“You need to let her go too. It’s time to start over, Mitch. For God’s sake! He’s your brother. Not some unknown face.”
“Scarlett.” He said my name so softly and with so much hurt that it made almost start to cry. “I can’t. I can’t get over her. I can’t. I’m not the great pretender I once was. I’m getting older. And the older I get, the more the lie eats at my heart. Not anymore. I can’t do it. I’ve hit emaciation, kid.”
“Mitch,” I touched his heart. “You have to.”
He stopped moving us, gazing down into my eyes. “You are so beautiful,” he said, that stare never wavering. “Your breath smells like heaven. Everything about you smells like heaven. Roses. That’s what you smell like.”
Hot blood rushed to my cheeks. I turned my face, trying to hide it. His stare was insistent, and his hold was becoming increasingly stronger.
“Let her go,” Brando said, taking my arm and pulling me into his side. “My resistance is getting thin tonight, Lewis.”
Mitch raised his hands in surrender, but his eyes were still on my face. Somehow, I knew it wasn’t me he saw. Brando knew it too.
Penny came to stand beside him, rubbing her breasts along his arm. He didn’t reciprocate. Somewhere deep down, I hoped my words resonated.
Do the right thing, Mitch.
Jane came to stand next to Penny. Violet came to stand next to me. Mick stood on her other side, his face as expressionless as a rock.
“Jane.” I nodded.
“You been cooking any dinners lately?” she asked. She and Penny laughed.
“Only for my husband. You?”
Both of them became quiet.
“Listen,” I said, taking a step forward. “I know what you do to my pictures. I’ve heard about how you spill things on them, set them in water. You probably burn them for all I know. But you might want to save yourself the trouble. You can get rid of a picture, but you can’t get rid of me.” I turned to Brando. “You ready?”
“Yeah,” he said, grinning. “Time to go.”
He kept my hand pressed to his back as we started to navigate the crowd. Before we got too far, I stopped, turning to Mitch. He was still staring after us.
“Are you coming or what?” I asked.
He took a long look at Penny and then nodded, following behind.
I waved at an openmouthed Puddin’ as we exited the building.
* * *
I cranked down the window in the truck to feel the humid, warm air against my skin. Maggie Beautiful had a habit of calling it “swamp air.” Still, it was no less than muggy, and it seemed to do my soul good.
We had driven there in Brando’s restored Chevy, but when we left the Road House, we took Mitch’s truck. Brando said Mitch had to sober up some, so he made him sit in the bed. Mitch’s head rested against the back window, his hair whipping around in frenzied chaos. He kept trying to light a cigarette, so out of his mind that he hadn’t yet realized that the wind was too strong and he was wasting his time. I turned to see another cigarette being thrown over the side, a curse coming from his mouth.
“Are you sure he’s all right back there?”
“Fine.”
Every so often Brando’s eyes would glow with the light from a passing car or streetlight.
“Have you ever had to do that? Sit in the back?”
He grinned. “Yeah.”
“When?”
“Before that night out in the snow. After you left—after I came back. Work saved me from the scene becoming a habit.”
