Page 58 of Moonshine Kiss
“One of the girls?” the sheriff asked.
We both knew who I was talking about, but he was going to make me say her name anyway.
“Cassidy, sir.”
He stroked his finger and thumb over the corners of his mustache. “Am I going to have to give my daughter a refresher course on self-defense?”
I shook my head, covering a smile. “No, sir. I think she can handle herself.”
“But you stepped in.”
The man had me there. Why did I have the feeling the confession he was trying to get out of me wasn’t about an assault?
“I was…angry that he wasn’t being respectful.”
Sheriff Tucker nodded in understanding. “I appreciate you looking out for my daughter. I really do. You’re a good man, Bowie.”
Something warmed inside me. “Thank you, sir.”
He wiped his palms over the knees of his pants and sighed like he had the weight of the world sitting on his chest. “Son, I hate to do this. But I’m gonna need to ask you to give Cassidy some space. She doesn’t seem to be capable of giving you any. So it falls to you. She’s young. She’s still in school. You’ve got your hands full with your family and now your job. I don’t want something derailing you both.”
The something warm iced over into a chunk of ice in my gut.
“Sir, I didn’t mean to be disrespectful—”
“Bowie, you’re the most respectful person in this whole damn town. I know you’ve got strong feelings for her. And I know it’s not fair, but I’m asking you not to act on those feelings. Things happen. People make mistakes. They get hitched up to the wrong people at the wrong time—”
“I understand,” I said, cutting him off. My heart limped in my chest. The man I’d spent my entire life looking up to, the one who’d driven me to take my driver’s license test and taken me out for pizza to celebrate afterward because my own father had been too drunk to do it, didn’t think I was good enough for his daughter.
Something hot and hard lodged itself in my throat. Despair. An anger so white-hot I wondered why it didn’t burn its way out.
No matter what degree I had, no matter how hard I worked, I was still Jonah Bodine’s son.
29
Bowie
Johnny Johnson kicked back in the chair across from me, arms crossed defiantly over his skinny chest. He was Bootleg’s version of a punk. Black, ripped jeans, white t-shirt despite the thirty-degree temperatures outside. Eyebrow ring. A haircut that made him look like his little brother had cut it with safety scissors.
Troubled family, his file said.
We all handled our troubled families differently. I’d gone off and tried to distance myself from my unhappy upbringing with education and good deeds.
Johnny here was heading down the Gibson path of acting out. By the time Gibs had graduated high school, he’d had a desk dedicated to him in detention. He’d carved his initials into it with a knife that got confiscated and landed him another week of detention.
“I get the whole discipline problem thing,” I told Johnny. “You’re not a terrible human being. You’re just in a terrible situation.” Johnny’s dad had gone off to serve his second stint in jail for identity theft, and his mother had moved in a new boyfriend over the weekend.
His eyes flicked to the photos on top of my army green filing cabinet. Front and center was a shot of me, my dad, and Cassidy’s dad. They had their arms slung over my shoulders, grins on all our faces. It had been taken after I threw the last strike in the state championships. “That’s my son,” my dad had bellowed at the top of his lungs pushing his way through the crowd to get to me. He’d stayed sober for my games, the ones we’d won, giving me a few precious hours of having a real father. But Sheriff Tucker was as constant and dependable as they come. He was there for me, win or lose.
“No offense, man, but why should I take any advice from you? Your dad’s a murderer.”
Punk-ass kid.
“That’s exactly why you should take advice from me,” I said, fighting the urge to defend my father. “I’ve been where you are. And I don’t want you to make a choice that will stick with you for the rest of your life. Don’t do something stupid when you’re this close to being an actual adult and making your own decisions. You don’t have to be happy about what’s going on with your parents,” I reminded him. “But don’t let you being pissed off at them ruin the rest of your life.”
Johnny dropped his head back against the chair. “God, you sound like an after school-special.”
If only slapping students weren’t illegal.“Let’s cut to the chase. You’re fishin’ for detention so you don’t have to go home and make nice with your mom’s boyfriend.” I’d had sports and jobs to fill my time after school. Johnny here had nothing to keep him out of the house or juvie.
