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And the next day, Bix’s perfect life shattered.

Bix was feeling pleased by the end of the day, because everything was going well. They were on track to having another successful day of brewing, and she had decided that she was going to go fishing.

She wanted to catch some fish, and surprise Daughtry with the bounty. She could cook him dinner after his long hard day, and then she could strip him naked and do wicked, unspeakable things to his gorgeous body. It honestly seemed like the best idea she’d ever had. So she packed up her fishing pole and went down to the creek, Bear Creek, and when she saw movement on the other side of the water, her instincts went on high alert.

“Who’s there?” she asked.

Likely to be a farmhand.

“Oh, there she is.”

A chill went down her spine. And out of the bush came her dad and her brother.

“I knew when we saw your van we couldn’t be that far from you. Surprise you don’t have a still set up in here. But we started brewing a little bit ourselves.”

“What the hell are you two doing here?” she asked.

“Now, is that any way to talk to your family, Bix?” her dad asked. He looked as skinny and threadbare as she remembered. His gas station baseball cap was pushed up his forehead, his pants torn and dirty. Her brother didn’t look much better. In fact, he looked about the same age as their dad at this point. Hard living would do that to you.

“How do we cross over to the other side?” her dad asked.

“If you’re smart, you don’t,” said Bix. “This is a big working ranch. Believe me when I tell you, you can’t brew here.”

“We can’t?”

“You can’t,” she said. “I tried. Believe me.”

“You look... you look different,” her dad said, coming to the edge of the riverbank opposite her. “You look like a house pet.”

“I work here now. At the ranch.”

“Youworksomewhere?”

“Like I said. I got caught. By a cop.”

“Well now, how come you didn’t get thrown in prison?”

She shifted her weight from foot to foot, suddenly feeling antsy. “Because he didn’t arrest me. He lives here.”

“Oh, I see how it is. And hetook you in?”

The really annoying thing, the upsetting and enraging thing, was that she knew her dad was going to assume Daughtry had taken her in as a piece of ass. And she would’ve loved to have been self-righteous and say that there was nothing going on between them.

But there was. There fuckingwas. And even though it hadn’t been like that in the beginning, it was like that now. And she didn’t have a self-righteous corner to stand in.

“Yeah, well, he’s not gonna do the same for you,” she said.

“No,” said her dad, “we’re not quite so pretty.”

“Just get the hell out of here. I don’t even know how the two of you got out of prison.”

“Commuted sentences,” her dad said. “So now we’re out. What do you have going here exactly, Bix?”

“I said, I work here. I’m brewing beer.”

“You got a spot for your old man?”

The very idea of bringing them into this life, this place, made her want to peel her skin off.