Page 61 of I Can't Even

He kissed the top of my head and hugged me tight one more time. “Okay, we’re talking later. Finding Em now.”

He clasped my hand and we hurried to the motorcycle. Something had shifted between us. I didn’t know what, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to look too closely at what was happening on the chance I was wrong, and he was going to kick me to the curb again. Instead, I followed where he led and hoped that once we found Em, the talk we were going to have wasn’t going to decimate my poor heart...again.

We hit three other places that Em was known to enjoy. There was no sign of her, her car, or any of her friends. I checked in with Harry and Hannah and Soph and none of them had spotted her either. I hated that panic was beginning to be my default setting, but I couldn’t seem to switch off the feeling that my sister was in pain and needed me.

We were headed toward the center of town when Liam pulled over the motorcycle. While the engine idled, he took out his phone and checked the display. His eyebrows went up and he looked at me.

“There’s been a sighting by one of my employees.” Liam glanced at his phone. “She’s in Duff’s bar.”

“Duff’s?” I asked. “The most diviest of dive bars where the surf crowd and the bikers hang out?”

“Yup,” he said. We gave each other a wide-eyed look and then he gunned the motorcycle while I clutched him close and prayed we weren’t too late.

Chapter Nineteen

“Could you hold my hair out of the toilet, please?” Em, ever polite, asked as she wretched into the dingy porcelain bowl in Duff’s pint-sized ladies’ room.

“You bet, sugar.” The biker chick standing beside her, with the bandana around her forehead and the Willie Nelson braids, had a kindly way about her despite the leather vest, faded tattoos, and missing front tooth. I got the feeling she had done this a million times before as she lifted Em’s blue streaked hair away from the puke-filled toilet.

My nose wrinkled at the smell at the same time relief pumped through me in a huge rush, making me dizzy and a teeny bit nauseous. Sensory overload.

I poked my head out of the swinging door where Liam stood waiting. “I found her.”

He sagged against the wall with relief, the first time he’d betrayed any hint that he’d been worried. And didn’t that just make my heart squeeze up tight? He’d been putting up a brave front for me all along.

“Can you text Soph?” I asked. “We’re going to need her car to take Em home.”

“Got it.” Liam glanced over my shoulder and saw the biker chick. He leaned close and asked, “Are you okay in there?”

“Yeah, I got this,” I said.

I don’t think I imagined the pride in his eyes, which made my heart do a little toe tap of joy right up until I had to go back into the vomitory. Ugh.

I forced my mouth to curve up in a smile as I entered the bathroom and introduced myself to the formidable woman holding my sister’s hair. So, this would be fun, right?

“I’m dying, aren’t I?” Em asked as Liam carried her to Soph’s car.

“Not yet,” Sophie said. “But pull another stunt like this and I’ll kill you myself. What the hell were you thinking?”

“I was having fun,” Em said. Then she turned a sickly shade of green and her eyes widened. She cried, “Down! Put me down!”

Liam let her feet hit the ground but braced her under the arms so she didn’t fall. Em bent over and projectile-vomited right behind the dumpster. Liam and I watched while Soph turned away, looking a bit green herself.

“She’s got some good range,” Liam said.

“Yeah, not bad for a rank amateur,” I agreed.

Being rebellious sorts in our youth, Liam and I had done our share of underage drinking at Duff’s with the other surfers. On more than one occasion one or both of us had “enjoyed” a night just like Em’s.

“You are so lucky that Hannah and Harry aren’t here to see this,” Soph chastised. “You are twenty-five years old. You’re supposed to behave like a grown-up not some stupid frat boy.”

Em wiped her mouth off with the back of her hand and spun around to face Sophie. She overshot and staggered three paces to the right. Liam went to grab her, but I caught her before she fell off the curb. She stomped on my foot with her biker boots, and I opened my mouth to yelp but no sound came out. Yes, it hurt that bad.

“What do you know about frat boys?” Em weaved toward Soph with one finger pointed. “You were knocked up by a med student in your freshman year. You probably never even got felt up by a frat boy.”

Soph’s eyebrows went up. She glanced at Liam and then at me with a mortified look on her face.

I waved a hand at her. “Don’t be embarrassed—he knows all about it.”

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