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“If you need anything, Travis, I’m here. Even if you just want to sit together in the quiet.” She drew a breath, staring out at the sprawling city, and said again, exhaling out a puff of breath in the cold, “I’m here.”
“I need a new dad,” Travis blurted. “I need to know my brothers are safe. I need to be able to see them whenever I want to. I need justice.” He paused. “And I need another beer.” He reached into the case beside him and wrenched one out. Cracked it open. Guzzled half.
The burp he let out echoed across the yard.
Jewels snickered. “That was disgusting.”
“Made you laugh, though.”
She nodded. Smiled. “Yeah. Yeah, you did.”
“I need…,” Travis continued, circling back to his former list of needed things, “to get so rip-roaring drunk that I forget I’m even alive.”
Her happy smile changed to a sad one. “Then go ahead and get rip-roaring drunk,” she said softly. “And I’ll be right here to make sure you don’t fall off the roof and break your neck like an idiot.” She inched her hand across the roof, but abruptly froze, tucking both hands between her thighs instead.
Travis lifted the beer in a toast. “To Jewels Delaney. My dream girl—” He swayed, nearly falling—
She grabbed onto his arm. “Whoa, easy there.” She huffed a nervous laugh. “I think you might already be rip-roaring drunk.”
“That’s one thing off my list. Next stop: Kill Don.”
Her attention snagged on something behind him. She patted his thigh, and the next thing Travis knew she was swinging her legs onto the roof and pushing herself to her feet. “I’ll be back in a few.”
“What about the whole making sure I don’t break my neck thing?” he called. “Sick of me already?”
But Jewels was already gone, and a different shadow with a heavier gait sat down beside him, swinging his boots over the edge.
“Give me a beer,” Malakai grumbled.
“What do you want?” Travis demanded, squinting at him through the haze of his drunken mind.
“A beer.” He beckoned with a curl of his fingers. “Give me one.”
Travis dug around in the case and shoved one into Malakai’s waiting hand, missing twice. “Is Jewels really gone,” Travis slurred, vision shimmering, “or am I so drunk that I can’t even tell the difference?”
Malakai cracked open his beer. “If you’re that far gone, then I pity you. The more you drink, the prettier people are supposed to get.”
“You’re right, I can’t be that drunk. You’re ugly as hell.”
Malakai paused mid-sip. “Watch it, or I’ll push your dumb ass off this roof and tell Jewels you fell to your drunken death.”
Travis was wasted enough to laugh at the threat.
The silence that fell afterward would’ve been really damn awkward if Travis was sober.
“I had a stepdad just like Don,” Malakai said out of the blue.
“That’s what Jewels was saying.”
“Shut up and let me tell my story.” Malakai sipped his beer. “He was a prick. A real big prick.”
Travis waited. Seconds turned into minutes. “Is that it?” he blurted.
“Yup.”
“I thought you said you had a story to tell.”
“That is my story. Once upon a time, I had a big prick for a stepdad. The end.”
