(which turned out to be Scotty's house) hadn't been my finest moment. But the spray paint on my hands and my skateboard had been pretty damning evidence when the cops caught up with me a few blocks away from the scene of the crime, so to speak.
But it had led me to Scotty, who'd seen my skateboarding skills in the neighborhood and offered to train me, teach me how to snowboard, if I was interested in working off my debt to society. Lucky for him, and me, I had.
"Scotty, love of my life, what would I do without you? When are you coming home again?"
“Next week.” He snorted. "And that is a sad commentary on your love life, which I know doesn't suffer."
I scratched the side of my face. "Actually, I think I've been in a rut. No one catches my interest these days."
"Bauer’s having a dry spell?" he gasped.
I flipped off my phone even though he couldn't see. "Very funny, old man."
"I think so." He cleared his throat. "First, I only say that because I know you're not as much of a manwhore as you like to pretend to be, and second, don't change the subject from Burton."
"What do you want me to say? I think it's a good idea to go talk to them, and you disagree."
"Just take a couple of days and cool off, Bauer. You're a hothead and say stupid shit when you're mad. Give it some time. You'd be amazed what you could accomplish if you just calm your ass down and try being nice to people instead. Schmooze instead of bulldoze."
"I'm hanging up now."
"Bauer," he warned.
I punched the button with a sigh, cranking up the volume on my music.
The Bluetooth in my Jeep interrupted almost immediately.
"Fricken Scotty," I said under my breath.
My thumb punched angrily at the button to answer the call. "Scotty, I'm not discussing this."
"Bauer?" a different voice responded.
I blinked down at the screen. Shit. Not Scotty. The caller ID proclaimed it loud and clear as my little brother.
Golden Boy, as I'd stored him in my phone.
"Finnegan," I greeted as formally as possible.
"I heard about your sponsor." He coughed. "Since you never answer texts, I figured I'd call and see if you'd answer."
My forehead creased at the sound of his voice. "You sound awful."
"I feel awful."
"Let's talk about you being sick then because I don't need to rehash losing my sponsor."
He sighed. "What happened?"
I shifted in my seat. "You saw the video, right?"
"I saw what was posted on Twitter, yeah."
"Well, then you know what happened."
Even to my own ears, I sounded like a grumpy asshole. It made it so much harder when Finn was being nice to me because then I actually felt bad. Adele treated me like trash because that was how she'd seen me for years, so I felt no guilt being rude to her. If anything, it brought me great joy to rile her up. But being mean to Finn was like ... punching a puppy for no reason. Anyone with a soul couldn't really stomach the thought of it.
"No, I saw the video clip," he said, pausing only to cough again, "but I know that's not always all of it."
Saint Finn. He sounded like Influenza's poster child of Yuck, and he was calling to check on his asshole brother.
I rubbed my forehead. "I wasn't the only one under the influence, and believe me, he did something to instigate my rant."
"Yeah, you used some combinations of the F word that I've never heard before."
"And Adele says you'll never learn anything from me," I pointed out.
He sniffled noisily, clearly not amused by my attempt at a joke.
"I'll be fine, Finn," I told him. "I'm on my way to Burton now. I'm going to try to fix it."
He was quiet. "You're on your way here?"
"Shit," I mouthed. "Yeah. I suppose I could've warned you before I showed up at the house later."
"They won't be home anyway."
"Why not?" I checked my blind spot and moved lanes.
"They've got a big fundraiser to attend tonight for some tennis player's charity."
My mind flipped through the mental Rolodex. "Ah, sure. I heard about that. One of my buddies was supposed to go with his agent, but he had to work."
When he hacked through the speaker again, I grimaced.
"I was supposed to go," he said. "But I need to call Lia and cancel."
"Why were you two going? That's not your usual scene."
"To help Mom and Dad. They still haven't secured the funding for the expansion they want.