Page 18 of Whiskey Lullaby
Like an idiot, I just stood there with my mouth hangingopen.
“Your brother ran over a pile of cow shit. Splattered it all overme.”
“Oh, that’slovely.”
“Yeah, reallovely.”
There was another awkward pause and he lifted a brow, thumbing inside the steam-filled bathroom. “Did you needsomething?”
“Huh? Oh... um...just...”
He pushed the door open all the way and stepped to the side. I quickly moved into the bathroom, snagged the pack of makeup wipes, and rushed back into the hallway, my cheeksheating.
“Well.” He braced both arms in the doorway and dropped his chin to his chest. Every muscle tensed and popped. The myriad of tattoos that stretched over his muscular arms were hard not to stare at. “It was nice to see you again,Hannah.” He dragged out my name like a note to a sad love song. My entire body tingled. I wanted to stand there and stare at him, touch him…What the crap is wrong withme?
“Yeah.” I swallowed. “You too.” When I turned around, the bathroom door clicked shut. The second I got back inside my room, I took a breath, wondering why in the world it had to be him that my daddy hired. Stuff like that never ended well. I felt about as ridiculous as Alice In Wonderland, just because a bottle’s not marked poison doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to drinkit.
I tossed the makeup wipes at Meg and she lifted a curious brow. “Was that a guy in thehall?”
“Yep.”
“The new troubled soul?” She grinned as she pulled a wipe from the pouch and began scrubbing over herface.
“Yep... NoahGreyson.”
Her jaw hung open and she stopped wiping her makeup off, leaving her entire cheek pretty much black. “What?”
“The guy in the hall was Noah. In atowel.”
“Soooo...” she shrugged. “Is he moving in or something? Has your dad finally just lostit?”
“No.”
“Jesus, your dad has no idea what he’s just done.” She swiped the wipe over her face again before glancing down at it and wrinkling her nose. “He has just invited the devil into hishome.”
“Oh, for the love... Meg, you areoverreacting.”
“That’s your one-way ticket to hell. I’m telling you. He’s pretty, and a sweet talker, and he’ll makeyouweak, and then I’ll have to kill him, so I guess he’s reallyourone-way ticket tohell.”
“So now he’s the devil?” I asked. Any man who was going to lead all of mankind to hell was going to need a good smile anddimples…
“Maybe I’m giving him too much credit. Noah’s probably more like the Pied Piper of Panties.” She balled the face wipe in her fist, then tossed it to the floor. “God, it’s going to be Mr. Moses all overagain.”
“What?”She’s lost her mind.Mr. Moses was the one-eyed Tabby we took in when I was a kid. He was vicious and basically had a vendetta againstchipmunks.
“I know you, Hannah. You used to go around and find all the chipmunks Mr. Moses would start to eat and then just leave to die, and you’d want to fix them allup.”
I deadpanned her. “You’re comparing Noah to the cat with the glasseye?”
“No.” She glared at me. “The chipmunks. Noah is the chipmunk here.” Closing her eyes, she shook her head. “You like broken shit, Hannah, and that boy is broken. You can’t fixhim.”
“You don’tfixpeople,Meg—”
“Well, whatever, just as long as you don’t try to fixhim. You’ll end up broken in theprocess.”
_______
Meg left an hour later, begrudgingly. I told her I’d be happy to let her take my shift if she wanted and she flipped me thebird.
