Page 98 of Rider Daddies
He should make that sentence plural.
Last night, it wasn’t just one girl.
“Stop getting so involved in my life.”
“It’s not healthy to live like this, Ryder.”
But what is healthy these days? Hooking up and getting high on the orgasm drug is better than drinking away your sorrows. It’s usually cheaper too, depending on which nightclub you go to.
“You wanna talk about a healthy lifestyle?” I snort. “Let’s go, full steam ahead.” I snatch the drink out of his hand and pour it over his head, drenching him in his own Budweiser. “That’s better.”
I stand back to admire my wet dog of an older brother.
Pathetic.
It’s been three years since the car accident.
I kinda understood it before when things were fresh, but we’re all adults now.
Saint is eighteen, with a DJ job in the city.
I’m taking a break from college.
Ash is doing whatever Ash does, if there’s a name for drinking on the couch all day reading too much into the news.
He swipes a piece of his drenched hair aside and looks at me, pissed as ever. He tries too hard to be our father, giving it the cold blue eyes, tough love combo.
“You don’t get it, do you?” he says.
“No, because I’m not drunk out of my mind every second of the day, like you.”
“No,” he snaps. “That’s right. You’re too busy fucking yourself numb, drowning in your own swollen ego every time the hookup you can’t even remember the name of screams your name during climax.”
I need another pint of beer to pour over his head.
Scrap that—next time, I’ll smash the full glass right in his face.
“You should watch your mouth.”
“Why?” Ash rubs the beer from his eyes. “Because you’ll set all of your shallow college followers onto me?” He steps in. “I’ll tell you the reason why you dropped out of college.”
“Taking a break,” I correct.
“You dropped out because you don’t give a fuck about yourself. All you give a fuck about is how high up you are on the ladder of social hierarchy.”
“It’s better than being a loner, sitting on the couch all day talking to the inanimate object in your hand.”
Ash bares his teeth like a wolf. “You’re so fucking ungrateful.”
“Ungrateful?!”
“I gave up my life after Mom and Dad for the pair of you. The least you could do is not throw yours down the drain.”
Ah, a life in the military. He’s been obsessed with joining for a couple of years now. He thinks it’s an honorable thing to do, but I think the complete opposite.
The bastard has always had a knack for control, ever since our parents were killed.
Ash thinks he takes the moral high ground because he’s older, but he’s a control-obsessed fool who can’t stand to see his two younger brothers doing better than him, scoring more girls than he could ever dream of.
