His eyebrows shoot up when he notices the two shot glasses.
“You know I’m not drinking that shit, right?” he smirks, then reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a small pint of his cheap Jim Beam.
And there you have why we call him Beamer. I shove a glass across my desk at him.
“Best shit in the world right here,” I say as I crack open my bottle, take a deep sniff, and pour my shot. Beam does the same with his.
“Cheers, man.”
Both of us suck down our favorite drink like it’s water. This type of stuff should be sipped and savored. Not with me. I love the ever-so-gratifying feeling of the burn as it makes its way down my throat, settling into my stomach. I need to get shit-faced, forget about today, and worry about tomorrow when I wake my ass up.
“I heard about Calla coming here,” Beam says with concern.
“Yeah, man. She’s here,” I reply brusquely.
“And?”
“And what?”
“How’d it go?”
“She wants a divorce. I’m not giving her one. I’ve waited way too long, wasted six years that I could have spent with her. She’ll never get me to sign. She’s in my old house. Until we kill that rat bastard who gutted my dad and threatened her life, she stays here.”
He doesn’t need to know any more than that, so I quickly change the subject. I grab my bottle of Jack and head towards the door with Beam, intent on getting drunk. The minute I walk out the door and head towards the event in the back, I roll my eyes.
Emerald strides towards me the minute I’m out the door, circling around beside me. She loops her arm through mine as if she owns me. I want to rip my skin off when her fingertips graze down my arm. I grind my teeth like crazy at her audacity. She knows not to touch me unless she is told.
“Jesus, woman. Get your hands off of me,” I growl, jerking myself free. “I thought I told you to leave. You’re not wanted here, Emerald.”
The minute I plop down in my chair she sits on my lap, which pisses me off.
“Come on. What the hell?”
My best friend Manny shakes his head from across the yard as I try to dislodge her. Yeah, screw you too, asshole. I flip him the middle finger. Dickhead knows I’m going to go postal on his ass the first chance I get for not giving me the heads up that Calla was on her way.
“Jesus, Emerald. What the hell?”
I grab her arm and pull her back into the compound, heading straight for my office. Her smile widens across her face. I know what she’s thinking. She thinks I’m going to fuck her back here and everything is going to be fine. She couldn’t be more wrong. I’m about to set this bitch straight.
Chapter Five
Calla
I lie here staring up at the ceiling in the one room that brings back the worst day of my life, chastising myself over and over in my mind. How could I have been so stupid? This is not me. I’m not weak. I really thought I had moved on. It’s been over five years since I have allowed myself to cry. A man who did what Cain did to me was not worth one more tear.
I’m so confused. I don’t know what to make of his sweet-to-mean cycle, either. How can someone ask for an apology, then in the next breath spew out hateful, stinging words?
He has left me here with so many unanswered questions. Like, who in the hell are the Savages, and why would they want to kill me? I’ve been gone, I know nothing about this new life of his, except the things I have read or heard. I even went as far as telling my parents that no matter how much I begged them to tell me details about Cain that they were to never convey anything, and they didn’t, no matter how hard I cried.