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Authors: Nicole Williams

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BOOK: Finders Keepers
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“Now get out of my joint.” Brandy waved the shotgun at the
door. “I’d recommend you not come back unless you want me to ask questions
second.”

Colt huffed but continued toward the door. “Maybe you’ll
wake up tomorrow learning your lesson finally, Black. Don’t mess with me.”

I had to spit out a mouthful of blood before I could
respond. “I learned my lesson all right. That you fight like a little girl.”
Leaning up just enough to make eye contact with him, I raised my middle finger
and blew him a kiss.

Flames rolled through his eyes, and I could practically
taste how badly he wanted to come take another swing—or ten—at me, but Brandy
took a few steps in his direction and Colt kept moving for the door.

“Josie? You coming or staying?” he called.

I spit out another mouthful of blood. Good thing Brandy
liked me because from the looks of it, more of my blood was splattered across
her floor than I had left in my veins. “There’s no chance of Josie ‘coming’ if
she goes anywhere with you, Mason.”

Colt shot me a lethal glare. “
Joes
? What the hell
kind of nickname is that? ” He shook his head before glancing away from me. “
Josie
,
are you coming?”

“I can’t just leave him, Colt. Not like this.” Josie had on
a brave face, but her bottom lip looked close to quivering. She’d never been a
fan of blood, especially when it came to me spilling mine or someone else’s.

“That’s exactly the kind of guy you leave behind.”

I might have been beat to a pulp, but I didn’t like what
Colt was implying.

Crossing her arms, her eyes narrowed at him the way I was
used to seeing directed my way. “Not to me.”

“You’re actually going to stay behind with this loser?”

Most days, I tried to convince myself I didn’t like Josie
Gibson, and some days I failed. That was one of those failure days. I propped
up onto my elbows. I didn’t want to admit it, but that small movement hurt like
hell. Colt had done a number on me. “If I’m a loser, what does that make you?
Oh, wait. Never mind. There hasn’t been a word created for that yet. Colt Mason
is all we’ve got to sum up what a good-for-nothing prick your kind is.”

Colt’s fists balled, but Brandy and her shotgun kept him
from coming at me again. “Just what kind am I? The kind who doesn’t go home to
a dad who’s the town drunk? The kind who doesn’t live in a ramshackle trailer
that should have been condemned two decades ago? The kind who only has friends
like Josie and Jesse Walker because they pity you? If that’s the kind I’m not,
then I’m good with that.”

I kept my face blank. I went to that place within myself
that was always angry at the world because when I was good and burrowed down in
that place, I didn’t feel anything. Least of all the words coming from the
mouth of the jackass in front of me.

Colt shook his head at me—sprawled out, broken, swollen, and
bleeding—and the look he gave me almost brought me to my feet with both arms
swinging. That look, a mixture of pity and disgust, far outdid his words. I
didn’t take well to people pitying me. Despite Colt saying Jesse and Josie only
hung around because they pitied me, that was bullshit. Jesse and Josie and I
had history. We’d bled through life together. When people shared the kind of
ups and downs the three of us had, the common denominator wasn’t pity—it was
loyalty. But Colt Mason was looking at me with true pity. If I didn’t feel like
I’d just been stampeded by a herd of cattle, I would have beaten his ass until
he’d never even consider looking at me that way again.

“I’ll call you later, Josie. Once you’re done doing your
good deed of the day.” Colt stalled for a second in the doorway, probably
waiting for Josie to hustle up beside him. Unlike me, he didn’t have fifteen
years of experience with Josie Gibson’s unparalleled stubbornness. That girl
wasn’t going anywhere until she was good and ready.

“Night, Princess. Same time next week?” I called after him
as he charged out of the bar. Good fucking riddance.

“Next time you do that in my place of business, I’m aiming
this here barrel between your eyes. I don’t care how dark and brooding and sexy
they are, you hear me?” Brandy’s face hovered above mine and she lifted an
eyebrow.

I answered her with a weak salute. Brandy was back to the
customers and the customers were back to their drinks when Josie kneeled beside
me.

“What am I going to do with you, Garth Black?” She sighed,
her forehead lining as she inspected my face.

“I’ve got plenty of answers for that question, Joze.”

“Mind wowing me with that plethora of answers?”

A girl who knew the word “plethora” should not be allowed to
date a guy who’d only graduated high school because his daddy offered to foot
the bill for a new football field.

“I would, but I’m afraid I’ll get slapped if I give you any
of those answers, and I’m not sure how much more my face can take tonight.”

Josie sighed again, not quite as long as the first. “Sure,
now you decide to keep your mouth closed. That would have come in real handy
five minutes ago when Colt Mason came at you with his fists.”

I let Josie help me up. Even with her help, by the time I
stood, I was feeling enough pain to know I was close to blacking out. It had
happened before, but it had been a while. And damn it all to hell, Colt Mason
hadn’t only broken my nose. I was pretty sure he’d cracked a couple of ribs,
too. “You and I both know if I was interested in fighting back, Colt would have
left here on a stretcher.”

Josie slung my arm over her shoulders and helped me to one
of the tables in the corner. Having my arm around her, even though it was only
to steady myself, made me feel something I wasn’t ready to feel. Especially not
when it came to feeling it for Josie Gibson. I wasn’t made to give and accept
that kind of thing. Ever.

“I do know that. I’ve seen you in enough fights since the
testosterone switch flipped on when you were barely out of first grade to know
you could have dropped Colt like you dropped first period trig.” I shot her a
tight smile. “So why did you let him beat on you like a flesh-and-bone punching
bag?”

My smile went up a notch on the tightness scale. “Because.”

Instead of sighing, she rolled her eyes. When I was close
by, Josie was either glaring, groaning, sighing, or rolling her eyes. I could
measure my life by her expressions. “I see you’ve made a lot of progress in the
whole opening-up department. Bravo. Go, you.”

“Opening up’s never been my thing. It really gets in the way
of that whole mysterious vibe I like to let off. It drives the women wild.”

“It drives them something.” She leaned in to inspect the
left side of my face. She came so close, I smelled that coconut shampoo she’d
been using since our freshman year of high school. Josie’s coconut shampoo had
marked many milestones in my life. The first time I’d noticed it was in ninth
grade at the homecoming dance. That was the only dance I’d ever gone to, that
dance with Josie the only one I’d danced, and coconut shampoo was the thing I
remembered. Then that night a couple winters back, I’d buried my face into her
hair right as I was about to—

Shit.

Scratch that.

Fuck.

What the hell was I thinking? My face probably looked like a
science experiment gone wrong, and I was teetering on a chair dreaming about
coconut shampoo and Josie Gibson. I wasn’t sure what I was more disturbed by:
that I was fantasizing about shampoo or that my dick was hard from remembering
that night with Josie. My dick, along with everything attached to it, needed to
stay far away from Josie Gibson. She and her coconut shampoo were messing with
my head. Messing with my brain.

“That’s going to need stitches. And probably that one, too.”
Josie studied my face with a furrowed brow. “I’ll drive you to the hospital if
you promise not to get blood all over my truck.”

“I don’t need doctors and stitches. I need a bottle of
whiskey, a woman, and some sleep. I’ll wake up tomorrow good as new.” Gauging
my pain level, I probably needed a couple of pain relievers too, but I wasn’t
about to admit that. I had a reputation as a badass to uphold and asking for a
couple of Tylenol had a way of ruining that.

“Garth, you need medical attention.”

I lifted my hand, catching Brandy’s attention. She had a
double shot of whiskey in front of me in thirty seconds flat. I swallowed the
whiskey before slamming the empty glass on the table. “There. Medical
attention. Check.”

“You really are a stubborn pain in my ass.” She sighed and
started for the door. “Wait there, and try not to get in another bar fight
before I get back. If you’re still thirsty, try some water. You know, that
stuff that comes out a faucet. It’s easier on the liver.”

“And I’m a pain in
your
ass?” I called after her, but
her only response was a shake of her head as she disappeared out the door.

“You want another, sugar? From the looks of you, I’d say you
need another after another. After another.” Brandy grabbed the empty glass and
waited.

Actually, I needed a line of “anothers,” but I couldn’t get
Josie’s voice out of my head. “I’ll have a water.”

“A what?” Brandy’s mouth dropped open a bit.

“A. Water,” I repeated slowly.

Brandy looked at me like I’d grown two heads. “Anything else
with your . . .
water
?”

Even rolling my eyes was painful. “Ice.”

Brandy gaped at me for a while longer before heading back to
the bar. In all fairness, looking at me like the world as she knew it had just
changed because Garth Black had ordered a glass of ice water in a bar was
probably to be expected. Despite being underage, I’d been venturing into
Brandy’s bar since I turned fifteen, and that was the first time I’d ordered
water. Waiting for my H2O, I grabbed a couple of napkins, twisted them, and
stuffed them up both nostrils to stop the bleeding. As far as medical attention
went, that was about all I needed.

“You sure you don’t want anything else? It’s on the house.”
Brandy set a tall glass of ice water in front of me and waited.

“No, I’m good. Me and my water. What else could a man wish
for?”

Brandy shifted, dropping her hand on her hip. “I could think
of a few things. You decide you need something else,
anything
else, you
know where to find me.” Glancing at the back room, where Brandy and I’d had
plenty of after-hours “get-togethers,” she winked before walking away.

Sex was, like alcohol, my go-to when I wanted to block out
something like a shitty day, getting thrown from the bull before the
eight-second buzzer, or taking a serious beating. I’d already drowned myself in
alcohol. Sex was the next thing on my journey toward “healing,” but sex with
Brandy wouldn’t cut it. I don’t know how I knew that, or why; I just did. Sex
with just anyone wouldn’t work like it normally did for me. When the face of
who I did want flashed through my mind, I wished I’d asked for a bottle of
whiskey with my water.

I wasn’t going there again. Not with her. Not ever. Once was
enough to fuck a man up good for the rest of his life. I didn’t want to be
fucked in the hereafter as well. Not that I wasn’t already fucked when it came
to any kind of hereafter reserved for the likes of me, but that wasn’t the
point.

“Since when did you start drinking vodka on the rocks?”
Josie slid into the chair beside me and dropped a first aid kit on the table.

“Since never.”

She scooted her chair closer until her legs brushed mine.
“What are you drinking then? Gin? Tequila? Hemlock?”

I gave her another tight smile. “What you basically ordered
me to drink.”

And I thought Brandy’s face had been shocked.

“Water?” I nodded. “No way.” She grabbed the glass and
actually took a sip. “Well, crap. Just when I think I’ve got you all figured
out.” She set the glass down and shook her head.

“I go and order a glass of water? Mind blowing, I know.”

She fumbled through the first aid kit before pulling out
some bandages and ointment tubes. “Consider my mind sufficiently blown.” She
pulled out a few small squares and tore one open. Even though I felt like a
panty-waist sitting in a seedy bar having a chick patch up my war wounds, I
wasn’t about to get up and leave. I probably should. Being alone and in close
proximity to Josie Gibson did strange things to me . . .

Like making my heart feel like there was something more to
it than just pumping blood.

Speaking of panty-waists . . . I was so far gone in the land
of make-believe and shit that I barely registered when Josie lifted a damp
towelette to my face. That changed real quick when she pressed it into the gash
above my eyebrow.

I didn’t flinch. I didn’t wince. I all but leapt out of my
skin. I was doing fabulous things to my notorious rough-and-tough reputation.
“Shit, Joze, warn a person before you douse alcohol on a serious wound. Give
them a second to brace themselves first.”

She gave me an exaggerated eye roll, holding the bloody
alcohol swab off to the side. “First of all, I hardly consider an alcohol swab
to be ‘dousing.’ Second, you gave up the right to call any of your wounds
serious when you refused to seek medical attention and left me strapped with
the burden of patching you up in the corner of some hygienically-deficient bar.
And third”—she had to work to disguise her smile—“I thought you were immune to
pain.”

Josie might as well have just slit me open and gutted me for
as vulnerable as I felt. She was looking at me like she could see everything,
everything,
and was waiting for an explanation. I gave myself a proverbial shake before
replying. “I
am
immune to pain, but no man, not even the toughest son of
a bitch in the universe, is immune to alcohol applied to a gaping wound.”

“Gaping? Really? You on some sort of exaggeration kick or
something?”

BOOK: Finders Keepers
7.03Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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