Page 76 of Misguided
Fuck it. I resist the urge to stamp my foot in frustration. “Honestly, ma’am, I was in such a hurry I left it behind.”
“Well.” She appears to take great pride in denying us a simple fucking number as her eyebrows rise. “I can’t help you, I’m afraid.”
“This is bullshit,” Dog mutters behind me.
He storms out the door, the woman hustling around the counter to go after him.
“Excuse me. Where do you think you’re going?”
I follow after the two of them, stepping outside as Dog spins on the clearly flustered woman.
“Look, lady. You’ve got, what, twenty rooms at most here?” Dog lifts a finger, pointing at her with such raw aggression she literally rears back. “You think withholdin’ a damn number is goin’ to stop us? Shit, woman. All we gotta do is wait out here until he comes out.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Like fuck we can’t,” Dog snaps. “Way I see it, you got two choices. One, give us the fuckin’ number. Or two, I park my loud, obnoxious bike right in the center of your parking lot and wait it out.” He folds his arms, lifting one brow.
I slap a hand to my mouth to save from laughing. He totally owned her ass.
She huffs and then storms back into the office.
“You think she’ll give it to us?” I ask once she’s out of earshot.
He jerks his chin toward her. “Just wait.”
Sure enough, barely a minute later and she’s back outside glaring at Dog from a safe distance. “Eleven.” She jabs a finger toward him. “But I want all of you, including your brother, missy” —she swings her gaze my way— “gone by the morning.”
“Not a problem, ma’am.” Dog ices the backhanded comment with a friendly wink.
I don’t stick around to see what she does next; my feet already carry me toward the cabin in question. A few cars are parked out front of the rooms, but what gets me is no matter where I look, I can’t spot the bike Hooch rode out on. Maybe he is out?
“I don’t see the bike,” I tell Dog as he catches up.
“Probably not here.” He stares straight ahead as we close in on the cabin. “If he’s tryin’ to lay low he might have parked it a few doors down. Found an alley behind a shop, perhaps?”
There’s no point knocking; nothing my brother could do would be news to me. I’ve walked in on it all, living under the same roof. I reach for the handle and twist, but it’s locked.
“Damnit.”
The echo of my knocking bounces around the complex, and yet it goes unanswered.
Dog places his hand in the center of my chest with a smirk and coaxes me back. “Watch this.”
I stand back in awe as he manages to pick the lock using a club loyalty card, sliding the plastic down beside the lock and pushing it open. The daylight spills in from behind us, illuminating what is essentially a man in the throes of ruining himself.
Food scraps litter every surface, interspersed with a few empty take-out coffee cups, but mostly empty liquor bottles. I step inside first, lifting my boot to avoid a pile of clothes on the floor. Hooch lies on his back, spread-eagled over the bed in nothing but his boxer shorts.
Back to this again …
He’s hit rock bottom a few times in his life, and it doesn’t get any easier to witness no matter how many times we cycle back to this point in our relationship. I understand his depression, but I guess we’re just wired differently. Things get me down, sure, but I’ve never known it to consume me like it does him.
“Damn it, Hooch,” Dog mutters as he pushes an empty food wrapper aside to reveal a small clear bag containing what I damn well know is heroin.
“We need to wake him up. If us coming in here hasn’t stirred him, he can’t be good.” I shove all the pain and frustration down into my chest to deal with later and focus on the task at hand.
Getting my little brother mobile again.
“You okay?”