Page 145 of The Woman By the Lake

However, she wasn’t alone.

She had a man with her who was maybe a couple of inches taller than she was (and she was around my height of five seven) who looked like someone had tried to sculpt him back together (poorly) after they’d run him through a meat grinder.

Bubbles.

My vision got blurry, my blood pressure skyrocketed, and I concentrated on not having a stroke as Riggs drawled, “Someone doesn’t answer your knock, they’re in the middle of something.”

“And workin’ hard at it, as usual, or just gettin’ hard workin’ it,” Bubbles quipped on an affable grin, like he still had the right to joke with Riggs.

My entire body turned to stone, a sensation Riggs felt too, considering his expression did the same.

Then I was up in the air and down on my ass in the loveseat, as Riggs put me there before he surged up beside me and turned their way.

“Are you shitting me?” he asked in a quiet, terrifying, low voice as I scrambled to my feet.

The man lifted a casted hand Riggs’s way, his head tipped way back from his position on the ground beside the porch, his eyes glued to Riggs.

“Now, Doc?—”

“If you’re not about to affirm that you’re shitting me then get the fuck outta my sight, I got no time to hear what you have to say,” he growled as I pressed close to his back.

“Please, hear him out,” Lucille begged.

Riggs turned his attention to her. “You’re a good woman, Lucille, so it fucks me to point this out, but serious as shit, haven’t you done enough damage?”

I felt for her when she cringed and then her face fell.

But Riggs was right.

“I need to explain,” Bubbles decreed.

Riggs’s regard sliced back to him. “I don’t give a fuck what you need.”

“Doc, you gotta get where my head was at.”

That was when Riggs lost it.

Honestly?

He’d been taking so many hits lately, I was impressed it took this long.

He leaned toward Bubbles and roared, “Jesus fucking Christ! Do you not fuckin’ get I give zero fucks where your head was at!”

“It’s not like you got a bad end of that deal!” Bubbles shouted back. “You got Ledger!”

“Do not try to pretend you don’t get where you landed me back then, Bubbles. I think you want people to think you’re stupid, but I know you are not,” Riggs returned.

“I came here to explain,” Bubbles reported. “I came here to apologize. I came here to tell you that gettin’ the shit kicked out of me was a wakeup call, and I’m gonna work on not bein’ such a fuckup all the time.”

“Congratulations,” Riggs fired back. “And now you’ve done all you wanted to do, get the fuck outta here.”

This was when Bubbles lost it.

“Christ, brother, don’t you fucking get it?” he yelled. “This whole town thinks you’re the chosen son. They think more of you than even Cade Bohannan, and that guy stops killers from killing. And all I got is Lucille, Mom…and you.”

“Bubbles, I’m not your brother. Not anymore,” Riggs declared to Bubbles’s head lurching with anguish. “And since that’s the case, I’ll point out…again…you don’t have me anymore. And last, we all got our own damage we gotta navigate. You know mine, and still, you throw that shit in my face. I didn’t earn mine, Bubbles. But the same can’t be said for you.”

Bubbles swung his torso back and threw up his arm to indicate himself. “Look at me, man. I’m a joke. All you gotta do is walk down the street, and every woman who sees you creams their panties.”

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