beer down a little in the future."
"It's your money." The man shrugged.
"How much for your best bottle of whiskey?"
"Nine hundred dollars but I still can't sell it to you, you are underaged."
"It's not for me, it's for my friend Scott here." Nathaniel smiled.
The bartender's eyes wandered between the two of them, he finally grunt and put an old looking bottle on the counter. Putting the cash on the counter, the bartender frowned.
"This is more than the price I give you." He said, lifting an eyebrow.
"I know, the rest is for inconvenience. Thank you." Nathaniel said, taking the bottle and walking to the only table who was occupied, Scott following him with his beer.
"Hi guys, can we sit with you? I brought a gift." Nathaniel asked nicely to the people sitting in front of him, putting the bottle on the table.
It was to be said that these seven people could not be considered normal by any means. They were all towering around 6" and had bulging muscle but not bulged enough to impend their body movement. Nathaniel knew the names of all seven of them has he come for them specifically. He also knew that if the meeting did not go well, it could be really dangerous. He didn't think he could win against all of them in unarmed combat.
"We don't want trouble." One of them said.
"I'm not here to cause one but I don't like to be touched or insulted by strangers either. I did go easy on them though, I could tell they were not really bad people."
Hearing that, they all nodded subconsciously as they were experts in unarmed combat themselves. They could tell that Nathaniel had pulled his punch and did the maximum to put them out without harming them too much. In fact, a lot of them were curious about the kid and who had trained him as they were very familiar with the move he used.
"Sit then, thanks for the bottle."
Pulling a chair from a nearby table, Nathaniel then took a seat. One of them looking at Nathaniel with a hint of recognition in his eyes and another looking at Scott intently which did not seem to bother Scott as he was giving an unbother stare.
"Military?" He asked Scott who nodded in assent. "Commando?"
"Ex Delta Force." Scott precise succinctly.
Nodding once again, the one who had invited Nathaniel to sit focus on him.
"Your bodyguard I presume seeing you spend thousands of dollars like it was nothing."
"Do I look like I need protection Ethan?" Nathaniel smiled.
The mens around the table stiffen hearing that name and a couple of hands leave the table and disappear underneath it. Ethan on the other hand looked at Nathaniel long and hard for a moment.
"Who are you?" He asked threateningly.
"My name is Nathaniel Lyndon."
"That's it! I knew that I saw him before!" One of the men exclaims around the table surprising the others.
"What are you talking about Keith?" Ethan asked, annoyed.
"That kid! I know who he is. He's a singer slash actor, my daughter loves him. She even forced me to look at an interview he gave on national TV. His grandfather is Robert Lyndon, crazy rich and crazy influential." He exclaimed.
Pausing at that new information, everybody starts to look at Nathaniel with new interest and not a small amount of curiosity.
"I see. How do you know my name and what do you want from me?" He asked more nicely.
"I know a lot about you Ethan, I also know a lot about all of you. I also know why you are only seven around the table and not twelve like your team demand it to be operational."
"Bullshit!" One of them shouted angrily.
"Panama, a little town named Achutupu and a training exercise that goes badly because of defective equipment. Do I need to say more than that Morgan?" Nathaniel responded, shutting him up effectively.
"I'm not going to repeat myself, what do you want?" Ethan asked with a somber attitude.
"I want to recruit all of you to work as security for my family company."
"Well if it's just that, I can send you away right now. We are still engaged in the army." Ethan rebukes harshly.
"That's a lie and you know it. Your term has ended two weeks ago and so far none of you have chosen to re enlist. I'm not blaming any of you mind you, especially after what happened to your team, I get it trust me. I just thought that you could be open to other opportunities."
"He's right Ethan, we should at least hear him out before flatly refusing him." Keith said, a few of them voicing their support or nodding in assent.
"Alright, start talking." Ethan nodded.
"If you are expecting a commercial pitch, you are going to be disappointed as I'm not a market vendor. I'm just gonna give you two piece of paper, on the first will be your annual salary and on the other what your job will entail. There will also be my phone number in case you want to talk about a few points that are not clear to you. Now, I believe I abused too much of our time and I'm going to take my leave. Enjoy the whiskey guys." Nathaniel said, getting to his feet, Scott following him.
"What? That's it?" Ethan asked dumbstruck.
"Ah no! I was going to forget." He shook his head, taking something from the inside of his jacket and put it in front of Keith. "Gift for you Keith, this is my new album. I wrote a little message on the back to make it special. I believe someone you know is going to like that quite a lot." He smiled at him before walking outside of the pub.