1
NATHAN
The first signthat I’m blind drunk is that half the whiskey in my glass sloshes out and onto my hand on the way from the table to my mouth.
I stare at the nearly empty glass dumbfounded. How did that happen?
The second sign is that the bartender at The Cut slides me a bowl of peanuts and a glass of water without saying a word.
The third sign is that it looks like there are three bowls of peanuts in front of me.
“Fuck,” I mutter.
I should have gone home when my siblings did. It’s tradition: whenever I’m home, we all go to The Cut for drinks. Cassandra was the designated driver this time around, and she never wants to stay later than ten. Riley and Cam went with her, but I refused. I said I’d find my own way home. Even through my drunken haze, I realize that was a stupid fucking idea.
We’re in the middle of nowhere in Montana. There are no taxis unless you book in advance and there is definitely no Uber. Finding my own way home will mean me walking the five miles back to the ranch, or begging the bartender to drop me off.Luckily, I’ve known Johnny since middle school and he—unlike the rest of America right now—doesn’t hate me.
“I can’t drink like I used to,” I mumble to myself. “I’m getting old. Old and washed up.”
A loser, too. That thought makes me drain the last mouthful of whiskey from my glass. It’s the thought that’s been chasing me for the last two weeks: that I’m toast. That the bar fight and losing to Brad means that my entire career is over.
I let Ballantine down, too. He’d have won if any other rider had been on him that day.
“I’m pretty sure Ballantine will be okay, Nate,” a feminine voice says from beside me. “He’s a horse.”
Am I hallucinating? Did I say that out loud?
“No, you’re not hallucinating. And yes, you said that all out loud,” Cassandra says. “I’m here to pick you up. I felt bad about leaving you.”
My older sister is a saint.
I lean towards her and she hugs me around my shoulders. I feel like I’m ten again and we’re huddled together on the couch while Dad and Mom fight in the other room. She used to hold her hands over my ears trying to block the worst of it out for me.
“Thanks Cass,” I say. “I didn’t really want to walk home.”
“I don’t think you’d have made it, Natey,” she says, arching a brow at me. “I didn’t want you to stumble into a ditch and die.”
I grin at her sloppily and then pull out a wad of cash from my wallet and leave it on the table for Johnny. It’s more than I owe, but I’m hoping the extra tip will keep him from spreading how much of a drunken mess I am all over town. I’m used to being the town hero—the kid who went from working on his parent’s failing ranch to winning buckles worth several hundred thousand dollars—not the town mess.
I manage to walk from the bar to the truck unassisted and clamber into the passenger seat. Cassandra starts the engine and backs the old cranky beast out of the lot.
“We’re going to talk about this more tomorrow,” she warns me.
“Can’t,” I say. “I have to go to Star Mountain. I’m driving there with Ballantine in the morning.”
“So soon?”
“Judge says the community service has to be done in three months. So I gotta get working,” I say.
“I still can’t believe they stuck you with so much,” Cass says. “Two hundred hours seems like a lot. Especially since Brad only got thirty.”
“Brad didn’t punch me first. I punched him. And I meant it.” I feel slightly queasy—though if it’s the mention of the fight or the alcohol, I can’t say.
Cass sighs heavily. It’s the sigh she makes when she can’t quite believe that the world has been cruel enough to burden her with such idiotic brothers.
“I’m sorry Cassie,” I say, using the nickname we had for her as kids.
“Don’t be,” she says, steering the truck into the driveway. “It’s always good to have you home, even for a short while.”
