Page 6 of Property of Whiskey

“With what?”

“Looking at me like that.” His fingers tighten once around his glass as his eyebrows raise a hair.

Heat climbs my neck. I tilt my head. “How am I looking at you?”

“Like you’re trying to figure out whether handcuffs would improve the situation.”

Daddy takes one step forward.

Whiskey sets his glass down and immediately raises both hands.

“Go,” Daddy says.

Whiskey pushes away from the bar. He passes close enough that the leather of his cut brushes my bare arm, leaving a brief trail of heat behind.

“See you around, Twister.” He glances back over his shoulder.

I watch him disappear into the crowd, hating the confidence in his walk almost as much as I hate myself for noticing it.

Daddy clears his throat.

I take another drink of water. “Don’t.”

“Nary a word.”

“You’re mean muggin’.”

“This is my regular face.”

“Constipated?”

“Watching a forty-year-old outlaw touch my unmarried daughter’s mouth?”

“I’m twenty-eight years old.”

“Still unmarried.”

Daddy bends, picks up an abandoned beer bottle with two fingers, and drops it into the nearest trash can like it’s contaminated.

I turn toward the hall leading to the locker room. “This conversation is why I wrestle.”

“You wrestle because you’re fixin’ to send me to an early grave, Twila Dawn.”

I laugh despite myself and push through the locker-room door.

The women’s changing area used to be some courthouse office and still feels like one if I ignore the smell. Somebody has shoved plywood benches against the walls beneath a row of dented lockers, and the two old mirrors over the sinks cast a green tint that makes everybody look mildly deceased.

The room smells like sweat, cheap body spray, and whatever menthol crap somebody rubbed into sore muscles after the last match.

Sheila sits on one bench with an ice pack pressed to her shoulder, still wearing half her makeup and all of the red vinyl. “Medics missing again.”

“They must’ve scheduled Cal.” I shrug. “You good?” I ask.

“You wrench that hold any harder next time, I’m filing a complaint.”

“With the sheriff?”

“With your daddy.”