Page 85 of Bad Husband

“You pussy. No wonder Madison wants a divorce.”

He’s real supportive, isn’t he?

The answer to that would be no.

I’m not even paying attention to the pigs, I can’t. It makes me sick to my stomach.

“Noah killed a cat last month,” Brantley tells my dad.

“No shit?” He chuckles, still focused on the pig in his sight. “I knew he was my grandkid.”

A loud boom rattles through the valley we’re in and the pig drops to the ground. I hope he doesn’t think I’m eating pork tonight.

Brantley elbows me. “Your dad is awesome.”

“Ugh!” I say, sounding like Callan when he’s annoyed. I should draw a picture with stick figures and pigs to display my distaste for what we’re doing like Callan does. But I don’t. Instead I’m researching again.

“What are you doing?” Brantley asks, slapping my phone out of my hand when my dad goes to get the pig he murdered.

I grab my phone from the dirt and blow it off refusing to watch the pig get slaughtered. “I’m checking on a vacation to Ukraine.”

He makes a face of disgust, his rifle on his shoulder like he’s some kind of sniper. Which he’s not. Brantley’s never shot anything, that I know of. But then again, he tells me nothing so I really wouldn’t know. “Why?”

“Callan wants to go see Chernobyl.”

“What the hell is Chernobyl.”

“Only the biggest nuclear disaster in the world,” I say proudly, like I know what the fuck I’m talking about.

My dad and Brantley shoot three pigs, toss them in the back of his truck and we head back to dad’s house where he cleans them and I nearly vomit three times.

That’s when they say, “We’re going out,” like I should be excited about this.

“I don’t want to go out.” Though I’m thankful to not be eating those pigs they shot, I don’t want to go out to dinner with them because I know where that will lead. They’ll get me drunk, convince me to go to a strip club and I’ll end the night with another tattoo of Tinkerbell on my ankle. It took me a year to have that one removed and I can still see her wings if I look closely.

“You’re coming with us,” Brantley says, setting a shot of Midleton whiskey down in front of me. “Drink this and you’ll forget about your problems.”

“I don’t want to because if we go out, the next thing I know you’ll drag me to another strip club.”

My dad rolls his eyes as he’s fixing his shirt to make his chest hair visible. At this point, he might as well just unbutton it all the way because he literally has only three buttons fastened and I can see his bellybutton.

I stare at his chest like I’m offended by his choice of attire, because I am. It’s gross. “This isn’tMiami Vice. Why are you dressed like that?”

He blows me off by waving his hand in my face. “I look good. And no, we won’t drag you to a strip club because the last time we went you yelled, ‘You bitches gonna let me titty fuck you later?’ in a blonde’s face.”

“That was one time and I was in college. You can’t blame me.”

Brantley chuckles and downs his own shot. “Well, it left a lasting impression on said titty bar because you’re not allowed back there… for life.”

I wave my hand at them but I take the shot anyway. “They didn’t say life.”

“I was there. They did.”

I roll my eyes and flop my head down on the table I’m sitting at. And no, I won’t explain that night because I don’t remember it. If it wasn’t for Tinkerbell, I’d swear they were making it all up.

“What’s wrong with you? Where’s your balls?” my dad asks, and my head shoots up from the table because I know exactly what’s coming out of Brantley’s mouth next.

And it does. “Madison skinned them. He let her wax his nut sac.”

---