Page 40 of Whiskey Chase
“Are you quoting someone?” I picked up my shirt and pulled him down the short hallway to the kitchen. I gave him a gentle push toward a stool.
“My father. That was his answer to everything. I couldn’t play football because it was too brutish. I couldn’t take a summer off and travel Europe because I needed to pad my resume with internships and volunteering.”
“What did you do for fun?” I asked, fascinated.
“Made my parents happy, I guess.”
I pulled my shirt back on. “Well, guess what, Devlin McCallister? Your parents aren’t here. You can do whatever you want for fun.”
“I wouldn’t even know what to do,” he admitted. “I’m still supposed to lay low, so getting into bar fights or tipping cows over wouldn’t be a good idea.”
“Cow tipping is not a real thing.”
“Are you sure?” he asked.
I set a glass of water in front of him. “Drink up, big guy.”
I turned to the coffeepot and dumped enough in to make a batch of stand-up-and-dance coffee.
“Have you ever been in a kayak before?” I asked. Not that that would be a good idea today when he couldn’t even stand upright.
“A kayak?” he frowned. “I used to row on the weekend in college.”
“Like the rich people sport?” I snorted.
“Poor people can row too,” he said in exasperation.
“What a man of the people you are,” I teased.
“Shut up.”
“Did you always want to be in politics?” I asked.
He nodded. “It was understood from birth that I’d go into politics.”
“That’s not the same as wanting to,” I pointed out.
He frowned, considering my words.
My coffee maker beeped and I poured him a mug. “Cream? Sugar?”
He shook his head. “You have any pizza?”
Forty minutes later, the remains of a very large, very greasy pepperoni and mushroom pizza sat on the coffee table, and Devlin McCallister snored on my couch with his socked feet on the table.
He was adorable. And I wanted the hell out of him. If I didn’t know it would freak him out, I would have taken a picture of him like this.
I decided I’d make entertaining Devlin my new side project. Maybe it was time he found out what he really wanted out of life. And hopefully Sober Devlin really would want me.
16
Scarlett
“Why the hush-hush family meeting?” I asked, barging into Bowie’s house in downtown Bootleg on a fine Friday morning.
Bowie lived in a cute little brick duplex with a wide front porch and fancy trim around the windows a whole two blocks from the high school where he worked. Cassidy lived in the other half. And nothing on God’s green earth would convince me that was a coincidence.
“I wanted breakfast, and none of you have anything in your kitchens,” Bowie called from the back of the house. We Bodines did most of our business over breakfast. We were all early risers by nature and all preferred to pull off the bandage quick when it came to uncomfortable situations.
