Preacher slammed the notebook closed and elbowed Tiny away from him. “None of your goddamn business.”
Shoving the notebook back inside the bag, Preacher quickly packed up his things and shot to his feet.
“I gotta get back,” he muttered and rushed off without waiting for his friend.
• • •
Arriving back at camp, Preacher found the crowd had considerably thinned.
Doc was in the process of building a bonfire, while June and Smokey chatted nearby. Around the picnic table sat Ginny, Joe, and Sylvia on one side, while Debbie and Max sat across from them. Half-eaten plates of food and bottles of beer were scattered across the table.
Someone had brought out the tape deck and Ginny was singing along to Billie Holiday. Eyes half-lidded, her chin resting in her hand, a clove cigarette smoking between her fingers, she swayed gently from side to side.
The Judge, thankfully, was nowhere in sight.
As Preacher drew closer to the picnic table, Ginny was the first to notice him. She smiled, and he felt that smile wrap around him like a warm blanket.
A flicker of light turned his attention to Max. His brother had lit a cigarette for Debbie and had used the opportunity to slide himself closer. Max, with his usual dopey-as-shit smile plastered across his face, leaned into Debbie and whispered something in her ear.
Preacher’s eyes narrowed into slits. That stupid little fucker likes her.
Although Max wasn’t quite so little anymore. It was yet another thing that had changed while he’d been locked up. Joe had married Sylvia, and Max had gone from a gangly fourteen-year-old obsessed with pinball andPlanet of the Apesto a taller, thicker version of himself, and with a five o’clock shadow.
Max was nearly a man now, and it wouldn’t be all that much longer before The Judge patched him into the club.
Preacher frowned. Man or not, Max should know better than to encroach on his girl.
He paused, his forehead wrinkling. What the hell? Debbie wasn’t his girl. Debbie wasn’t his anything. But as he resumed his trek toward the picnic tables, watching Max continue to try and coax Debbie into conversation, he found himself growing more and more irritated.
So irritated in fact that, when he reached them, he hooked his arm around Max’s neck and forcefully dragged him, flailing and cursing, down the entire length of the bench and deposited him onto the ground. While Max continued to curse, Joe burst into a fit of laughter, pounding the table with his fist.
Preacher took Max’s seat beside Debbie and placed her backpack between them. “Whatever he was sayin’ about me, it ain’t true.”
She attempted a smile, but her eyes were shuttered as she looked up at him, and her bottom lip was wet and swollen as if she’d been chewing nervously on it the entire time he’d been gone.
Dropping an arm over her shoulders, he bowed his head to hers. “You okay?”
She faced him fully, bringing their faces nearly flush, and his gaze dropped again to her mouth. Man, this girl had some seriously great lips. Kissable lips. Lips that begged to be sucked on. Lips that he knew firsthand tasted both salty and sweet. Lips that he wanted to—
“Damon? Earth to Damon?”
Preacher’s eyes snapped to his mother. “What?”
“I was saying that I had Max set up your tent for Debbie—”
“Found aPlayboyin it,” Max interrupted, and Preacher could hear the smirk on his little brother’s face. “December issue,” he continued. “Big ole titties and—”
Preacher reached behind him to where Max now sat, grabbed a fistful of his brother’s shirt, and shoved him off the bench. Max hit the ground with a loud “oomph,” and again Joe roared with laughter.
Stubbing out her cigarette, Ginny shot Preacher a look that made him feel like he was twelve years old again. “As I was saying,” she said pointedly, “I had Max set up your tent for Debbie, and you can share with Joe.”
Joe’s laughter abruptly cut off. Horror-stricken, he faced Ginny. “What? Mom, no!”
Preacher, feeling equally horrified, jerked his thumb at Sylvia. “What about Sylvie? Shouldn’t Joe be sleepin’ with his wife?”
Preacher had been forced to share a room with Joe until he’d moved out on his own and knew better than most that Joe snored at a decibel level very few could reach—a horrible combination of braying mule and table saw. Joe also came with his own unbearable stench, a cross between stale beer and dirty socks.
When it came to sharing sleeping space with another man, Preacher would choose anyone over Joe.
