My Cone and Only (King Family #1) - Susannah Nix Page 0,20
take off. It squatted on forty acres of land on the outskirts of town that featured a pond, fishing pier, horse barn, greenhouse, gazebo, and swimming pool.
Tanner parked behind our brother Ryan’s big silver truck on the circular drive out front, and we both trudged inside. Neither of us were overflowing with good memories from those days, so it wasn’t our favorite place to spend time.
Our stepmother Heather had a mimosa bar set up in the kitchen, but I bypassed it and headed straight to the fridge for a beer. Winking at my little sister, Riley, who was helping her mom set up the buffet, I wandered out to the patio and collapsed into a lounge chair next to Ryan. We were having a rare bout of perfect spring weather, but I wasn’t in any mood to appreciate it.
“You look like shit,” he told me, arching a ginger eyebrow. Ryan was nine years older than me, the same age as Manny, and my half-brother by my mother—the stepson my dad had inherited when he married my mom.
I held up my middle finger as I chugged half my beer, and Ryan laughed.
“I sure as hell hope the other guy looks worse than you.”
“Probably not,” I admitted. “I was kind of drunk.”
“I know I taught you better than that.”
Ryan was a burly, mountain of a dude with forearms as big as my biceps and our mom’s red hair. He’d been the one who first taught me how to make a fist, how to throw a punch, and—most importantly—how to evade one. I hadn’t exactly done him proud last night.
“Too bad you weren’t at the Palace last night,” I said. “It would have been nice to watch you wipe the floor with him.”
“I’m too old to go around getting into fights. Besides, I was working last night. A drunk flipped his car on 71 and caused a three-car pileup.” Ryan was a fireman, but he spent more time using the jaws of life to cut people out of crumpled cars on the highway than he did putting out fires.
“Did everybody make it?”
“Everybody but the drunk.” His eyebrow arched again as he directed a pointed look at the beer in my hand.
I might be an irresponsible, hard-partying slacker, but I didn’t fuck around with drunk driving. “I didn’t drive here,” I told him. “And I didn’t drive last night either.”
“Good.” Ryan lifted a meaty paw to give my head a rough swipe. “I really don’t ever want to have to scrape you off the asphalt.”
“Chow’s on!” Heather called out, ringing the loud-ass fucking dinner bell Dad had mounted next to the patio doors. It went with the nouveau-riche dude ranch aesthetic of the house, and it made my head throb.
I pushed myself to my feet and followed Ryan to the buffet, where I piled my plate high with migas, bacon, sausage, and tortillas. Heather’s housekeeper was a damn good cook, and I managed to snag a seat at the opposite end of the table from Nate and Dad, which made the meal itself pretty enjoyable. I stuffed my face while Cody, my youngest brother, told me about the college courses he was taking this semester at Bowman, the local university where he was a freshman. Riley was directly across from me, doing that bored, sullen teenager thing, and I amused myself by making dumb faces until I got a laugh out of her.
Sometimes hanging out with my family wasn’t half bad. I should have known it couldn’t last though. After the meal, when we were all milling around again, Dad came and found me.
“Let’s you and me talk,” he said, jerking his head toward his office.
A sense of impending doom obliterated all the pleasant feelings I’d managed to build over the last hour. I followed Dad into his office, and he nodded at me to shut the door.
“Nice shiner,” he said, not bothering to sit down. Apparently this wasn’t going to be a long conversation. “The shirt’s a cute touch too.”
“Laundry day.” I offered a casual shrug to show I wasn’t intimidated by his disapproval. “You know how it is.”
As usual, Dad wasn’t amused by my quip. His expression hardened as he advanced a step toward me. “I know you don’t give a shit about anyone but yourself, but a lot of people worked their asses off to make today happen. Especially your sister Josie. Showing up today looking like a frat boy on the wrong side of a spring break bender is the