His words bruise but the hurt melds with anger. It doesn’t matter that I’ve been keeping my distance becauseheupset me,because they weren’t supportive. I’m the one in the wrong. The one who’s too childish and wild to think of anyone but herself.
The store clerk turns to face me. “You know him?” she asks.
“Uh, yeah,” I say. Though this is so far from the brother I know it feels like a lie. “I’m sorry, I’ll get him out of here.”
Mase scoffs.
Pity seeps from her eyes and she turns back to my brother. She barely comes up to his chest and she can’t be older than twenty, but her voice is strong. “Sir, you need to leave.”
He draws up to his full height and glowers down at her. “And you need to stop telling me what the fuck to do.”
“Mase!” I snap at him, and he backs down, a moment of clarity and regret flickering across his face.
“I’m so sorry,” I say to the woman then I grab Mase’s arm and drag him out of the hardware shop.
Mount Bush doesn’t attract many tourists, so the street is mercifully quiet. If only the same applied to my brother.
“You need to call Mom and Dad,” he demands, shaking off my grip and turning on me as soon as we’re outside. “Mom’s worried sick.” His whole barrage is intimidating for about two seconds before he sways again and has to lean against the brick wall for support.
I shake my head. “What are you doing drinking at ten in the morning?”
He doesn’t answer me. Just stares at the bar on the opposite side of the road. A woman with long black hair and a vest-top stands in the doorway, drying a glass. She keeps one eye on Mase, and I figure that’s where he’s been hiding out.
“I thought you were going back to work this week,” I say, trying a different tactic.
He stares at the woman, some of his fight seeping away. “Well, I’m not. Which you’d know if you hadn’t run off like a sulking teenager.”
The audacity of this man to accuse me of sulking when he looks like a toddler who hasn’t got his favorite toy.
“I’m twenty-four years old. I didn’t go off in a sulk, I moved out. You don’t get to do this Mase, especially not when you stink of liquor and can barely stand up straight.”
He pulls himself to standing as if to prove a point and manages to hold himself steady while he looks at me. “It’s not going to work. This harebrained coffee shop scheme of yours? It’s going to fall apart, only this time I’m not going to be there to clean up your mess.”
My fingernails bite into my palms. My chest may as well bear his boot-print, but I tilt my chin up and meet his glassy gaze. “Screw you, Mase.”
We hold each other in a lockdown stare, neither of us willing to give in, until Skyler catches my attention from inside the shop. Through the window, she points at my brother, then herself, and raises her fists in a cartoon worthy mimic of Rocky, her eyebrows raised in question.
Her antics break the tension, and I hold back a smile, shaking my head to let her know I’m okay. Though the idea of Skyler trying to beat up my brother, a highly trained soldier, is an image I’ll savor.
“Do you often make violent friends?” Mase eyes Skyler and for some reason him judging her is a step too far for me.
“Do you often get drunk and stumble across town making a scene?” I jab back.
Anger flares in his eyes, a snarl curling across his face, but then the bartender across the street whistles. Short and sharp.
Mase looks up at her and blinks. She holds his gaze for a second before heading back inside the bar. As if the high-pitched sound was enough to clear his head, Mase deflates and runs a hand over his cropped hair.
Pain cloaks his eyes and despite how cruel he’s being, love for my brother aches in my chest. “What’s going on with you, Mase?”
He grimaces. “Nothing. Just call Mom, okay?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer before heading back across the street and disappearing inside the bar.
Skyler joins me outside the store, pushing the cart to a stop by my side. “You okay?” she asks.
I bite my lip, still staring at the bar. “Not really.”
“I’d say let’s go get drunk but...”
That shocks a laugh out of me, and I spin to face Skyler. Her chagrinned look is ruined by the sadistic gleam in her eye. “You’re ridiculous, you know that right?”
