Page 38

He just let me go.

And somehow, that made it even harder to watch him walk away.

11

PREACHER

We’ve all had those mornings when we know we woke up on the wrong side of the bed. It had happened to me more times than I could count, but this morning was more than just the typical rough morning.

Hell, the second I woke up, I felt it.

It was a low hum of tension buzzing in the back of my skull like a fucking hornet caught in a jar. It didn’t help matters that it was barely seven, and the clubhouse sounded like there was a fucking party going on. There was music playing, pool balls clacking, and someone was laughing entirely too loud in one of the back rooms.

Normally, I would’ve let it slide. Hell, most mornings, I wouldn’t have even noticed. But today wasn’t most mornings.

I hadn’t slept. At all.

I spent the whole night tossing and turning, trying to make sense of my night with Tabitha. It had me all tangled up, and that wasn’t something I was used to. And I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it one fucking bit.

My jaw was clenched tight as I got out of bed and got dressed. I knew I was on edge when I left my room, but I didn’t know exactly how bad it was until I walked into the kitchen and found a gallon of milk sitting on the counter. It was already sweating and half-warm, and the sight of it threw me into a rage.

“Who the hell left this out?”

Goose glanced over his shoulder with a smirk. “That’d be me. I’ll get it in a sec.”

“Don’t bother.” I picked it up and tossed it in the trash. “It’s garbage now.”

“Woah,” Goose gasped. “That was still good.”

“Yeah, if you like drinking curdled milk.” I started pouring myself some coffee as I grumbled, “Next time, put the damn thing back in the fridge.”

He muttered something under his breath, which only twisted the screw in deeper. My mood was far from improving when Memphis strolled into the kitchen. As he opened the pantry door, he glanced over his shoulder and asked, “You hear about the flat on the SUV?”

That had my entire throat turning into a knot. I turned to face him as I snarled, “What flat?”

“The back left,” he answered like it was no big deal. “Looked low yesterday, but it’s damn near dead now.”

“And no one thought to fix it?” I snapped. “No one thought, ‘Hey, maybe we shouldn’t let the only reliable set of wheels we got sit on its ass in the lot’?”

“I was gonna…”

“Don’t say you were gonna take care of it,” I cut him off. “You either did, or you didn’t, and clearly, you didn’t.”

I could feel the whole room shift. The boys sitting at the kitchen table looked down at their food, doing their best to avoid eye contact, and those who were standing by the door made their way out. No one wanted to poke the bear, not when I was already halfway to losing it.

But Goose was never one to tread lightly.

He ignored all the red flags and turned to face me with a smirk, “So, I’m guessing your night out with your new lady friend didn’t go so great, huh?”

I glared daggers at him, but he didn’t flinch.

He just sat there with that shit-eating grin and added, “Ah, damn. It wentthatbad.”

And just like that, it hit me like a punch to the gut.

I wasn’t pissed about the noise or the stupid milk.

I wasn’t even all that pissed about the damn tire. Not really.