Part One
HUSH little baby, cozy and fair
Daddy sits near, in his rocking chair
the baby sleeps, and Daddy sings
One time, two times, three times, four
Five and then we go once more…
Chapter One
Raine
It’s not every day you celebrate your twenty-first birthday. Your first time getting wasted—like, legally and officially wasted, with your brother, and buddies, in your favorite joint in town. Boys’ night out.
See, all the other times I got drunk don’t matter. Tonight, I’m seeing double with the blessings of the law.
A law that hasn’t been on my side, ever—not when my parents didn’t give a damn, and when they vanished one day with my brother’s hard-earned savings never to be seen again. It almost broke Ocean.
Doesn’t fucking matter. Life’s pretty good right now, this night, with a bottle of Jack on the table and the golden heat of it sliding down my throat, warming my chest.
Everything’s glittery bright and awesome, even if a chick keeps trying to sit in my lap and won’t take a hint when I keep pushing her off.
“Come on, Ryan,” she whines.
“Raine,” I correct her yet again, and chuckle, because everything’s outrageously funny when you’re three sheets to the wind. “Get off me.”
She pouts. “You’re cute. Take me home, Raine.”
I roll my eyes, and the ceiling fractures into prismatic rainbows. I grin as the bar slowly spins. “Not today, sugar.”
“Not ever. Right, junior?” Micah winks at me over the rim of his glass, blond hair cut so short it’s like gold dust on his head. Or, I am that drunk… “But wait. Maybe now you’re officially an adult, you’d like to give pussy a try, too?”
“Nah.” I flip him off and push the girl more firmly off me. “Thanks anyway.”
She shoots me a murderous look, then flounces off, a bit unsteadily, on her stilettos, looking for a new target.
“You sure?”
“Fuck you, Micah.”
“Heh. Nah.” He grins drunkenly at me and leans over to pat my arm. Then he stage-whispers, “I don’t swing that way.”
Yeah, yeah. I know. I’m the only one with zero interest in tits and pussies in this little group. The only one who likes dick. Also, being the youngest sucks. Getting called junior and kiddo gets old fast.
But I can’t really complain. The Inked Brotherhood and the Damage Boyz, they’re a damn fine crew. Good people. A family. I can see why my brother likes it here in Madison, working at Damage Control.
They’ve also sort of became my people over the three years I’ve spent here. I mean, sure, I don’t have the same connection to them as Ocean, but still. I’m always invited to all their get-togethers, and I seem to have suddenly found myself a bunch of older brothers.
Yay.
“Stop thinking so hard,” another voice says from my right, and I huff. “I can hear the booze sloshing between your ears.
Said brother shoots me a sharp grin and takes the glass from my hand. Didn’t notice picking it up again.
“S’up, Shun?” Shun as in Ocean, a nickname my brother only allows me to use.
Ocean sighs. “You’re drunk off your ass.”
“I thought it was called adulting. You guys do it all the fucking time.”
“Very funny.”
But it is, and I’ll never admit it, not even under threat of torture, but Ocean being protective and shit… I like it. Despite my bitching, I like him acting like the big brother that he is, my
big brother—because for a long time he didn’t. He just wasn’t there. He sent me away to an aunt who hated my guts, and I didn’t get to see him for fucking years.
Which led to me missing him like hell, and simultaneously hating his guts for a long time.
Of course, now I know why he had to do it, but it doesn’t stop me from relishing these moments when it’s like a throwback to the time we were kids at the trailer park, and he was my brother, and my parent, and my everything.