Page 20 of Whiskey Shivers

“What’s eating you?” he asked and held out the beer in his hand. I took it. It was cold and full. I don’t think he’d even gotten to take a drink.

He pulled one up from the six-pack hidden down behind his leg where he had one boot planted against the concrete floor. He twisted off the top and took a pull off his beer and I drank up, too.

“Her useless prick of a man was at the hospital today when I got there,” I said.

La Croix grunted.

I sighed and told him the full meal deal. After a few moments of silence I said, “Let me ask you somethin’. If a man spoke to Alina like that boy did Cor, what would you do?”

“Knock every fuckin’ one of his teeth out of his fuckin’ head,” he answered promptly. “But you know that, so why you even askin’?”

I lowered the bottle from my mouth and swallowed the mouthful of rich lager I had in it, and said, “Sometimes you can be too close to somethin’ and it’s worth gettin’ an outside opinion,” I answered.

He looked thoughtful then nodded sagely.

“Priorities,” he said, and I smiled at him then and nodded.

“You’re learnin’,” I said with a wink, and he cracked a smile back.

It was something my dad had instilled in me and was somethin’ I was forever sayin’ to La Croix. It was one of the biggest reasons ol’ Ruthless had to go. Ruthless had lost sight of his priorities where this club was concerned, and I couldn’t afford to lose sight of the priorities where my Fable was concerned.

“What’re your priorities?” La Croix asked me.

“First and foremost, will always be this club,” I answered.

He nodded his big bald tattooed head and said to me, “This club is straight. You ain’t got no worries about us or what’s goin’ on.”

I met his creepy blacked-out and intense gaze and I had to nod. “Ah, yeah,” I agreed.

“So, what’s next?”

“Cor,” I answered softly. “Gettin’ her healthy, makin’ sure she’s good.”

He raised his chin and looked at me imperiously, and I crooked a smile that was nothin’ short of chagrinned.

“You ain’t gotta say it,” I said and he stilled.

“Now you’re gettin’ it.” He echoed the sentiment of what I’d said just a moment before.

“It’s like a fever,” I said. “An obsession. Like she’s the light and I ain’t nothin’ but a fuckin’ moth to the flame.”

He was nodding slowly and took a pull off his beer. After swallowing, he said, “More intense than anything that’s come before.”

“Yeah, but I gotta say – between you an’ me? I at leastknowCor. Talked to her, I mean. Wasn’t obsession at first sight like with you.”

He didn’t smile, his expression as serious as I’d ever seen it as he simply raised one shoulder in a one-off shrug and said, “When you know, you know.”

I laughed outright then and said, “You gon’ start sounding like the kids these days.”

He shook his head and took another drink off his beer. Lowering it and swallowing, he stared at the bottle in his big mitt and said, “When you find the right one, you feel just like you did when you was sixteen. A world of possibility opens back up in front of you as long as she’s by your side.”

“That’s about as poetic and profound as I’ve ever heard you, my friend.”

He nodded and was his usual quiet self.

“Your list doesn’t end with club and woman,” he said.

“No, it does not,” I agreed.

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