Page 18 of Preacher

Crowbar picked that exact moment to swing a leg over the bench beside Preacher and drop a full glass of water in front of me with a smirk. I was not going to admit he was growing on me. My lips were sealed. I also refused to acknowledge Preacher, the messy feelings I had about him, and whatever else he was doing to my insides.

“Drink up, princess.” Crowbar scooted the glass closer.

“I will fight you.” I dug in, emotionally compromised by cornbread. It was the food turning me into a hot mess, not my fucked-up life.

“Bring it.”

“Right after I finish eating.” No one was separating me from my food.

Chapter Six

Preacher

After cleanup, the guys chilled around the fire pit, their voices a low murmur of conversation and occasional laughter. I spotted Trent stretched out on one of the chaise lounges, his face tilted toward the night sky. Grabbing two beers, I crossed the patio and eased into the empty seat beside him.

“Here.” I popped the cap and offered it over. “Full?”

“Comatose.” He took the bottle but just rested it against his thigh. “I appreciate it. Looking out for me today.”

Something in his voice told me people looking out for him was a rare occurrence. “You got caught up in shit you didn’t deserve.”

Trent made a sound between a laugh and a scoff, eyes still fixed on the night sky. “My life summed up in a single sentence.”

I let the silence stretch. Sometimes you got more out of a man by saying nothing than by asking. The fire popped. Drift threw another log on, sending a column of sparks up into the dark, the trees catching the light for a second before slipping back into shadow.

My wolf had settled the second I’d sat down. Not asleep. Just quiet, being close to the thing it had decided was ours.

Trent finally lifted the beer, took a small sip, and made a face.

“Not a fan?”

“I don’t drink much.” He set it back down on his thigh. “Bad genetics. My dad drank everything that wasn’t nailed down.”

I filed that away with the rest of what I knew about him then asked a question I already had an answer to. “He still in the picture?”

“Statesville.” His thumb worked at the corner of the label, peeling a strip back. “Fifteen years for armed robbery. He’s about halfway through.”

“You visit?”

“Just once.” Trent’s mouth pulled into something that wasn’t a smile. “He spent the whole forty minutes asking me if I’d put money on his books. Didn’t ask how I was or ask about Mike or Maria. Just commissary.” He shrugged like it didn’t matter, but I watched the way his shoulders stayed too high after, riding up around his ears. “Haven’t been back.”

“Don’t blame you.”

“That’s the other sentence that sums up my life. Don’t blame you.”

I took a pull from my beer, watching him over the lip of the bottle. He was talking. That was something. Earlier, he could barely get a sentence out without his voice cracking, and now he was laid out on my chaise picking at a label, telling me about the man who’d given him half his DNA and not much else.

“Your mother?”

“Cancer. I was thirteen.” He tilted his head sideways on the cushion to look at me, the firelight catching on his lashes. “Maria was sixteen, Mike was nineteen. He got the house when Dad went in. Maria gave up caring, and I got”—he gestured vaguely at himself—“the couch, mostly. Until I got a job and could cover my share of the bills. Then I got the spare room.”

“Generous of him.”

“Saint Mike.”

I wanted to put my fist through something. Instead, I rested the bottle on my knee and kept my voice easy. “How long you been carrying him?”

Trent’s brow pinched. “What?”