Page 10 of Shaken and Stirred (Bottle Service Boys #1)

ALEX

Morning came too fast as it always did on the nights I worked.

Sunday tended to be my most and least favorite day of the week. I didn’t have to work at the club. I had time to focus on my school assignments, and if I played my cards right, sometimes I had a few hours to myself to do whatever the hell I wanted.

On the other hand, the day often fell apart despite my intentions to combine productivity and relaxation.

Last Sunday, my mother had a reaction to a new medication, and we spent nine hours in the emergency room giving her IV Benadryl.

The Sunday before, my brother didn’t come home from wherever he’d crashed Saturday night.

Mom was so distressed and worried that I’d spent much of the day driving to his favorite haunts, searching for him without success.

He’d strolled in at six in the evening, hungry and furious we had the audacity to ask him where he’d been.

Kenny turned eighteen almost a year ago, and since then, he’d been a nightmare.

To be fair, he’d been a nightmare since his first day as a teenager, but now that he was an ‘adult,’ his challenging nature had grown exponentially.

He felt he no longer owed us explanations for his actions, could do whatever the hell he wanted, and was now a ‘real man,’ one who didn’t have a job—well, not a legal one.

I was pretty sure he started selling drugs.

He didn’t own a car, didn’t contribute to a bill, and didn’t do a damn thing to help take care of our medically complicated mother.

So, I didn’t have high hopes for relaxation when I woke up Sunday morning. Typically, I hopped right out of bed the second I woke up, but today, I lingered. If I remained tucked away in my room, under my covers, I could avoid reality for a few minutes longer.

At least I had one thing going for me—there was no way Ryder would apply for a job at Top Shelf.

He’d wake up hungover and unhappy and either puke when he remembered offering to get a job with the ordinary people, or he’d forget the entire thing.

If that was the best thing that happened to me today, I could consider the day a net positive.

A soft knock on the door had me suppressing a groan.

There went my avoidance of reality. “One sec,” I called out as I tossed my covers to the side.

I kicked my legs over the edge, letting the momentum drag my upper body into a sitting position as I reached for the cup of water on my thrifted nightstand.

Then I grabbed a pair of black sweats from the foot of my bed.

Sleeping naked wasn’t my thing, but I couldn’t stand going to bed in anything more than my boxer briefs.

Once my bottom half was covered so I wouldn’t scare my poor mom, I opened the door to find her sitting in her wheelchair in the hallway.

“Morning, Ma. You okay?”

“Yes, honey, I’m fine.” No matter how bad things got, and with her progressive multiple sclerosis, they could get bad, she always answered with those exact four words.

She carried a truckload of guilt on her shoulders for being unable to work or fully care for herself and felt like a constant burden, no matter how many times I assured her she wasn’t.

Maybe always telling me she was fine was her way of alleviating her conscience.

If she could convince herself she was okay, it could be true.

We never discussed it beyond her apologizing for burdening me and my refutation of the claim.

Neither of us were skilled at delving into our feelings and discussing them.

Perhaps it had something to do with growing up without a father and a mother who had to spend most of her energy on simply getting through the day.

Or perhaps we had a genetic deficiency—a missing piece of the puzzle that didn’t allow us to share our emotions.

Ugh, even thinking about it gave me the ick.

“So what’s up? Need some help getting breakfast?”

“No, I’m not hungry yet.”

I frowned. One of her newer medications killed her appetite. She’d already lost ten pounds over the last month. I’d have to talk to her doctor about it because she didn’t have extra to spare.

“Your brother is sleeping on the couch.”

“Okay…” I tilted my head. “At least he came home, right? Why don’t you wake his ass up and tell him to move to his bed?”

“Well, because he’s completely naked.”

Of course he was.

She leaned closer. “And he’s not alone,” she whispered.

I froze. “Excuse me?”

“There’s some woman with him.”

Oh, hell no.

“And there is… stuff on the coffee table.”

Stuff? Christ, if I had to see his congealed spunk where I liked to eat my dinner, I’d fucking castrate him.

“I didn’t want to wake him up and embarrass him. What should we do?”

Embarrass him? I snorted like a bull about to charge. Embarrassment was the least of what I planned to do to his disrespectful ass.

My mom’s eyes, the same shape and color as mine, practically overflowed with anxiety.

Why? Why did she treat Kenny with kid gloves, like he was a cute, helpless puppy instead of a man old enough to go to war?

Why had I never received the same blasé treatment?

I loved my mother with all my heart but didn’t understand her.

The only thing I could think was that she went so easy on Kenny because she carried extra guilt over becoming sick when he was so young.

At least I had a decade with a healthy mother.

I could remember the effort she put into Christmas morning, the way she loved to bake us homemade chocolate chip cookies, and how she never missed an event at school.

Kenny never even had that much, and what he did have, he’d been too young to recall.

To make up for it, she allowed him to do whatever the hell he wanted, leaving me to be the bad guy.

I tried to exhale my fury but only managed to bring it down to severe annoyance. “I’ll take care of it, Mom. Why don’t you go get ready for church?” I didn’t attend, but a neighbor always accompanied Mom to Mass every Sunday.

Her gaze shifted toward our living room. “All right, but try not to make him feel bad.”

Heaven forbid he feel a moment of remorse for his actions.

She patted my hand. “We all make mistakes.”

“Some more than others,” I muttered.

“What’s that, honey?”

“Nothing.” I grabbed the handles of her wheelchair and rolled her to her room. “You just worry about what you’re going to wear to church, okay? And holler for me if you need some help.”

“You’re such a good boy, Alex. Thank you.”

“Sure, Mom.” I kept my lips curled upward until I shut the door behind me.

Then the smile flipped. This bullshit ended today.

I spun toward the mouth of the hallway, bumping my shoulder against the white stucco wall.

Why on earth would anyone ever put a wall with hard, pointy lumps in a house?

That damn stucco had been responsible for dozens of injuries throughout my childhood.

I still had a scar on my elbow from where I’d busted the skin open when I was nine, so I knew how the spurs would dig into my palm as I pressed it against the wall as hard as possible to release some frustrated energy, but I did it anyway.

It was either that or punch a hole through the wall, and that would not only alert my mom to my anger but also destroy my knuckles.

Not something I had time for. I couldn’t carry trays of alcohol all night with bruised and bloodied hands.

As the pain registered in my palm, I blew out a breath.

It didn’t work. I still wanted to murder Kenny.

My pounding footsteps down the hall would have woken the dead, but when I reached the living room, there slept Kenny prone on the couch with his pale ass on full display.

“Lovely,” I muttered. A second later, I noticed the sleeping female curled up on one end of the couch.

Thankfully, whoever she was, she had a blanket over her because the bare shoulder peeking out didn’t lead me to believe she wore clothes either.

Waking Kenny would suck. Dread filled my gut. Who wanted to start their Sunday with an epic battle? As I bent to retrieve a tattered sofa pillow to whack my brother, I caught sight of something on the coffee table. Mom’s warning about stuff came back to me.

I shut my eyes and then rubbed my fingertips back and forth above my eyebrows where the ache was brewing. Please don’t let that be what it is. Despite my earlier thoughts, Kenny’s congealed jizz would have been preferable.

When I opened my eyes, my stomach plummeted, and my shoulders sagged.

Still there—a burned spoon, lighter, and a length of rubber tubing. The scene was right out of every cop drama ever aired. Cliché and accurate.

Every inch of my skin flashed hot and prickly. I snatched the pillow off the floor and brought it down on Kenny’s head as hard as I could. “Wake the fuck up, you selfish shit.” I hit him again. And again.

“Jesus, what the fuck?” The slurred words were heavy with sleep and remnants of a powerful high. “Alex? Ow! Stop fucking hitting me.”

I whaled on him again. “Doing this shit in Mom’s house? What the fuck is wrong with you?” As I lifted my arm to hit him again, he rolled over, giving me a prime view of his junk. “Oh, come on.” I tossed the pillow at him instead of hitting him. “Cover that shit up.”

“Hey, watch the goods.” The pillow landed on his crotch. “You sure you’re a gay dude? It shouldn’t bug you out this much to look at a dick.” He covered the offending appendage with the pillow as he shoved hair out of his face.

I grunted. “I just don’t wanna look at your pencil dick. Who’s your guest?”

“Huh?” He blinked up at me from flat on his back.

“Your guest.” I pointed toward the end of the couch, where the girl was still sleeping. Knowing my luck, she’d overdosed and wouldn’t ever wake up.

Kenny struggled but eventually got himself sitting. Thankfully, he was kind enough to keep the pillow over his crotch. “Huh. Who is that?”

Seriously?

“You’re naked and asleep on the couch with a woman, and you have no idea who she is?”

He shrugged. “Some bitch I picked up last night, I guess.”

I smacked his bare shoulder so hard he yelped.

“Ow, what’s that for?” he asked, rubbing his upper arm.

“Don’t be fucking disrespectful. Since when do you call women bitches?”

“She can’t hear me. She’s fucking sleeping.”

“Kenny…” I pinched the bridge of my nose as I tried to control my breathing.

“Oh my God, you’re so annoying.” He shrugged, then let out a loud belch. “I’ll get rid of her.”

I sighed as the muscles in my neck knotted until they practically cramped.

Kenny hadn’t always been like this. A few years ago, he’d been the damn golden boy of Carson High School.

Somehow, despite our mother’s neurological disease, no fatherly influence, and my complete inability to catch anything smaller than a beach ball, Kenny excelled at sports, baseball in particular.

He’d made the varsity team in ninth grade, the first to do so in two decades, according to the athletic director, and ended up team MVP.

College scouts were already talking about him during his sophomore year.

He’d been going places.

Then, one gorgeous, sunny, warm morning of his junior year, the kind of day Massachusetts rarely had in early spring, he flipped over his handlebars riding his bike to school.

It was a freak accident that left him with a shattered tibia and ruined dreams. He’d been coasting downhill at a crazy rate of speed, the way only a cocky high schooler could, when a damn black cat ran out in front of him.

On instinct, Kenny squeezed his brakes, bringing his bicycle to a jarring halt.

Unfortunately, the momentum of the abrupt stop sent him sailing over the handlebars.

Since that day, Kenny had been on a downward trajectory full of apathy, self-pity, and drugs. His body healed, though not well enough for college-level baseball, but he’d never been able to pull himself out of the black hole of despair that losing baseball tossed him in.

“Can you get rid of that shit too?” I pointed to the table where he had his drug paraphernalia scattered around. “Then, when you’re done, you owe Mom an apology. She’s the one who found you, her, and this shit,” I said as I pointed to his paraphernalia.

Kenny paled, and instead of feeling guilty for rubbing his bad choices in his face, triumph surged through me.

If the thought of disappointing our mom caused that reaction, some of the old Kenny must be hiding in the shell of my brother.

It didn’t take more than a second, though.

He sniffed and rolled his shoulders as his fuck-the-world mask fell back into place.

“Screw you. Stop trying to be my fucking father. I’m an adult, Alex. I don’t gotta do shit you say.”

I couldn’t help laughing. “An adult. Right. An adult with no job, no education, and no prospects, who’s living in his mom’s house rent-free while disrespecting her every chance he gets.

You’re one goddamn bump away from an arrest or a hospital stay.

Good luck paying for that shit with no insurance. ”

My voice rose to a shout. The girl on the couch groaned and shifted.

“Too loud, baby. ’M tryna sleep.” A rat’s nest of dark hair covered her face, but I’d guess she was pretty.

Kenny always reeled in beautiful girls with his charm and good looks.

Apparently, willingness to share heroin didn’t hurt among his preferred crowd.

“Baby?” I mouthed.

Kenny shrugged.

This was not how I wanted to spend any part of my time. “Get rid of her,” I said in a harsh whisper. “And get rid of this shit. You’ve got five minutes.”

Kenny snorted.

“I’m serious, Ken.”

“Yeah, yeah, unwad your panties, bro.” He waved a hand in my direction without looking at me.

Enough of this shit. If I didn’t leave, I’d burst a blood vessel in my brain and stroke out. I threw my hands in the air and marched out of the living room. What a shitty start to what was supposed to be my one day of quasi-freedom.

At least I still had one thing going for me. There was no way in hell Ryder would be getting a job at Top Shelf.