Chapter 1
Chet
There aren’t many places to go in Summer Ridge on a good day, even less on a Wednesday night when most people are at home with their families. I used to have a family. There were five of us. The town labeled us the Whiskey Brothers years ago, and it stuck. I grew up a Whiskey Brother, and I always imagined I’d die a Whiskey Brother after passing the legacy on to my children.
The hot bartender, with her flowing blonde hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, slams down a glass on the wooden bar counter. The place is quiet tonight, but her anger matches my sadness, making the small bar full of static and energy.
Wednesday nights were always beer and video game night. While the brothers and I served, we always came together on Wednesdays to play some Xbox and drink a cold one before putting our lives on the line again the next day.
Now, the rest of the brothers are out living their lives with women attached to their hips. They are repainting bedrooms, having a home-cooked meal, and various other ridiculous bunches of excuses on why no one is at my favorite bar drinking with me on this humid Wednesday evening.
Another glass gets tossed into the small bar sink with a curse as Bea uses the back of her hand to wipe at her eyebrow. Whatever is causing the normally bubbly bartender to be more irritated than me can’t be good.
With each of my brothers dropping like flies, I’m the last one left, and it’s looking more and more like I’ll be alone until eternity. It’s not that I’m unhappy for them, I love seeing these my brothers wrapped up in their own excitement — there’s even a baby along the way — I just always assumed that as we moved into each stage of our lives, we would do it together.
Tonight, I’m the only one left to stare at my favorite blonde bartender. At least watching the way her ass and hips move back and forth as she scurries from one end of the bar to the other is enough to keep my fantasies alive and well. There are some parts of me that work as well as they always have, even if they aren’t used as much anymore.
“Fucking bullshit,” Bea mutters while wiping down the other end of the bar.
For some reason, her anger makes me smile. “Rough night, beautiful?”
Her head tilts up, and her eyes widen as if she’s realized I’m still here. “There’s only so much a woman can take before she just loses her mind, you know?”
I nod once, fairly certain I heard my mother say the same thing many times while I was growing up. I’ve spent practically every night in this bar for the last three months. It’s become a comfort place. I know more about Beatrice Butters’ thoughts on the human population, whether we should be saving the whales, and if pineapple is a pizza topping, than I do most of my best friends. There are even more things I don’t know. Like her favorite color, least favorite sport, and whether she wants kids.
“Bea, but your favorite color?”
Not that I might want kids or want to have kids with the beautiful blonde bartender. I’m the least lovable Whiskey Brother, so kids probably aren’t in my future.
She turns her attention from the sink, her eyes narrowed as if she’s preparing for a deeper question. “Orange probably. I used to like them all, but what good has yellow ever done for me?”
Definitely in a crabby mood.
After spending so many nights here, Bea already knows I don’t have a life. She probably thinks I was also a drunk, but I only drink one beer and then switch to water or Coke for the rest of the night. But what kind of normal person has the time to sit around in a bar this much without getting paid for it?
Not only do my brothers have newly formed families they’re working on making now, but all of them have actual families. Not me. At the age of four, my grandfather adopted me and brought to live in Summer Ridge after the courts deemed my mother and father unable to care for me any longer. Gramps was the only family I knew from that point on until I left for the military. He died with only one year left on my service record. With him gone, and the brothers leaving, I really am all alone.
Bea turns sharply, and her elbow knocks a glass into the sink. It hits hard and then rolls to the side. She grinds her teeth together and stares at it as if her eyes alone can shatter the unbroken glass. “Mother fucking piece of shit.”
“Well, beautiful, what’s got you so upset you’re taking it out on the glassware?”
She sighs, shaking her head back and forth and leaning a hip on the counter. “I don’t think that’s the way this relationship works, Chet. Pretty sure it’s the bartender that’s supposed to be the therapist.”
“What we’ll swap tasks tonight, and you can leave me the tip,” I say with a smile, hoping she gets the joke.
One side of her lips tips higher, letting me see she does, but her happiness is quickly fleeting. “Your nightly hundred-dollar tips are sometimes the only thing keeping me afloat. That and the bikers, but they do more damage than they’re worth sometimes.”
Those damn bikers. Pike made an agreement with them, so I can’t do any mortal damage, but I won’t let them upset my favorite bartender. “Those bikers give you any trouble, you let me know.”
The rolls her eyes. “Sure, sure. Except they pay and drink a lot of liquor. I can’t expect everyone that comes into the bar to be a Coke man like you,” she says with a quick smile.
“While I’m all out of personal drama for tonight, so pour yourself a drink, tell me your problems, and let’s keep this one between you and me.”
She thinks that over, sticking a piece of her hair behind her ear and obviously considering her choices. In a victory heard nowhere except this tiny bar, she finally relents, her eyes sweeping the place one last time to make sure we really are alone. Satisfied it’s her, me, and the overall smell of old wood and vodka, Bea gives in.
“It’s my family. Aren’t relatives the absolute worst?”
“They are,” I agree with her. Tonight is about her problems, not my own or lack thereof. “What’s yours got you doing this time?”
Last month her brother asked her to drive all the way to Houston to help him pick out a new apartment, but by the time she got there he’d already signed a lease not only for himself, but his new flavor of the month. Some city girl who decided she wanted to see what it was like to live in Texas except she couldn’t make it on a ranch, so she hightailed it to the city as fast possible, hooked up with the first man who looked like a cowboy.
Bea pours herself a shot of whiskey before turning back to our conversation. “Every Labor Day weekend, my family hostess a big party where they invite everyone. They say it’s an opportunity for the family to get together with friends, but all it’s really just a chance for them to show off how much money they made this year and how well their children are doing.”
“I see,” and I do. There’s one thing about Bea that she hasn’t told me, but I found out on my own.
Bea’s real name is Beatrice Butters. Not the best name to be saddled with as a kid. Unless that is you live in Summer Ridge. The Butters family goes back for centuries, and they are full of butter. Dairy farmers who have been raking in the cash for centuries. Next to the Whiskey Brothers, they are the richest people in the area. They’ve even hosted the Bush family on more than one occasion.
“There are some things I haven’t told you about my family,” she says, looking ashamed.
I don’t have any plans to tell her that after the few run-ins we’ve had in town I ran a background search and found out everything I needed to know about the mysterious twenty-something-year-old whose family sent her to boarding school at the age of ten. “Bea, I already know you are. Your family is kind of…”
“Loud,” she supplies for me.
Her assessment makes me smile. “That’ll do.”
There is always a Butters family member complaining about something somewhere. The town’s too loud, the one pothole on Main Street, or the occasional complain about a servant here or there. A few of the Whiskey Brothers are rich, but I can’t imagine what it’s like to grow up around servants. I understand why Beatrice does her best to hide out from the town in this dark little bar. Judgment can be strong in a small town, and I’m sure no one expected her to turn out the way she did.
Bea’s amazing if you ask me. She’s a real woman, working hard, swinging whiskey and dealing with a man three times her size every night while holding her own. Better than any of the stuffy Butters family members I’ve seen trolling through town acting like their shoes are too good to walk our sidewalks.
“So, what’s the Butters family up to now?”
“The party is this weekend, and once again I don’t have a date, so I’ll be the youngest Butters daughter to attend who is not married and doesn’t have a respectable job. Double embarrassment whammy.”
“You’re a small business owner. There’s nothing more respectable than that in this country.” Not only does she sling whiskey here every single night of the week, but she owns this little dive bar in the middle of town.
She doesn’t seem to agree with my assessment. “When I used my inheritance to buy this place, my family cut me off, and I was fine with it. But now they want to pretend we’re one big happy Partridge family. They’re expecting my present at the barbecue.”
“So you go to this party, eat some little wieners and then go home. Don’t let them change who you are.”
“Yeah, it sounds that easy, but if I don’t bring a date, my mother will be lining them up for me throughout the party. Suitable men, as she calls them.”
“Men not like me, you mean.”
Bea laughs, the sound light and airy but knowing. “Basically. And you might know about me, Chet Coopers, but I’ve learned things about you too. Everyone knows the Whiskey Brothers came back loaded. Nothing ticks my family off more than knowing they’ve lost their only rich people standing in this town.”
I laugh, that would be a reason for someone in her family to get upset. There are six more men in this town with more money than they have altogether. Not that any of the brothers has an interest in working our way into the world of dairy farming.
“I just want to find a date for this party, but it needs to be somebody believable. I’ve been thinking about taking a girlfriend and telling them I’ve become a lesbian, but my cousin did that a few years ago for real, so most of the shock has worn off. She had a great time with it, and they got married last May. I need something new.”
An ideal forms quickly, one I like the idea of more and more. “You should take me.”
“You?” If I’m not mistaken, a slight blush colors her cheeks.
“It’s perfect. Bringing a Whiskey Brother to a family function as a date would cause all kinds of drama, but they can’t say that I don’t have the means to support you.”
Bea taps her chin as she thinks about it, and I settle into the idea that I’ll do whatever it takes to talk her into my plan. “This could work.”
I’ve never cared much about upsetting the Butters family, but spending an afternoon with Bea outside of this bar has my head full of ideas.