Sugar and Ice - RJ Scott Page 0,1

my clothes, only… I was naked, no clothes, nothing, and was Josie in the room?

“Jo’eee cock.” I scrambled to cover myself but whoever was holding me up sniggered, and then slathered something that smelled of oranges all over me. I hoped to hell it was Logan; it sure sounded like Logan.

“She’s gone,” Logan reassured me. “It’s just you and me, Tot, and you stink.”

I opened the other eye, which wasn’t working, then realized I’d actually shut the first one, and I tried my hardest to open both, wanting to cry because this was my wedding day and I was in the shower with my brother who was supposed to be my best man, Logan. He was wiping sick and shit and holding me up, and Josie was out there probably crying or something that would break my heart, because she was my sister and she was everything to me.

“Love you,” I put all my attention into forming the words clearly, and they didn’t sound bad, echoing, and a little loud, but they made sense.

“Love you too, Tot, now wash your ass.”

I tried, I really did, but he had to hold me up, and I felt as legless as a newborn kitten. No, not legless, kittens had legs. Some didn’t, though. I felt tears push up past the bile thinking about all the lost and lonely kittens who didn’t have legs.

“Imma gonna ‘dopt legless kittens,” I managed.

“Okay, okay, come on, let’s get this soap off.”

“Gonna call Bob, he’ll get me legless kittens in a bucket…” That didn’t sound right. “No, bucket load.”

“Your agent is the best person to get you kittens,” Logan lied. I knew he was lying. He hated Bob. Said that Bob only stayed after the shit hit the fan in Dallas because of my money. Of course he did.

All people wanted from me was money.

Logan rinsed me off, and some of the water went into my mouth, and I needed that, warm water that quenched my thirst.

“Nomorebeer,” I managed.

“We got this.”

“Kittens though.”

“All the kittens, Tot, all of them.”

I wished my big brother wouldn’t call me Tot now that I was super-old, but then I wished he wasn’t holding me up in a shower, and I was glad of both at the same time. Somehow he got me out of the shower, and then wrapped me in fluffy, soft towels, and the caring and gentle words he used cut through my drinking pity party for one. I gripped his shirt, finally opening both eyes, nausea dragging at every cell of me, and looked at Logan. Emotion welled, maybe it was the kittens, or the love he showed me, or the way he called me Tot. Maybe it was because today was supposed to be the day I married Lacey, and I’d never loved her, and this was all my fault.

Whatever it was, my emotions began spilling in tears and curses and being sick again, only this time Josie stroked my head, Logan held me, and neither of them moved away. We ended up on the sofa, Logan forcing me to drink blue water with electrolytes, my favorite, and Josie stroking my head and telling me I’d be okay. Slowly, the stupid, self-pitying, emotional, life-ending tears subsided, and the cursing stopped, and the intense reaction to today’s date subsided one teeny tiny legless kitten at a time.

“I don’t understand what happened,” I said.

Logan sighed. “You see, Tot, the way this works is that you drink the alcohol, and your body—”

“I meant with Lacey. I know she’s had issues with her mental health, but I thought… I really thought that she loved me.”

“I know, Tot.”

“And I thought that I loved her.”

“Let’s get you to bed,” Logan murmured, and helped me stand.

Somehow he and Josie managed to get me to my room, which was bigger than our entire house had been when we were kids, and they helped me into my bed, with its billion thread count whatever, and the pillows that were as gentle and soft as clouds. The room was spinning, but I closed my eyes.

“There’s water here, Advil, and a bucket, and we’ll be outside.”

And I think I must have slept, and I only recall being sick once more.

When I cracked open an eye I reached blindly for the bottle of water and Advil that Logan had left me and swallowed enough that I hoped this headache would leave me the hell alone.

What had I done?

I’d woken to a hundred regrets, and none of them made any sense this