Page 100 of Cash

He doesn’t budge. He’s smiling at the Hagers, babbling on like he isn’t making the most beautiful woman on earth wait. A shadow moves across Mollie’s eyes.

I’ve never wanted to burn anything down. But I’d burn down this whole town if it meant never seeing that look in her eyes again.

Areshe and Slick together? Maybe it’s a friends-with-benefits situation. Maybe their relationship is new, and they haven’t put a label on it yet.

Doesn’t fucking matter. He’s talking to other girls, and it’s upsetting her, and he doesn’t seem to give a shit. Tells me everything I need to know.

“Maybe we should go,” Wyatt says. “I’m…tired.”

“You’re fine.”

“Cash, she’s allowed?—”

“I don’t care.”

“Then why do you look like you want to punch him?”

I don’t have an answer for that, so I don’t give one. I just sit and glower, watching as Slick finally turns back to Mollie. He doesn’t dance, though. He leans down to say something in her ear, and then he’s heading back toward us.

Mollie stays on the dance floor, looking annoyed. A little disappointed, even.

I bite the inside of my cheek and taste blood.

Wyatt repeats, “We should go.”

He’s right. But my boots don’t budge. Slick saunters over, hands in the pockets of his jeans, and scans the wall behind the bar. Almost like he’s looking for a menu.

I laugh.

“What?” He eyes me.

“Nothing. Just?—”

“Tallulah will make you anything you want,” Wyatt interrupts. “She knows her shit backward and forward.”

“Bet you don’t have Willett bourbon back there, do you?” Palmer asks Tallulah.

The bartender gives him a tight smile as she wipes her hands on a towel. “You lookin’ for the Family Estate Rye or the Johnny Drum?”

Palmer blinks. “Y’all have Johnny Drum?”

“We do.”

“I’ll take that, then. Ice, splash of ginger.”

This guydeservesto be punched.

“No ginger,” I grunt. “Or ice.”

Palmer’s eyebrows snap together. “Excuse me?”

“Whiskey that good, you don’t add anything to it.”

“I’ll drink it how I damn well please.” He takes a step closer. “You got a problem, son?”

It’s thesonthat gets me.

And the slicked-back hair.

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