Page 60 of Gator

The holiday festivities were finally over, and I counted myself lucky to scrape by with only a minor bloody nose, because when mymômansaw my actual gift for Devlyn, I was pretty damn sure she was gonna finish breaking my nose. Something about a gator hatchling not being a proper first-time Christmas gift for the mother of my children.

While my woman laughed and actually loved the little critter, one of my brothers didn’t.

Thore.

I should have known the animal-loving pain in my ass would pitch a fit and sulk. Fucker wasn’t happy unless he was tending to or nursing some critter back to life. He was downright unconsolable when they died. Just thinking about standing through another service in the pet cemetery gave me the willies.

As it was, Thore was refusing to talk to me.

Despite his sulking, Thore still managed to commandeer the gator hatchling, giving it a new name—Boudreaux—that was until Devlyn nixed the idea, saying it was her gator, and she liked the name Jerky. Thore didn’t care and took the critter under his wing.

I didn’t fight him on it. To be honest, the little guy looked happier in Thore’s care than he ever would be in Devlyn’s. Mywoman might love her unconventional present, but I doubted she’d signed up for gator parenting as a prelude to motherhood.

Still, Thore’s silence was getting under my skin. I tried everything I could think of to get him to talk—offering him the last piece of pecan pie, letting him pick the music on the jukebox, even taking his side in a heated debate over crawfish boils versus crab boils, which I didn’t even believe in.

Nothing worked.

“You ain’t paintin’ his toes nails!” Thore shouted, grumpily following my woman up the stairs of The Bourbon Bar as she held Jerky in one hand and a purple case in the other.

“He’s my alligator, and I can do whatever I want.”

Ignoring the bickering duo, I leaned against the bar toward Juju. “Any word from Uncle Sixx?”

Juju slightly shook his head, placing a beer in front of a customer just as Enigma, Scribe and Henley walked into my bar.

Smiling wide, I greeted them, “Laissez les bon temps rouler, my friends! Welcome to The Bourbon Bar.”

“You ready to go, Gator?” Enigma asked as I watched Henley wiggle her fingers at Donut, who winked then blew her an air kiss, causing Scribe to growl, pulling his wife closer. “Mitch said he’d meet us at the track in an hour. Romeo said he would meet us there.”

“Where’s Devlyn?” Henley asked, looking around the bar.

“Upstairs painting Jerky’s nails.” Juju smirked.

“I’ll show Ms. Henley upstairs,” Donut said smoothly.

“You are not showing my wife anywhere,” Scribe challenged, stepping in front of his beautiful wife.

Had to admit, the Never sisters were something to look at.

Purdy as a peach the both of them.

“Ya skerred of some competition, Scribe?” My brother slowly stood.

“I’m not scared of shit,” Scribe said, removing his bowie knife from his hip.

“Aw, would ya look at that, Donut?” Braveheart chuckled. “Scribe has a nail picker.” Then he proceeded to remove his sword and place it on top of the bar. “Now that’s a knife.”

“I don’t know, Brave. I’m kinda partial to these,” Donut said, holding up a shiny new pair of throwing stars, before he threw one in the blink of an eye. The star landed right at the tip of Scribe’s boot, the morning sun glinting off the shiny metal.

“Who the hell gave Donut throwing stars?!” I shouted, looking at my brothers, who all shrugged and kept their traps shut. When no one spoke up, I growled and turned to the donut-eating maniac and pointed my finger. “If you land in jail again, I’m callin’ yer ma!”

Donut winked. “Who ya think gave ’em to me?”

The bar erupted in laughter, the kind that shook the walls and rattled the glasses hanging overhead. Even Scribe had to smirk, though his hand stayed tight around the hilt of his knife.

“Alright, boys, settle down,” I said, trying to restore some kind of order. “Last thing we need is the sheriff sniffin’ around here again. Braveheart, put that damn sword away. Donut, for the love of all that’s holy, quit showin’ off those damn stars before someone loses a toe.”

Braveheart sheathed his blade with a dramatic flourish, while Donut, ever the entertainer, pretended to juggle the stars before slipping them back into the waistband of his shorts.

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