Page 25 of The Brave and the Reckless (Bravetown #1)

KIT HOLLIDAY

SHERIFF OF brAVETOWN

Kit Holliday is the heroic sheriff of our small town. He keeps the peace and protects the citizens from outlaws. If you keep an eye out for his white hat and shiny gold badge, you might spot him on his daily patrol.

E SRA

My head buzzed. Usually it pounded more like a marching band the morning after getting drunk, but today it buzzed like a vibrator on one of those Morse code settings. Ugh. I tried to pull my pillow over my face to muffle the sensation, but it was stuck.

“Shit, sorry, hold on,” someone said. “She’s right here.”

“Hmm? What?” I turned, only to find Lucas lying next to me. His eyes were half-closed but he slapped my phone up against my ear.

“Esra? Who is that man?” Mom shrieked.

Oh. My. God.

“Hold on,” I croaked into the phone as pure adrenaline surged through me. I hit the mute button and whirled on Lucas. “Why the fuck are you answering my phone? ”

“Sorry. Thought it was mine. Reflex,” he mumbled, totally unfazed.

“Get out.” I pushed my hands into the mattress and shoved against his stupid long body with both feet. Lucas slid off the mattress, dropping to the floor like a sack of flour. “Get the fuck out. Where do you get off?”

“I didn’t? What?”

Who the hell answered someone else’s phone? Especially when the caller ID very clearly showed a picture of my mother. I barely let him get to his feet before I shoved him forward and out of the room. For good measure, I slammed the door shut.

Idiot.

My right knee buckled as I turned for my bed again.

Fuck. I’d been too surprised to pay attention to how I was moving.

I had a tendency to over-bend that knee outwards and the misstep from yesterday’s show had clearly left its mark.

I limped back to bed and collapsed on to the mattress.

The marching band behind my temples started its hungover drum roll.

What a shit show of a morning. At least talking to my mother couldn’t make it any more painful.

I grabbed the phone, took a deep breath and unmuted myself. “Mom?”

“Esra, why is there a strange man answering your phone in the morning? I thought you were with your brother.”

Lucas and I had fallen asleep watching some old Western that I didn’t even really remember. Not that my mother would believe me if I told her as much. “Do you really expect me to answer that?”

“Yes, I want answers. This is the first time I get to talk to my only daughter in weeks and then it’s a stranger’s voice I hear. Where are you? Did you abandon your brother already, just like you abandoned us?”

Wow, we were heavy on the guilt-tripping this morning, and I was too hungover and aching to placate her. “First of all, I didn’t abandon you. You cut me off. Second of all, the fact that Sanny and I share the same employer doesn’t prohibit me from spending the night with whoever the fuck I want.”

“You will not speak to me like that, Esra. Where are your manners?”

“Lost them in Virginia along with the rest of my propriety.” There was a joke in there about virgins, but I was too frazzled to come up with it.

“Well, I hope you can go back and find them.”

“Huh?” That was a way calmer response than I’d anticipated.

Mom took a deep breath. “Your father has been talking to an old friend of his from college, Rodney Andrews. You might remember him. His family invited us to the Vineyard that one Fourth of July when you were eight. You dislocated your shoulder when you played with Rodney Junior on their boat even though I told you not to get on the pier because it was slippery, but did you listen? Your father spent that night in the ER with you instead of watching the fireworks with his old friend. They invited us again the next year, but I felt so bad for ruining the mood of the entire party and disrupting their plans, we couldn’t possibly accept. ”

“Sure, Mom,” I sighed. I vividly remembered Rodney Junior trying to shove me off the boat and feed me to the sharks that he’d sworn were circling in the waters.

And I remembered Dad handing me off at the hospital and how I’d watched the fireworks through a window with a nurse, getting two cups of red Jell-O.

All of which Mom was perfectly aware of.

It wasn’t useful to the narrative she was trying to spin right now though, so it’d be a waste of time to remind her.

“Right, so Rodney is vice president of the public health department at Yale, and he thinks you have a perfectly good chance at starting next semester. It’s not medicine, but you can transfer your credits toward a grad degree.

You’re close enough to home if there’s an emergency, but far enough away from us for you to have your freedom. There you go.”

There you go?

Like she’d done me a goddamn favor by putting me right back where I’d started?

More libraries and lectures? And then what?

Work as a consultant for big pharma? I hadn’t gotten into medicine because I thought the healthcare system was so goddamn fascinating, or because I had a massive interest in medical research.

I’d worked my ass off for med school because I’d spent the Fourth of July with a nurse; because the doctor at the pediatric ward gave me a big stuffed unicorn for my sixth birthday; because my physical therapist had helped me laugh about silly sex injuries after my first time had gone horribly wrong and I’d felt like I’d never have a single normal experience in my life. They’d wanted me to be happy, not safe.

Medicine had been a personal choice for me.

It had been a safe choice for my parents.

There you go? Go where ?

“Mom, I’m too hungover for this. Just send me a link to the program or something.”

“Esra Selenay Taner!” Her voice hitched an octave higher, and I could vividly imagine the nervous spasm in her eyebrow. I knew I’d hit a nerve because she continued in Turkish. “You should not be drinking alcohol. What are you thinking?”

“I’m not. That’s the whole point,” I replied in English.

“Your body—”

“Gotta go. Bye Mom.” I hung up before she could ramp up to another lecture.

My notifications showed a missed message from Sinan from just a minute ago. I doubted he’d texted because he’d known Mom was going to call me. She called twice almost every day. I just let it go to voicemail.

Sinan: You good?

Esra: If Mom calls you, don’t pick up.

Sinan: That bad?

Esra: She used my middle name.

Sinan: At least you two talked.

I bit my lip, debating what to text back, until I eventually just closed the chat.

As much as I loved Sanny, he’d never fully get it.

Our parents had always given him more freedom.

It wasn’t because he was older, since I never aged out of their control.

Not even because of my health, since he’d had just as many liberties after the accident that caused his hearing loss, if not more.

The only thing they’d ever expected from him was to look after me. Because I was his sister . A girl , in need of being kept safe .

I was fully aware that I was only at Bravetown because Sanny was still looking after me, but at least Sanny’s version of that was text messages containing five words or less.

He hadn’t even tried to stop me from getting drunk last night. Every goddamn celebration at home, every dinner, everyone around me got champagne flutes and wine, and I was handed juice. For what it was worth, Sanny somewhat understood that I was tired of being handled with kid gloves.

I spent the rest of the day feeling like death incarnate.

I took some aspirin but they just reminded me that Noah had thrown me over his shoulder and carried me home last night, and I hadn’t made up my mind yet whether that was brutish but thoughtful, or just another instance of him being an asshole control freak.

Then thinking about Noah carrying me like I weighed nothing made me think of Ace Ryer and the videos I’d been forcing myself to ignore.

And since my mood was already in the dumpster, I started scrolling through socials for the first time in a week.

Every comment made me hike the blanket higher. There were whole video essays dissecting the difference between me and the previous Annie Lou. And they all agreed that I wasn’t an improvement.

I only made it out of bed because Adriana lured me to the saloon with promises of free nuggets.

Dino nuggets were good– but nuggets shaped like cowboy boots, hats and sheriff stars were on a whole different level.

I was six or seven pieces deep when Lucas climbed on to the barstool next to me.

While the saloon was busy, our designated staff area wasn’t, so he didn’t choose that seat out of necessity .

I sighed and pushed my plate a little toward him, hoping that would be enough of a peace offering.

Lucas was kind of like a puppy. Lively and cute, but also a bit clueless.

“Sorry about this morning,” he mumbled, taking one of the star-shaped nuggets and dipping it in ketchup.

“Me too,” I said, and offered him a smile.

“This morning?” Adriana asked from the other side of the bar, where she’d been polishing the same three glasses in rotation for the last twenty minutes. She raised her brows and shimmied her shoulders. “All the juicy details, please.”

“I accidentally answered her phone when her mom called, so she kicked me out of bed. Literally kicked me. I have bruises.” He lifted his shirt, but there was zero bruising. In fact, he lifted it in a way that showed his abs more than the side of his ribcage where I’d shoved my feet.

“We fell asleep watching a movie,” I clarified, rolling my eyes at him, “which is all you’ll ever do in my bed, so put your clothes back on.”

He grinned and ran a hand provocatively down his stomach.

Adriana and I both made gagging sounds at the exact same time, only to then break out in laughter. Lucas grimaced and took another one of my nuggets, poking his tongue out at us.

“You need a real girlfriend,” Adriana said and filled one of the glasses with water.

“I’m trying,” Lucas whined.

“Sleeping with a girl doesn’t make her your girlfriend,” she said and put the water down on the short side of the counter, alongside a bottle of beer, without breaking eye contact with Lucas.

It took me a moment to realize Noah had just stepped up to the bar.

He took the drinks without a word, then sat down with Sinan in the furthest booth.

I’d come to realize that Sanny always preferred that booth because it was the quietest, so the noise from the saloon didn’t interfere with his conversations too much.

They both had dried flecks of white paint all over their hair and hands.

I hadn’t been to Sanny’s apartment yet, but I knew he’d moved into Zuri’s rental, so I doubted they’d been painting anything over there.

And paintball seemed way too much frivolous fun for Noah.

I considered going over there for a moment, but my knee was still being a jerk, and I didn’t want Sanny seeing me limp around.

“Some Bravetown superfan sliding into your DMs isn’t girlfriend material,” Adriana replied to whatever Lucas had just said.

“Isn’t there anyone in town you actually like? Maybe someone else who works in the park? Vivi? Heather? Morgan?” I asked, jumping back on the conversation.

“Nah.” Lucas shook his head. “I’ve known everyone here my entire life. You just kinda know when there’s no one in the mix for you. Maybe I should pull an Adriana. Maybe I’ll meet someone on the road.”

“Oh yeah? Learned to hold a note yet?” Adriana laughed and popped her hip out.

“No,” he huffed.

“Wait. I didn’t fall off the horse all week. You owe me answers.” I pointed my chicken nugget at Adriana. “What does he mean by pulling an Adriana ? ”

“Phone.” She held her hand out.

I pulled it from my pocket and unlocked it for her. Within a few swipes, she had Spotify open.

Adriana winked at me from an album cover that was fifty per cent her wild honey curls and fifty per cent her freckles and big smile.

Adriana Banks – Now/Here.

“I was nineteen when I was ‘discovered’ by some big-shot producer in Nashville,” she said, “so I packed my bags, recorded an album and went on tour to open for Brooks Monroe. I was living the dream for a few years.”

“Holy shit.” I didn’t even listen to country but even I had heard of Brooks Monroe. He was old school. Pretty sure my dad had played his Christmas album on repeat every December for the last ten years, though we hadn’t even celebrated Christmas before Sinan had brought Zuri home three years ago.

“Yeah,” she sighed, “but then you refuse to take a private meeting with some asshole in a suit one too many times, your record label drops you, and you remain a one-hit wonder.”

“I’m sorry. That sounds awful.” I dragged my eyes from her to Lucas, who was very busy arranging the nuggets on my plate into categories. “But then why are people so shitty around you? They act like you poisoned the well or something.”

Adriana bent over the bar and tapped a polished fingernail against the album cover.

“Twelve songs about how I couldn’t wait to get out of Wild Fields, about how stifling small-town life is, how the boys have no ambitions beyond drinking beer and driving their daddy’s truck– sorry, Lucas– how I didn’t want to be stuck here and pop out two kids, bake pie and go on a family holiday once a year. ”

“Oh.”

“Yup.” She shrugged. “Anyway. To get back to the point, Lucas, I didn’t find a boyfriend out on the road either. So your options pretty much suck anywhere. Sorry.”

“Well, this just got way too depressing. I wanted to have a fun, flirty, fearless summer. So I’m not going to be girlfriend material for you.” I pointed at Lucas. “But I will be your fun friend. I will get drunk and watch bad Western movies with you when you need to.”

“I’ll bring the ice cream if there’s room in your bed for a third person.” Adriana grinned.

“I’m declaring my bed a frivolous fun zone from now on. All platonic fun will happen on the sofa.”

“Not to burst your bubble, but sofas are much more fun than beds if we’re being technical about it,” she said. “Like you might want to switch your sex and friend spaces around.”

“I’m not having sex on the sofa in a shared living space,” I hissed.

“Everyone else is,” Lucas threw in, “you just have to time it right.”

“What?” I gaped.

Both him and Adriana shrugged as if that wasn’t completely insane.

“Ew.” I didn’t even want to think about who might have done what in the living room, let alone discuss it further, so I just dunked a nugget in ketchup and stuffed the whole thing in my mouth.