“I’m starving.” He moved past me and helped himself inside my house, having a slight stumble and a slur to his words.
I shut the door and followed him into the kitchen.
“You got anything to eat?”
“You walked all the way here?”
“I can’t drive,” he said as he looked in my fridge. “Too drunk.”
“How can you still be drunk?”
He poked his head inside. “Is that chicken?”
“How are you still drunk?” I repeated.
He reached for the casserole dish, and it slipped in his hands and almost fell to the floor.
“Jesus Christ.” I grabbed it before it dropped and shattered all over the floor. “Sit at the table, and I’ll make it.”
“Thanks, man.” He headed to the dining table and sat down in the chair that Wolfe usually occupied. He slumped forward, his face resting in his palm, and groaned.
I scooped everything onto a plate and then microwaved it for a couple minutes. In the meantime, I served him a big glass of water. “Are you going to answer my question?”
“Hmm?” He reached for the water, almost knocked over the glass, and then took a drink.
“How are you still drunk?”
“Oh,” he said as he rubbed his eyes. “I felt like shit all day, so I thought if I drank again, it would make me feel better…but I think that backfired.”
“Yeah, I’d say so.”
The microwave beeped when the food was done, and I retrieved it and set it in front of him. “Need me to cut it up for you?”
He rolled his eyes then started to eat with his bare hands instead of using the fork and knife I provided. Food got all over his face and hands, but he continued, splashing sauce on his shirt. “I had no food at the house, and I was going to starve to death.”
“I can’t believe you walked here in the dark.”
“I know every inch of our lands like the back of my hand. Nothing happens here that I don’t know about.”
Did that include Wolfe’s Range Rover parked around the side of the house? “You’ve always been astute.”
“Yep.” He continued to eat like a fucking pig.
Leo was a decent guy and a good brother, so I should cut him some slack because he’d never done anything like this before. We all had our bad moments. “Dad’s mad at me.”
“Because you’ve been drunk for two days?”
“Says I need to eat where I shit and shit where I eat.”
“You meannotshit where you eat?”
“Something like that,” he said. “Said he doesn’t see me taking over because of it.”
“That’s a little harsh.”
“Says he wishes you were a man because you’d do a better job.”
My heart flushed with warmth, and then the guilt quickly swallowed it.
