Page 3 of The Bad Brother
“Excellent.” Looking at Jake, I tip my chin at Summer. “Be a gentleman and take her home,” I instruct him, leaning heavy on thegentleman,making it clear that if I hear that he was anything but, I’ll make him sorry for it.
“Yes, sir.” Jake bobs his head before taking Summer gently by the arm and escorting her off the dance floor.
As soon as they’re gone, I stand from my seat and lift the chair off Billy’s chest. “Come on.” Reaching down, I offer him a hand up. He hesitates for a second before he takes it. As soon as he’s on his feet, the noise starts again, murmurs and whispers accompanied bythe scrape of chair legs while people reclaim their seats.
On his feet again, Billy stoops down to retrieve his cowboy hat. “Sorry, sir.” He mumbles it while turning it in a nervous circle around his hands.
“We’re friends again, Billy,” I say, even though we both know we aren’t. “You call me Jensen.”
“Okay.” He gives me a head bob before settling his cowboy hat back in place. “I’m sorry, Jensen.”
“Not half as sorry as you’ll be if I hear that you’re harassing that woman,” I warn him, making it clear that my protection reaches far outside the walls surrounding my bar. “You leave her be. If she’s stupid enough to forgive you, she’ll let you know.”
Face flushed with embarrassment, Billy gives me another head bob. “Alright.”
“Go on home,” I jerk my chin at the back door. “I don’t want to see you in here for the rest of the weekend. Don’t make me call your sister.” Billy’s older sister, Reese, is one of Colt’s deputies. I might scare the shit out of him, but his big sister will put his nuts in a vice if I tell her he was starting trouble in my bar.
Billy mumbles anotherokaybefore he turns on his boot heel and practically runs for the back parking lot where his truck is parked.
Just another Friday night in Barrett. It’s not even nine o’clock and I’m ready to call it and kick every last one of them out.
Picking up my chair, I carry it back to the table I stole it from, its back woefully bent. Offering it to the woman it obviously belongs to, I give her a smile before addressingthe table. “Sorry about that—why don’t you come see me at the bar for a round on the house.”
Before she can get her hopes up that I’m flirting with her, I look at the stage where the band is still waiting for my okay to start playing again.
Giving brief consideration again to shutting it all down for the night, I decide against it.
Can’t make money in an empty bar.
Giving the band the signal they’re waiting for, I walk away while the first strains of a George Strait cover pushes me back to the bar.
“LOOK…” EVEN THOUGH I’M DOING MYbest to ignore her, River—my lead cocktail waitress, surrogate little sister and at present, relentless torturer has been—with the brief exception of when I stopped Billy the dumbass from stabbing poor Jake with a broken beer bottle—hounding me all night.
Billy wasn’t even out of the parking lot before she started up again.
Because I know better than to hope she’ll give up and walk away, I look up from the Tequila Sunrise I could probably make blindfolded and give her a bland smile.
“Okay.” Widening my gaze slightly when she just stares at me instead of continuing her verbal assault, I drop the bottle of Patrón back into the well. “I’mlooking.”
“Yeah—I just didn’t expect you to actuallydoit,” she tells me, flipping her pale blonde ponytail over hershoulder before setting her service tray on the bar between us. “You’ve been pretending I’m dead the entire night.”
Wishing is more like it.
As soon as I think it, I feel like an asshole. River is family. Some of the only real family I have. If something ever happened to her, I don’t know what I’d do. Just thinking about it is enough to make me sick to my stomach and angry enough to kill something, all at the same time.
“I’m looking,” I repeat myself, softer this time, while sliding the Tequila Sunrise onto her tray. “And listening.”
“I don’t like that you’re alone all the time,” she says quietly, the slight quirk to her mouth telling me that she’s sure I’m going to yell at her. Tell her to mind her own fucking business. That my personal life ismineand has nothing to do with her.
“I’m not alone, Riv,” I tell her as gently as I can. “Matter of fact—” lifting a hand, I gesture it around the very busy, very rowdy bar I own. “I’mneveralone.”
Now she frowns at me. “You know what I mean.”
Yeah, I do.
She means sex.
As in, I haven’t had it in well over a year.
