Drinking Age
Preston Darling
“You sure this is a good idea?” Colt asks, clamping a hand on the back of Devlin’s seat. “I still think the Downtown Diner would have been a better venue.”
“Isn’t that a gang hangout?” Devlin asks, frowning into the rearview.
“Maybe he’s our baby cousin, not Sully,” I say, chuckling as I climb into the passenger seat.
“Shut up,” Devlin growls. “Sullivan’s been gone, too.”
“It is pretty cute how innocent you both are,” Colt says, reaching forward to ruffle Devlin’s hair with one hand and across the back seat to muss Sullivan’s at the same time.
“Fuck off,” Devlin snaps, shifting into gear once I’m belted into the passenger seat.
The ragtop is down, the damp chill of February air a welcome relief after breathing canned hospital air for a month.
I’ve spent plenty of time there in the past three years, but not as much as Colt. It’s practically a second home to him.
“Where to?” I ask.
“Depends,” Colt says. “How good you feeling?”
“Good enough,” I say, casting a glower back at him. “What’s going on?”
“Wait and see,” Sullivan says, hanging his arm out over the top of the door, doing lazy sweeping motions in the air currents with his hand.
Devlin glances at me and back to the road. “You up for seeing a few friends?”
“A party?” I ask incredulously.
“I could go for a few beers,” Colt volunteers from the back seat. “Maybe slum it with some high school chick.”
I raise a brow. “Trouble in doggie paradise?”
He’s still dating the Darling Dog from our last year of glory, and I never let him forget it.
“Nah,” he says. “But she’s been known to agree to a threesome when she thinks I’m getting bored.”
“The fat ones are always the freakiest,” Sullivan says.
“Did you get that from bad porn?” Colt asks. “Because I know you’ve never had the pleasure in real life.”
While they give each other shit, I sit back and enjoy the ride, the sound of my cousins all around me, as familiar as the sound of my own breathing.
It’s almost like before the Dolces came to town.
Almost.
But it will never really be the same. We’ve all been scarred in our own ways.
Devlin escaped mostly unscathed, but he’ll carry the yoke of guilt for his abandonment for the rest of his life, even if we don’t blame him. We understand. But he also understands, if only a little, what happened because of it. He left us to our fate, and he knows it.
Sullivan’s scars are deeper, invisible as they are insidious.
My scars are obvious, even more so than Colt’s.
If he hides his left hand in his pocket, you’d just think he was some flunkie repeating senior year, the kind who thinks numerous piercings and neck tats make him cool.
With his attitude, it’s easy to assume he’s that kind of dickhead.
Only when his hand is out do you notice the missing finger and the burn scars covering his arm.
But some things are untouchable, even by Dolce poison. The energy that fills the car, both solid and buoyant at once, the kind that grounds you and lifts you up at the same time. The sound of Darling men laughing together. Brotherhood.
Blood.
When we pull up behind Grampa Darling’s estate, I’m instantly on alert.
“What the fuck?” I bark, turning to Devlin. “That’s Royal Dolce’s car.”
“Among others,” he says, leveling me with a cool stare.
“What is he doing here?” I growl. I don’t care about the dozen other cars in the gravel lot behind the west wing’s garage. That one is enough to tell me I don’t want to be here, that it’s not safe.
“I married his twin,” Devlin reminds me. “I told you we’re working shit out with them. It may take a while, but it’s happening. I know they did unforgivable shit to our family, but they’re finally willing to move forward. Are you?”
I glare back at him. I knew all this. He told me, Colt told me, Harper told me.
Hell, I’ve sat in a car with Royal and solved mysteries with him.
I just never wanted him in my house again. The last time he was here, my entire world shattered with the windows on the back of the house. That’s the night I became a monster on the outside, too.
“You invited him to our house?” I grit out.
“You fucked my girlfriend when we were sixteen,” Devlin says.
“You know about that?”
He scoffs and shakes his head. “Yeah, asshole. I know.”
“You married someone else,” I point out. “You have kids.”
“You’re having kids with the girl I was supposed to marry.”
“You’re the one who gave me the idea.”
We glare at each other for a minute. I know Devlin doesn’t care about Dolly. He has every right to be pissed that I betrayed him, though. He’s also a genuinely decent guy, and he knows Dolly could do better than my fucked up brand of love.
“Y’all gonna fight?” Sullivan asks, hopping out of the car. “Because I’ll put money on whether Preston survives it. He’s been through some shit in the past month.”
“It’s okay, man,” Colt says, reaching forward to squeeze my shoulder. “I promise.”
A moment of tension fills the air between us before I shrug his hand off and climb out of the car.
Colt’s been here. When Devlin was off stuffing Crystal Dolce with babies, and Sullivan was holed up in a mental institution, Colt was here.
We don’t always see eye to eye, but we’ll always be brothers.
I trust him with my life. If there was any chance a Darling could be hurt, he wouldn’t have allowed this.
“Fine,” I say. “If anyone can show me how to kneel and suck dick like a pro, it’s you.”
“That’s not how it is anymore,” Colt says easily, climbing over the door to get out of the back seat. “We outnumber them now. Four Darlings, two Dolces. Even your beat up carcass could pull through with those odds.”
We’re at the back door when it flies open and Harper stomps out. My gaze automatically lands on the hallway behind her, alert for the appearance of a Dolce behind her.
When she sees me, her expression softens.
She wraps her arms around me and rests her head on my chest, her shoulders rising as she inhales.
I wonder if she’s even aware that she still smells my shirt every time we embrace.
I wonder what miracle gave this girl, who I treated like a living fuck doll, a heart big enough to care about a man like me.
“Thank fucking god you’re okay,” she says. “You better not ever die on me, or I’ll hunt you down and kill you all over again.”
“It was nothing,” I say. “Lucky for me, I don’t have a heart, so they can’t do much damage.”
She scoffs. “Nice try, but I know you. And not to be selfish, but I fucking need you, so you better not go anywhere anytime soon.”
“You don’t need me,” I say, prying her loose. “You’ve got your god, Royal fucking Dolce himself, the answer to all your prayers.”
“True,” she says, giving Colt knuckles before turning back to me. “If I don’t murder him first. Between him and your baby mama, I’ve been getting a bit homicidal lately.”
“Have a smoke, Appleteeny,” Colt drawls, pulling out a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his jeans. “Calm down and let me know whose ass I need to pretend to kick once you’re done laying them out cold, so I can get all the glory.”
Harper rolls her eyes and accepts a cigarette from Colt.
“Get me a bottle, and I’ll slice Royal’s jugular in ten seconds flat,” I offer. “Though if you can’t get along with the sweetest girl in the south, the problem might be you.”
“It’s a possibility,” Harper concedes with a grin before lighting up.
“What’d Dolly do this time?” Colt asks, leaning on the wall and lighting a cigarette too.
“This time?” I ask. “Have y’all been hanging out while I was in the hospital?”
Harper shrugs, looking vaguely uncomfortable. “If you’re going to marry her, I figure I better learn to like her. Otherwise I’ll never see you again.”
“You say that like it’s some big loss,” Colt says. “What do you need Preston for when you’ve got me?”
“Preston’s my ice,” Harper says, smiling sideways at me while she blows out a stream of smoke. “Royal’s my fire. Hey, if things don’t work out with Dolly, I told her I’d be open to you, me, and Royal becoming a throuple.”
“I’d rather be dragged behind a pickup by my dick until it’s ripped off my body,” I say flatly.
“Eh, it was worth a shot,” she says, flicking an ash from her cigarette onto the barren rose bush next to the steps.
We leave the smokers and go inside, where I can hear faint music from upstairs, like one of the Darling parties of old is in full swing.
Devlin jerks his chin toward the stairs. “Ready?”
“What the hell am I walking into?” I ask as we start up the curving staircase.
In truth, I’m not nearly recovered, and even climbing the stairs leaves me slightly winded.
The doctors say it will be a while until I’m back to full strength.
Apparently heart surgery takes its toll on a person.
There’s no fucking way I can defend anyone if the Dolces decide to strike again today.
“You said you wanted me to come home to help rebuild the town,” Devlin reminds me. “Restore our name. This is how we do that.”
“I’m beginning to remember why I didn’t come get you sooner,” I grumble.
We stop on the landing, and a vine of déjà vous wraps around me. I’ve been here a hundred times since that night, but with the music and party sounds from within, it’s all too familiar.
“You good?” Devlin asks, his hand on the doorknob.
He wasn’t here. He doesn’t know that this is where we stood in the last moments before the attack. This is the last place I had two eyes. The place where I lost my innocence in some fucked up way, the last moment I still believed we could win because we were Darlings and we always did.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I ask, clenching my jaw and glaring at him.