I twisted my head, turning away from those fucking things. They brought back memories of our wedding day, when Savannah had worn a stunning yellow crown made of sunflowers.
The lump in my throat threatened to strangle my airway.
“What the hell do you want?” I heard the strain in my voice but chose to ignore it and let my anger fuel this showdown with my brother.
“Ace, you’ve got to snap out of this shit.” Micah spun around to face me.
“Don’t you have a case to solve or a criminal to track or whatever the fuck it is you do?”
I pushed past him and forged back into the messy abyss of my living room, planting my ass on the couch again.
“Did you even see there was an eviction notice on your door?”
Micah held up a folded piece of paper in his hand.
With a shrug, I said, “I get paid next week. I’ll pay back rent then.”
“Right.” Miah shook his head. “You were supposed to get paid this week, remember?”
“What the hell do you care?” I lay back and started to cover myself with the blanket.
“I care,” Micah said, yanking the blanket from my hand. “Because I’ll be damned if I see my brother homeless.”
The look he gave me was so full of sympathy I wanted to shove my fist down his throat.
“Listen, I know losing Savannah couldn’t have been easy.”
“Losing her?” I yelled, standing up but tripping over my own feet. I was drunker than I thought, but I didn’t give a shit. I poked Micah’s chest. “When you take a puppy outside, and it runs away, that’s fucking lost. You misplace your keys. That’s lost. I didn’t lose my wife.”
I stopped and looked him in the eye. “She fucking walked away.”
I’d gone to Savannah’s grandmother’s trailer, hoping she would be there and that I could talk some reason into her. Her grandmother hadn’t even known that she had left. None of Savannah’s friends from high school had heard from her. She’d just up and disappeared.
I thought about asking Joel to track her down, but my father was vehemently against our relationship since we had gotten married a year earlier. Micah had refused to use his resources with the Texas Department of Public Safety.
“Fuck you,” I growled
Micah pushed my hand away. “You’re still pissed I won’t help you find her.”
“You think?” I roared.
He sighed. “Look, if Savannah wanted to be found, she’d let you know where she is. It’s time you got your shit together and your head back on your shoulders.”
“Fuck, you sound like Joel,” I told him.
“He makes sense sometimes.”
“Whatever,” I replied. “I’m fucking fine.”
“You’re not fine. You’ve let your school admission expire. You’re going to have to reapply if you’re going to make it as part of the incoming class for the fall semester.”
I waved Micah off and brushed past him to head to the kitchen. I yanked open the fridge and grabbed another beer. But before I could open it and bring it to my lips, Micah snatched the bottle out of my hand.
“I could arrest you right here and now for this,” he warned. “You’re not even twenty yet. How did you get a whole case of beer?”
“I bought it.” I refused to tell my brother, the Texas State Trooper and Texas Ranger wannabe, that my next-door neighbor had purchased alcohol for me.”
“Bullshit, Ace.”
