Page 7 of Hot Ice, Tennessee

“Fuck. So much for walking home,” I said.

“That ain’t happening.”

“You made it,” Kane said as he finally walked over behind the bar, making his way to our area and carrying a tray of drinks.

I thought he was talking to me, but I watched as he set down the tray and leaned over the bar, giving Jesse a side-hug and a pat on the back.

What the fuck?

Kane sure as hell didn’t make a habit of hanging out with college jocks. He owned this place, he was older than me, and we ran in the same local circles. How was he on hugging terms with a guy who people called thePlow?

“Wait. You guys know each other?” I asked.

“Evening, Mason,” Kane said, giving me a nod. “Yeah, I know this punk. He’s my baby brother. Otherwise known as the younger Sanocki. Jesse, meet Mason.”

Realization hit me slowly.

I’d known Kane for years. I knew he had a college-aged brother—but I’d never met him, because Kane had always said he wasn’t on good terms with his brother. He’d explained that he used to be protective of him, almost like a father figure, but that in recent years things had gotten bad, and everything had changed.

My stomach did a nervous somersault as pieces started to fit together in my mind.

Jesse Sanocki.

Kane Sanocki.

They did have a similar hair color and eye color. Jesse’s features were a bit more delicate, though, and of course he was younger, and…

If Kane knew I’d been hitting on Jesse I was pretty sure he’d take a liquor bottle straight to my skull.

“What are you having to drink, Hot Mess?” Kane asked me, still business as usual. Apparently he hadn’t picked up on any flirting, because he wasn’t actively trying to break my teeth yet.

I pulled in a breath. “Got any lab-grade pure ethanol? 200-proof?”

“You’re nuts.”

“I’ll have something strong. Anything.”

I looked past the open doors and the covered patio outside. The rain had started to come down hard. Everyone that had still been outside was spilling back into the bar, crowding up the interior. It was the first of what would probably be many summer thunderstorms.

A nervous energy was filling my bones, and I wished I could reverse the course of the last twenty minutes.

I cared about Kane almost as deeply as if he were family to me, too. On some of my darkest nights right after my dad died, Kane had saved my life just by being there for me. He was older than me, which meant he must have been a whole lot older than Jesse.

No wonder he had a hand in raising him.

“Max came up with another new cocktail this week,” Kane was saying breezily now. “I’ll try to recreate it. It’s got three liquors in it that shouldnevergo together, but somehow, it works.”

My chest clenched. As Kane prepared my cocktail, he and Jesse chatted about school and the weather, like everything was normal.

Finally, Kane slid my drink over the bar with a nod.

Liquor. Good.

A burst of unfamiliar flavor hit my tongue as I took a swig of the greenish drink.

“Wow,” I said. “Holy—can I bathe in this? That is so fucking good.”

“Max managed to make whiskey and rum work with brandy, basil syrup, coconut, passion fruit, andlavender,” Kane said. “His taste buds are on another level.”

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