Chapter 2 #2
Honey-blonde hair spilling over her shoulders. That crooked little grin she does when she's about to say something that'll wreck me. The way she used to kiss me in the bed of my truck under a sky so full of stars.
Fuck.
She's like a damn ghost. Haunting every woman who touches me. She ripped my heart out of my chest, packed it in her suitcase next to her journalism textbooks, and drove it to Los Angeles. And she took my dick's will to live right along with it.
Time ain't healing this wound. Whiskey ain't healing it. And another woman's mouth on my skin damn sure ain't gonna work either.
Abbie trails her lips all the way up my neck and presses her body against mine. Her fingers curl into my belt loops, and her breath is hot against my ear.
"What the fuck, Abbie?" a guy shouts.
The voice hits me like a bucket of ice water. I open my eyes.
A guy is shoving through the crowd toward us. He’s tall, built like a fence post, red-faced and furious. He's wearing a black snap-button shirt with Ranch 42 embroidered on the chest, and he's got four buddies fanning out behind him, all wearing the same shirt. Great, our neighbouring ranch.
Abbie jumps back from me, her eyes wide and color draining from her face.
"Brady, it's not—"
"Shut up, Abbie." He snaps. His eyes are locked on me as he barges past her.
"You think you can just put your hands on another man's woman, Sterling?"
I reach for my beer on the bar, take a slow sip, and set it back down.
"Well, Brady, I don't know how y'all do things over at Ranch 42, but where I'm from, if your girl's chasin' whiskey off another man's stomach, that ain't my hand’s problem. That's a problem for not lookin’ after her right."
Someone in the crowd goes ooooh. I try not to laugh.
Brady's jaw tightens. His boys are spreading out behind him now, trying to flank us. But, we’re Sterlings and we’ve already got in position to take them down.
When it comes down to it, we’re far more dangerous than any other cowboy. Because we have a mafia empire behind us.
A few weeks ago, I drained the blood from my brother, Beau, and let him die. I ain’t scared of a bar fight.
Colten appears on my left shoulder. Jett materializes on my right. They don't say a word. They don't need to.
"Walk away, bud," I tell him. "It's my birthday. I'm in a good mood. Don't make me ruin yours."
"Fuck your birthday." He takes a step closer, his nostrils flaring. "And fuck your family. You Sterlings think you own this town—"
"We do own this town," Colten says, casual as a weather report. "We literally own this bar."
"Strutting around like you're untouchable—"
Brady really needs to learn when to shut the fuck up.
"Because we are, weren’t you listening?" Jett adds helpfully.
Brady's face goes from red to purple. His hand shoots out and grabs my hat right off my head.
Everything goes silent.
I look at my hat in his hand. Then I look at him. Motherfucker. Wrong hat. Wrong man.
"You've got about two seconds to put that back on my head," I say, and my voice comes out low and nothing like a man who's had ten beers. "Before I put you through that wall."
He grins.
He really shouldn't have.
He throws the first punch. I'll give him that. His right hook comes in wide and sloppy, and I duck it so clean the breeze ruffles my hair. My fist connects with his ribs before he's even finished his swing. He buckles. And I snatch my hat out of his hand mid-fall and put it back on my head.
"Told you." I say smugly.
Then the whole bar explodes.
One of his Ranch 42 boys comes at Colten with a pool cue. Colten catches it mid-swing, rips it out of his hands, and cracks it over his knee. The guy stands there blinking, hands empty, and Colten headbutts him so hard the sound echoes off the rafters. He drops like a sack of feed.
Jett, because he's Jett, is already on top of the bar.
His brother, Tate, beside him. He takes a running leap off the edge and tackles two of them at once, all three of them crashing through a high-top table in a shower of beer bottles and broken glass.
He comes up swinging, laughing, blood streaming from a cut above his eyebrow, and lands a right cross that sends one of them spinning into the jukebox.
A bottle shatters against the bar next to my head. I turn. Another Ranch 42 boy, this one bigger than Brady, with a neck like a goddamn tree trunk, is squared up and coming at me.
"Oh, come on," I groan, dodging his first swing. "I was having a nice night."
He swings again. I slip left, pop him twice in the jaw, the way Dad taught us in the barn when we were kids, and follow it with an uppercut that lifts him onto his toes. His eyes roll. His knees buckle, and just like that, it’s lights out.
I let go. He hits the floor.
I grab a barstool and crack it across the back of a guy who's got Jett in a headlock. Jett pops free, spits blood on the floor, and grins at me with red teeth.
"Happy birthday, cuz."
"Best one yet." I laugh.
Then a voice cuts through the chaos.
"Enough," Hunter roars.
Hunter steps into the middle of the brawl. He doesn't shout. He doesn't need to. He's got Brady by the throat. The way you'd hold a dog by the scruff. Brady's feet are barely touching the ground, his hands clawing at Hunter's wrist.
"Listen to me carefully," Hunter says. The whole bar is silent now.
Even the jukebox seems quieter. "You and your boys are going to stand up, walk out that door, and drive back to Ranch 42.
You're not going to come back here. You're not going to talk about tonight.
And if I hear a single word in town come out of anyone's mouth in connection to this little stunt, I will come visit your boss personally. And Brady?"
He leans in close.
"I won't be in a good mood. Tell Carson that."
He lets go. Brady drops, gasping and clutching his throat. His boys are already moving, peeling themselves off the floor, wiping blood from their faces, not making eye contact with anyone. One of them has to be carried. Jett waves at him cheerfully.
"Drive safe, fellas! I’ve heard it’s quite relaxing if you find a cliff and drive right off it," he calls out.
The door swings shut behind them, and the bar lets out a collective exhale.
Someone behind the bar flips the jukebox music back up.
And just like that, Rosie's Roadhouse goes back to being a bar again.
People pick up their drinks. Jimmy starts sweeping broken glass.
A waitress rights the overturned tables. Life goes on.
Because that's how it works in New Falls. The Sterlings handle it, and then everybody pretends it didn't happen.
Hunter turns to me, and the coldness drops away.
Underneath it, just for a second, I see my big brother.
The man who has always looked after me. But I know he’s tired.
Carrying the weight of an empire he never asked for.
Our dad signed us up for that, and we’ve pushed it forward bigger than he probably ever imagined.
"You alright?" he asks.
I flex my hand. My knuckles are split and stinging, and there's a bruise forming on my ribs where somebody got a lucky shot in. Nothing broken. Nothing that won't heal.
"Never better."
He shakes his head, but the corner of his mouth twitches.
"Jimmy!" Colten shouts at the bartender, slapping his palm on the bar. "Four glasses. Best bourbon. Top shelf. And get yourself a double. We will send the bill to Carson at Ranch 42 to clear this place up, alright?"
Jimmy doesn't hesitate. He reaches up to the highest shelf and pours four generous glasses of Blanton's.
We stand at the bar, the five of us. The people I'd burn the world down for.
Hunter raises his glass. "To Ace."
"To Ace," Colten and Jett echo.
"To twenty-seven," I say, touching my glass to theirs. "And to Ranch 42 paying for those very expensive tables they just smashed up."
Jett snorts. Colten grins. Even Hunter laughs.
We drink. Jett and Colten start replaying the fight, arguing over who dropped more guys, talking louder and louder over each other while Jimmy shakes his head and pours another round. Hunter leans against the bar beside me.
I pull out my phone.
The screen's still cracked. Still nothing from the only person I want to hear from.
I open our thread. The last message is mine.
Merry Christmas, Goldie. Hope you're doing okay out there.
No reply. Same as always.
My thumb hovers over the keyboard. The bourbon makes me brave. Or stupid. Same thing, really.
Twenty-seven today. Got into a bar fight. You would've loved it. Miss you.
I stare at it for ten seconds. Then I hit send before I can talk myself out of it, shove the phone back in my pocket, and pick up my bourbon.
She won't reply, I’m used to that.
But she'll read it. I know she will. And maybe, wherever she is, some apartment in LA with too many locks and not enough stars, maybe she'll smile. Maybe she'll press her thumb against the screen like she's touching my face. Maybe, for just a second, she'll let herself miss me back.
Or maybe I'm just a drunk cowboy on his birthday, talking to a ghost.
Colten throws his arm around my shoulder. "Best birthday yet?"
I look at my brothers. At the blood on Jett's shirt. At the bruise forming on Colten's jaw. Tate is already drowning in whiskey. Hunter is standing guard like he always does, watching the door like the trouble might come back.
And I think about a girl in Los Angeles who's the reason I can't let anyone else in. The girl who broke me so completely that even almost six years later, I'm still picking up the pieces and finding her fingerprints on every single one.
"Yeah," I say, and I mean it despite everything. "Best birthday yet."
Well, best birthday since she left me.
The bourbon burns going down.
Not as much as missing her.
Maybe next year will be the year this finally stops hurting.