Can’t Shoot Whiskey

Prologue

JOSH

“No.”

I slammed my fist into the barn’s support post. Blood welled where skin split at the knuckles.

Good.

It forced me to feel something. Two weeks since the funeral and numbness had been my only companion.

“You will go out there and feed the left field.” My older brother, Timothy, towered above me, a reminder I hadn’t had the growth spurt my Dad promised would hit. “I’ve got a date in twenty minutes, and I’m not missing it because you’re having one of your little moods.”

He rolled his favorite knife in his hand, the one he used to cut hay bale ties. The metal flashed as he stepped closer, close enough that I could smell his aftershave. “Mom and Dad are in Raleigh. That means I’m in charge. You will do what I say.”

“It’s your problem,” I shot back. “I did the horse barn. Cows were never mine to do today.”

A month ago, I might’ve caved for a single word of approval. Being six years older made Timothy almost an adult, and someone I’d idolized. Now I wanted him to hit me. I deserved it. I held his glare and said it again, softer and sharper. “No.”

He slammed his palm against the door of the stall I’d just finished mucking. The bang echoed through the barn like a gunshot. “You are a useless, unreliable, selfish little snot,” he snarled. “I’m not throwing away my one chance tonight because you can’t follow simple orders.”

“After two hours busting my ass up here, I’m not slogging through the muddiest part of the pasture so you don’t miss your chance to get it on with some girl who’s leaving town.”

His face warped, grief hardening into something sharp and merciless.

“You owe me. You owe all of us.” The knife trembled in his fist as he pointed it at my chest. “You should be doing every chore until the end of time. Maybe then you’ll learn what it means to listen.

” He took a step closer, eyes burning. “You had one job. Watch Brian. That was it. And he drowned. He’s dead because of you. ”

The words hit exactly where he meant them to. A spear straight through my ribs. I should’ve let it end there. Let it break me. But I couldn’t.

“You were the one too busy sucking face with Amy What’s-Her-Name on the Ferris wheel during the festival to do what Mom asked you to do.”

Timothy’s arm snapped. The blade left his hand and buried itself in the dirt by my boot. Close enough that soil jumped against my bare calf. Close enough to mean something.

I stared at it, then bent and picked it up. The metal felt wrong in my palm—too heavy, too real. Fear rushed in. I let it slip from my fingers.

Instinct jerked me sideways, but not fast enough. The blade fell in a blunt, slicing arc and kissed my calf. For a heartbeat, the barn went silent except for my breath ripping in and out of my chest.

Timothy froze.

The rage drained from his face so fast it left him gray. His eyes locked on the thin red line welling on my calf as if he could rewind the last ten seconds by sheer force of disbelief.

Neither of us breathed.

“You…” His voice cracked. He swallowed hard, Adam’s apple jerking. “You did that. Not me.” He took a step back like I’d shoved him. “Take care of the cows,” he muttered.

Then he stormed out, boots pounding.

I stared at my leg.

Blood dribbled in a slow, surreal ribbon, pooling in the dirt. It should’ve hurt. I waited for the pain to arrive, but all I felt was empty.

“What’s with him?” Erika stood framed in the barn doors, the afternoon light catching in her dark brown hair.

I completely forgot I agreed to work on our science project, which was due tomorrow.

In class today I tried to get her to just do it since I didn’t really care about school anymore.

She said no. It was a “group project,” and I was her entire group.

Which meant, according to her, we were doing it together today.

And nobody—especially not me—could change Erika Chomping’s mind.

She tilted her head, long strands sliding over her shoulder, and stomped mud from her battered tennis shoes. “You still got chores? I can help if—”

Her eyes snapped to the floor. To the blood.

“What the—” Her voice tremored. She pointed, like maybe if she didn’t get closer it wouldn’t be real. “Did he do that?”

“It’s fine,” I said. “My fault. I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine!” She dropped to her knees in the dirt beside me. Her hands closed around my calf, careful and shaking, like she could will the bleeding to stop if she just held on tight enough.

I didn’t move. Didn’t even flinch.

“What’s wrong with you?” Anger and fear tangled in her voice. She yanked a towel off the stall door, dunked it into the water bucket, and scrubbed the blood away. “Hold it!”

I did. Because she told me to. Because it was easier than deciding anything for myself.

She worked fast, scavenging supplies from the feed room, wrapping my leg with more competence than I’d expected. When she finished, she sat back on her heels and stared at her handiwork.

“It needs stitches,” she announced.

“There’s no one to drive me to the hospital.” The words landed between us, heavy and final.

“Can you ride a bike? We can go up to the urgent care on 64.”

* * *

It took nearly an hour to reach the urgent care on our bikes, rain soaking us through, my shorts plastered to my legs. By the time we made it inside, the cut throbbed deep and insistent. I wanted the pain. I didn’t deserve relief.

We sat in the waiting room with a handful of strangers, the air sharp with disinfectant. I kept my eyes on the floor. I didn’t want Erika to look at me too closely. I didn’t want her to see that this—all of this—was my fault.

She slid her hand over mine. Over the hand where the knuckles weren’t busted.

I stared at our hands instead of her face. Mine had grown bigger at some point. I wasn’t sure when that happened. Hers was tanner, warmer, the skin familiar in a way nothing else was.

“I’m fine,” I said, my voice cracking. “You can go. You don’t have to stay.”

She didn’t answer right away. She just squeezed my hand, firm and steady. Then she let go only to wrap her arms around me, pulling me into her like she was afraid I might disappear.

“You’re my always and whenever, Josh,” she said quietly. “I need you. And you need me. Been that way since third grade. Going to stay that way.”

I breathed her in when every part of me wanted to run. Or vanish. Or turn into dust and let the wind carry me somewhere Brian couldn’t drown and I couldn’t fail him.

I should’ve been the one who died. I was the useless one.

But Erika needed me.

I pulled back just enough to look at her. The intensity in her eyes scared me more than the blood had. It made everything real. It made me matter.

All the stupid things I’d done for her over the years rushed back—how I’d stood up to kids who picked on her, how I brought extra snacks to school when I knew she wouldn’t have enough for lunch, how I’d sat with her for hours helping her read through her dyslexia.

Things I’d done without thinking, like they were nothing.

She reached up and unclasped the locket from around her neck, pressing it into my palm. “It’s magical,” she said, like it was the most normal thing in the world. “My mom gave it to me last year. She said it brings luck. You need to borrow it today.”

My fingers curled around the cool metal. As long as I had her, I wasn’t alone. I was needed.

* * *

Josh: 19

Erika: 18

JOSH

The metallic slam of my locker echoed through the deserted changing room.

This was a first for me, being late to the field for a baseball game.

A feminine shadow in the corner of my vision darted away.

A set of car keys fell off my jersey where it lay on the wooden bench, clattering with a sharp jingle when they hit the concrete floor. The keys she stole from me.

“Erika, get back here!” I shouted as I jogged after her. I tore into the hallway and to the gym’s exit, arriving seconds behind her. A metal doorstop between the door and the frame kept the gym door propped open to the outside. “Stop!”

I caught her arm.

No fear or apology glared up at me in her coppery gaze. A few light brown hairs blew across her eyes out of her haphazard bun. The haze of a waning sunburn on her pale neck remained from when she’d forgotten sunscreen while watching my semi-finals game ten days ago.

Ten days…the amount of time it took to wreck both our lives.

My gaze dipped to her lips. I hated how much I still wanted her. She was everything I’d dreamed about in my eighteen years. But that was before this war between us kicked off. The hostility worsened with each horrendous revenge act she concocted against me.

Up until now, I put up with it. I deserved it.

I leaned down in slow motion as if I might kiss her. I wouldn’t. Never again. I wouldn’t survive the taste of her again.

Her breath caught.

“What are you doing?” Instead of rejection, her voice was throaty and full of need. She didn’t move, not even a wiggle to get free of where I held her arm.

“You want me to kiss you.” This was like standing on the edge of a treacherous cliff. I touched my tongue to her pretty pink lips.

She closed her eyes. A moan escaped her. When I did nothing further, she blinked and looked up at me.

“Admit you want me.” I waited.

“No.” It came out without conviction. She stared, waiting to see what I’d do next.

My lips touched hers. I kissed her slow, hot, and deep. She shuddered.

Her free hand cupped the back of my head to hold me in place, giving me her consent.

My heart accelerated to a dangerous speed.

This was stupid. Irrational. Yet, I felt alive and less fucked up for the first time in over a week.

I teased my tongue along the seam of her lips.

Her mouth opened and her tongue touched mine.

The charge from the small touch radiated all the way to my fingertips.

She pushed against me and pulled her head away from mine. I dropped my hand from her and stepped away, shocked. I shouldn’t have done that.