Page 23 of Look at Her and Die

Then he stormed out.

I picked the lottery ticket up and placed it in my apron, patting Tony’s shoulder as I passed.

“Sorry, Searcy,” he apologized. “I think his mother ruined him. Wish I would’ve divorced her before it got that bad with our son, though.”

I smiled and handed over the last plate of food, then went back to talk to the haggard looking mother.

“So,” I said casually. “What’s the deal with your husband? And why are you worried about your family?”

She spent the next twenty minutes explaining everything that there was to know about her family history, not leaving a single thing out. Then she moved on to her husband, and how he’d changed over the last three months since their baby was born.

“The doctor suggested that maybe he was suffering from post-partum depression, too. But I don’t think that’s it. The week or so leading up to Holt’s arrival, he started getting really weird about me being in the same room with him. Though, if I’m honest, it’s been even longer than that, but I just refused to see anything but hearts and flowers.” She sighed.

The large group stood up and I realized that I might’ve been neglecting the rest of the diner—not that I really cared, what were a few more bad reviews?—and sighed.

I laid the baby down again and said, “Let me go get them checked out and make some rounds. I’ll be back.”

The large group tipped extremely well—likely because of Taryn the asshole—and headed out.

More people came in and I got them settled, then I waved goodbye to Tony and went back to Scottie.

She was idly playing on her phone, snacking on the odd fry here and there.

She must’ve gotten her food from the window, too.

If I had the money, I’d offer her a job.

“You doing okay?” I asked her.

“Yep,” she said. “I’m trying to decide which college I want to go to.”

“You should talk to your brother,” I said. “He’s probably pretty knowledgeable and might be able to help you out with where.”

“That’s the problem,” she sighed. “Originally, I told him I was going to go to A&M to study agriculture, but I just learned that one of my school bullies is going to go there, and now I’m not so sure that I want to go.”

“Who?” I asked. “And are you telling me that you have multiple bullies, including my sister?”

She sighed. “Unfortunately. When you’re poor, and you’re a bookworm, you tend to get singled out.”

“Y’all are poor?” I asked.

I mean, Posy didn’t look poor.

Then again, some people wore poor differently than others.

“Well, not anymore,” she admitted. “My mom and dad didn’t tell Posy how bad it was before they died. When he got to looking at paperwork for the ranch, he realized that it was leveraged to the hilt—something that even I didn’t know that much about. Anyway, long story short, he came in and paid off all the debt with their life insurance policies. And he’s been making bank because of some of the Truth Tellers’ business pool—don’t ask me about that. I don’t know anything more than there’s an MC-wide pool that they all skim some money out of. Legally, I’m sure.”

I wasn’t so sure.

I had to inwardly laugh at that.

“Anyway, now I’m trying to decide whether I want to go somewhere else and skip A&M.” She sighed.

I leaned my elbow against the counter and said, “Listen. Eventually you’ll get to this point, but you need to download a new attitude when it comes to people. Fuck ’em. That’s it. They don’t get to make decisions in your life. They don’t get to force you to go to a different school. If it gets to the point where you’re having issues with her, call me. I’ll go down there and kick her ass. It’s much more acceptable for a woman to do the ass kicking than a man.”

Her smile was brilliant, and her eyes, so much like her brother’s, sparkled with happiness.

“You’d do that?” she asked.

---