Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
I charge over to him. “It’s time to leave.”
He doesn’t stop throwing — and missing — as he says, “So leave.”
“You’re going with me.”
“No.”
“Yeah, you are.”
“Nope.”
“You really want me to drag you out of here like a five-year-old, don’t you?”
His mouth quirks up in a humorless smile. “One, you aren’t capable of dragging me out of anywhere. And two,” another pull of beer, “it depends.”
“On fucking what?”
He glances at me for a second before throwing another dart. “On whether or not you’ve decided to play my babysitter for the night.”
“I prefer bodyguard, but it’s your call,” I shoot back. “You’re the kid here who doesn’t know when to stop.”
He chuckles. “Well, I learned from the best, didn’t I?”
He did though.
I taught him all this, partying, drinking, smoking.
Being the stubborn shithead he’s being.
I’m regretting that though.
“Listen —”
“And now you won’t get to play with the chick I brought you. They’re both mine.”
“They’re both gone.”
That gives him a pause. “What?”
“I sent them away.”
He looks around to confirm and when he does, he comes back to me. “Fuck you, man. I was gonna let you have the blonde one.”
“They were both blondes.”
That gives him pause also. As if he didn’t know that himself.
He probably didn’t.
Given how fucked up he is right now.
Then, shrugging, “Whatever. They talked too much anyway. Not in the mood to go through the motions and have a conversation before getting my dick sucked.”
“Charming.”
“Yeah, kinda like you when you open your mouth.”
Right.
I’m the asshole between the two of us. Understood.
“Now that we’ve established that we’re both charming,” I try again, “I think it’s time —”
“How about we play for it?”
“What?”
He tilts his head to the side, gesturing to the board. “How about if you win, we go? If I win, we stay.”
I take in his face.
His eyes mostly.
They look all drunk and drugged up. Fuck knows what else he did — besides getting shitfaced drunk — while he was hunting for that restroom. Knowing him, he probably would’ve popped a pill or two.
Usually, I don’t mind.
I’m very pro-recreational drugs. Fuck, I was a small-time drug dealer back in school, prescription drugs and pot mostly, but yeah. I’m very pro-anything that gets you as fucked up as you wanna be so you don’t have to think about stuff too much.
In fact, I’d kill for a joint right now.
But ever since I became the babysitter, as Lucas calls it — two years, two months and twelve days ago — I’ve given all that up. I don’t get to forget about stuff. I don’t deserve to.
And maybe I deserve this too.
Jumping through all the fucking hoops and playing his games.
Because it’s not his fault that he’s this way.
It’s mine.
“You sure you wanna make that bet?” I jerk a chin up at him. “Given that you’re probably seeing double right now and that’s not really the condition you wanna be in when you’re trying to make a shot.”
It makes him chuckle again.
And then without answering me, he turns to the board and sends the dart flying.
Which tears through the air and hits the bullseye a second later.
Then, “Again, I learned from the best.”
That’s true also.
I taught him how to shoot.
Way back when we’d just become friends and he’d come over to my house to hang out.
For a second, I see us. Like we used to be. Back when we were kids, both eight years old, both second sons and hence all fucked up already. But most importantly, both never had a friend before each other.
We both were rejects so we made our own club. We made our own rules. We made our own family.
Brothers.
We were that.
At least until I ruined everything and he started hating me.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Taking a deep breath, I state, “I’m not playing you.”
Admiring his handiwork for a second, he turns back to me, a challenge apparent in his gaze, “Why, you scared you can’t win?”
“Look, I don’t wanna win, all right? Let’s just go back before you start throwing up your organs.”
“No, I don’t think I will.”
Fucking Christ.
He’s really not giving me any choice, is he?
I don’t want to do it.
I don’t fucking want to do it.
But I will.
“So what, you’re gonna stay here and drink yourself to oblivion,” I say in a flat voice.
He doesn’t pay any attention to me as he replies, “That’s the plan.”
“And you don’t think you’re being kinda obvious right now. Kinda cliché.”
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Don’t let me do this, Lucas. Don’t fucking let me do this.
But he does.
“You see her after two years and the first thing you do is get shitfaced and pick up two chicks, both blondes, so you can get your dick sucked.” I watch his body grow tight in front of my eyes and I feel something black and sharp lodge beneath my rib cage. “And you do it so you can prove to yourself how okay you are with all this. How you saw your ex-girlfriend after a long time and didn’t feel a thing.”