Page 32 of Whiskey Chase
13
Scarlett
Iknew exactly where to find the rat bastards. “Think they can solve my problems for me,” I muttered under my breath as I kicked The Lookout’s front door open. There they were, lined up like ducks in a shooting gallery at the bar, laughing.
I wasn’t mad enough not to notice Jameson slapping Jonah on the back when he reached the punchline of whatever the hell stupid joke he was telling. Meanwhile Gibs and Devlin had their heads together snickering about something.
“Well, well. If it isn’t a whole bunch of jackasses I’m not talkin’ to anymore,” I announced.
Nicolette, the hard-assed, smart-mouthed bartender, gracefully backed herself into the kitchen.
“Now, Scarlett,” Bowie began.
“And why the hell aren’t you at school?” I asked, crossing my arms.
“I had a family emergency,” he said with a smirk. I glared at him until he ducked behind Devlin who didn’t know enough to avoid me when I was like this.
“You don’t get that grin off your face right now, I’m going to remove it for you,” I warned my brother.
“What’s the problem?” Jameson sighed, hefting his beer and knowing full well what the problem was.
“I fight my own battles,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, but this way we didn’t have to pay bail money,” Jameson shot back.
I gritted my teeth together and tried to kill them all with lasers from my eyes.
The bar was mostly empty. It filled up on weeknights starting around five o’clock. But for now, we had the place to ourselves except for a few barflies. I didn’t care much about the audience. The whole town was already buzzing about my brothers busting into Wade Zirkel’s house and making him piss his pants. I made a mental note to find out later whether that tidbit was true.
“Don’t be mad,” Gibson ordered, putting his water down on the bar. Gibson was the only one of us who didn’t drink. I figured he thought he’d got enough of Daddy’s bad genes that he didn’t want to tempt alcoholism.
“Who decided I couldn’t handle my own problems myself?” I demanded, tapping my foot on the floor. I could damn well handle myself. I didn’t need a bunch of overgrown babysitters anymore. I wasn’tactuallygoing to burn Wade’s house down. But I would have sweet-talked his landlady into giving me the spare key for an hour or two so I could get my stuff and pull up the carpet to dump a couple of cans of baby shrimp underneath.
Devlin and Jonah shared a look, and I shook my head. “Oh, no. Not you two. You’re both here for four seconds and deciding I can’t live my own life?”
“To be fair, Scar, it takes most people less time than that to see you need a babysitter.” Gibson was grinning. And while the sisterly part of my heart was happy to see him getting on with Jonah, the independent woman part of me wanted to kick him in the face.
I settled for the shin.
“Ow! Fuck!” he held his abused shin and hopped on his good leg.
“Steel toe, you son of a bitch. Now, for the last time, I’m an adult, and I deal with my own problems.”
“What kind of an adult are you if you’re still making your high school mistakes over again?” Jameson asked mildly. He was smart enough to keep a barstool in between us. Otherwise he’d be on his knees.
I was too mad to speak.
I wasn’t proud of the fact that I’d ended up in bed with Wade Zirkel again. But pickins’ were slim in Bootleg, and damn it. The weeks leading up to Dad’s death were some of the loneliest of my life. I knew it was coming. I had a feeling I couldn’t shake, and rather than dwell on the fact that my dad was drinking himself to death on purpose and my brothers couldn’t be roused to care, I’d sought what comfort I could find.
And screw them for judging me for it.
I settled for double middle fingers, flipping them all the bird before I stormed out the way I came in.
“Scarlett, wait.”
Devlin was the only one of them dumb enough to come after me when I was in this kind of mood. A sane man would give me the space to get over my mad. Not Devlin. He yanked open the passenger door of my truck.
“Talk to me,” he said.
