No Good Mitchell - Riley Hart Page 0,16

any better,” he said, “if I hadn’t wanted it, you would have found out right away.”

“Guess you’re right. I remember one guy trying to drunk-kiss Megan Fehr, and she exercised her Second Amendment rights until he was racing across the river in his underpants.”

He laughed. “Sounds like that taught him to try and kiss a stranger.”

“Stranger? They were dating. They’re getting married next June.”

Cohen leaned back and laughed, putting his hand to his face in what might have been the most adorable way I’d ever seen.

“But you didn’t resist it…me kissing you,” I remarked, thinking back to his comment.

“No, I didn’t.”

“So you liked it?”

“I didn’t say that. Did you like it?”

“I’m straight.”

“That doesn’t answer my question, does it? Or explain why some straight guy is running around kissing random men?”

He didn’t seem to be letting me get out of this one easily. “I think I will definitely need a drink before we get into this.”

“Stalling is what it sounds like,” he noted.

“Can’t it be both?”

He grinned as I returned to the cabinet, fishing through the bottles, looking for one in particular.

“I don’t have a problem with gay guys, if that’s what you think,” I added.

“I’ve suspended my judgment until you say something wildly homophobic.”

“My brother Walker’s gay, and I love him to death. He’s always liked guys. Been like that since he was eight years old. While I wanted to hold hands with Nancy Finnegan, he wanted to do that with Benji Moore. But while I got to hold hands with every Nancy in my life, he could only allow himself to daydream…had to keep it all in. Makes me sad and pisses me off at the same time.”

“Why does it piss you off?”

“It isn’t right. He shouldn’t have felt like he had to keep that in…or from me. I know it wasn’t about me personally, but of all my brothers, I’m closest with Walker, and it made me sad that he wasn’t able to talk to me about that. Like I’d done something or said something that made him feel uncomfortable.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that.”

“I imagine. Just… Oh, here we go!” I said as I discovered what I’d been looking for. I displayed the bottle to a less-than-impressed Mitchell.

“Am I supposed to know what it is?”

“This is your family namesake right here. Mitchell’s Buckridge Deluxe Scotch.”

I handed it to him, and he stared at it blankly as I fetched two shot glasses from a cabinet. I wiped them down with a rag and set them on the bar before Cohen.

“Those can’t be clean,” he said.

“I’m sure they’re as clean as they were back when your pa was serving people in this place. Here, let’s see what kind of a lightweight you are.”

He handed it over, and I poured us shots. We each took a glass and raised them. “To your heritage,” I said, clinking my glass with his before we downed them.

“Damn,” he said, clearly impressed with the taste. There was more Mitchell to him than he realized.

“God, I won’t admit it’s better, but it’s at least as good as the O’Ralleys’ Buckridge Deluxe Scotch.”

“Wait. You guys have the same thing?”

“Ah, someone’s finally wising up to the feud between our families. Gimme a sec…”

I greedily poured another round, enjoying the warmth against my throat as I downed the next shot. A little hair of the dog wasn’t going to kill me.

I turned back to the photos hung on the wall and found one of Cohen’s pa when he looked like he was in his twenties.

I couldn’t help noting their similar appearances. His father was in a button-up and tie in the photo, but between the cheekbones and strong jaw, even the shade of brown hair, if someone had told me it was a photo of a younger Cohen, I would’ve had a hard time knowing any different. I pulled the picture down and handed it to Cohen.

“Let me set the stage. Early twenties. Prohibition. Our great-grandparents were the best of buds and a bunch of deadbeats whose parents were waiting for them to get wives and kids. But not our great-granddads. No. They wanted to have a good time, enjoy life with their buddies…which involved a lot of parties, where they could get their hands on the much-coveted moonshine of that time. Now, being as charismatic and cool as my side of the family must have been—”

“I know a dig when I hear one,” he joked.

“Okay, maybe as cool and charismatic as both our sides were, they