Banging in my kitchen startled me awake, and I shot upright. The sudden movement made my stomach roll. I swallowed against the rise of bile in my throat as the world tilted.Fuck hangovers.
Bleary-eyed and unsteady, I stumbled out of bed once my stomach stopped protesting. I wandered out to find Aidan slamming cabinets as he raided my kitchen. Damn it. Drunk me forgot to lock the doors.Fuck.
“Go eat in your own fucking house,” I snapped. “Jesus fuck. It’s not like you don’t have your own goddamn money.”
And probably had more food than I did. I kept a hell of a lot of liquor and cheap food—nothing that met his standards. Still, I didn’t care.
I grabbed an open box of cereal and dumped the remaining cereal into a bowl.How long has that been sitting open?I popped a piece in my mouth to find out. Definitely stale, but there was an easy fix for that.
Aidan watched as I poured whiskey over my cereal, his expression one of deep disgust.
“Don’t knock it,” I said. “The Cap and Jack make a hell of a fucking combination.”
And they were a damn good cure for my hangover.
“Jesus fuck, you’re fucked up,” he told me.
“Whatever,” I muttered and took a bite, needing the burn of the whiskey before dealing with him. “What are you doing here anyway?”
“Harley Lowell,” he began very matter-of-factly. “He’s been asking around about you.”
I chewed on my cereal while my heart did some weird thing in my chest.Harley was asking about me. Why that mattered to me was beyond me. We’d had some whirlwind thing, and then the guy left like I was nothing. No calls. No letters. Nothing. He was a ghost of my past.
So why the hell was my heart a little too happy that he was asking around about me?
“And?” I demanded. There was no way in hell that I was letting Aidan know that. I played it off like I didn’t care—I didn’t. My heart was just a stupid muscle in my chest. It didn’t get to determine shit for me. “What the fuck do you think I’m going to do? Go running back to him?”
“That’s exactly what I think.”
“Please,” I scoffed, rolling my eyes.
“I’m not fucking around, Maverick,” Aidan snapped. “Do you remember what we did?”
If I weren’t hungover, I would’ve been more offended by his question.
“Do I remember helping you rob his family?” I shot back. “Yeah, I remember.”
It was one of my lowest points.
“Then steer clear of him.”
“I don’t owe you shit, and you don’t get to tell me what to do anymore,” I reminded him. I’d drawn those lines about my personal life a few years ago, and I kept them. I still helped him steal shit, sure, but I was done letting him control me. “Besides, you’re acting like I want anything to do with him.”
“Keep it that way,” Aidan said, “and don’t let your dick do the talking.”
I scoffed into my food.In a town like Wilde Bay?Yeah, my dick never did the talking. Maybe if this town were a lot more gay, then it would. As it was, I kept to myself mostly.
“Is that it?” I asked after a few too many uncomfortably silent minutes. “If it is, you can leave now.”
It didn’t matter that I worked with my brother. I spent as little time with him as possible. Once upon a fucking time, I cared about Aidan and his anger. Now, I was just as angry, if not more. I was done with his crap, but that didn’t stop him from trying.
“You watch yourself, Maverick. And you leave Harley in the past. You wouldn’t want anyone to figure out that you robbed him,” he warned as he left.
I almost corrected him—almost pointed out I’d only robbed the Lowells so he wouldn’t hurt Clifford. That I hadn’t wanted to do it.Almost. I knew it was pointless. Aidan wouldn’t give a shit what I had to say, and I didn’t want to give him a reason to stay.
His absence left me alone with my too-sober-for-my-own-good thoughts. I hated how a part of me liked the idea of Harley asking around for me. Was I reallythatmasochistic that I was willing to go down that road all over again?
Maybe.
