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No one as tiny as Emerson Cole should have so much power over me. She dropped her parasol on an empty table, pushed her hoop skirt to the side, and did her best to wrestle me into a sleek leather booth. I put my fingertips on the edge of the table to gain equilibrium, but I was too unsteady on my feet. I sat.
“I thought we’d cured you of your drinking problem.” She punched my bicep. Twice.
“Ow.” She could hurt me physically, too. “I thought we’d cured you of your violence problem.”
With her blue silk dress, white gloves, and blond hair curled into perfect ringlets, she looked like a deranged escapee from Gone with the Wind’s Tara. Or from a Southern-themed wedding party whose bride really hates her bridesmaids.
“Seriously, Kaleb.” Her concern sliced the cut a little bit deeper. “Why?”
“You know why.” At least part of it. I breathed in, blew out a deep sigh, and lowered my forehead to the table.
“Seeing the rip after school freaked me out, too. Although I guess it was seeing you see the rip that freaked me out. But I went for a run. You knocked back a fifth of … what? Lighter fluid?”
“Cut me a break, please.” I looked up at her with what I hoped was effective pleading. “You know it’s different for me than it is for you. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Getting trashed wasn’t the answer.” She plucked a glass of ice water off a passing waiter’s tray and pushed it into my hand. “We all need to be alert—all the time—until we figure out what’s going on.”
“I’m not trashed. Just buzzed.” Unfortunately. I took a long drink of water and eyed her outfit. “Why are you dressed like Scarlett O’Hara?”
“It’s a private joke,” she said.
“With who?”
“Myself.”
“Are you going to sit down?”
She frowned and pointed to her huge skirt. “I haven’t figured out how yet.”
I shook my head and took another drink, letting my laugh escape into the glass, but I couldn’t hide from Em.
Instead of allowing her fist to hit my arm again, I caught it in my much bigger hand and held on for a fraction of a second too long. A tall shadow fell across the table.
“Hey, guys.”
Michael.
Em pulled away from me, turning and rising up on her tiptoes to greet Michael with a kiss. The light above us dimmed for a millisecond, and my stomach dropped. I focused on the tabletop as the rush of angry heat in my chest made its way to the tips of my fingers. Since they’d become a couple, the “setting off sparks when they saw each other” side effect had started to become a problem. I made sure all my major electrical appliances were plugged into a surge protector. I hadn’t yet found a way to protect myself.
Once the lights stopped flickering, I sensed silent communication. I caught Emerson imitating a guzzling motion, her hand curved around an imaginary bottle.
“So … Yeah,” she said. Michael, presumably dressed as Rhett Butler, gestured for her to sit. She looked down at her skirt and shook her head. “Kaleb might be taking the pirate thing a little too far. You know. With the rum obsession.”
“It wasn’t rum,” I argued. “It was bourbon. I found it in my glove compartment.”
Michael slid into the booth across from me and leaned close, speaking in a low voice. “Drinking and driving and an open container?”
“Listen, Clark Gable, I didn’t drink and drive because I didn’t drink until I got here. There isn’t an open container anymore, because I drank it all. And also, I recycled the bottle.”
A telltale vein pulsed in Michael’s forehead. I could feel his anger, too, ripe and unyielding, which meant the three shots I’d taken in the Jeep were wearing off.
Emerson sounded a warning in her throat. “Don’t make a scene, please. My brother is watching, and I don’t want to upset Dru.”
Thomas, dressed as Gomez Addams, stood with his wife, dressed as Morticia, next to the bar. Probably double-checking IDs. Em had told me that Dru was pregnant. She didn’t have a baby bump yet, but her hand always rested on her belly. Her emotions exuded a fierce protectiveness I recognized. Mama Warrior. You don’t mess with that. My mom had been just like her.
My fingers flexed, itching for a bottle.
“Kaleb, hand over your keys right now, and we’ll give you one free pass. But if it happens again, I’m talking to your dad myself,” Em said.
