I climb in my car and head for the sorority house.
32
Ripley
“What is this shit?”
My dad’s voice jolts me out of sleep as my door bangs open the next morning. I bolt up in bed, clutching the sheet to my pounding heart.
“What?”
He shakes the paper in his hand so I can’t make anything out on the flapping newsprint. “I told you that none of those celebrity assholes were setting foot in this bar, and you did it anyway.”
Caught off guard, the only argument I can offer is the first one that comes to mind. “Why? What do you care? You never come here. You should be happy money was coming in last night instead of nothing, like a normal Friday night! You’re the one who used the bar as collateral, and now I have to find a way to pay off a hundred grand that I don’t have so we don’t lose everything!”
My dad jerks back. “Who told you about the loan?”
“The freaking accountant, after he got off the phone with the lenders. I was trying to get a line of credit to keep this place afloat while I figure something out.”
“You’re going behind my back now? Fucking some guy like your whore mother, and you’re trying to get money out of this place when it’s not even yours,” he yells. “I should’ve let the bar close years ago.”
I’m still smarting from his comment about my mama, but I recover quickly. I have no choice. “Why didn’t you?”
He glares at me. “I don’t owe you an explanation for shit, but this is where it happened. Until I know who put her in the ground, I’m not gonna rest.”
Realization strikes with the subtlety of a hit and run. “That’s what the loan was for, wasn’t it? I give you enough money to drink yourself into the grave, but not enough to pay a private investigator.”
“So what if it was? You should want to know too.”
I throw my hands in the air. “Of course I want to know. She was my mother!” We stare at each other for a full minute before I ask, “What do you think you’re going to do when you find out? Get some kind of revenge?”
“You leave that to me.” He tosses the paper onto the bed, and I grab it.
It’s a tabloid. The front page is a still shot from the video that Vandy kid sold of Boone onstage.Not the one of us together. Beside Boone is a picture of Amber Fleet, her eyes downcast and still looking way too gorgeous.
The Truth about the Breakup—Boone Bangs Barmaid
“This is total bullshit.” I scan through the article. It paints me as a home-wrecker, drawing comparisons to my mother and Gil Green twenty years ago.
The sick feeling that never completely left my stomach last night is back in full force. I glance up to see Pop staring down at me like I’m a stranger rather than his only child.
“Who gave this to you?” I don’t know why I bother to ask. I already know. “Brandy, right?”
“I’d be in the dark if she didn’t. You don’t tell me a goddamned thing.”
I meet his gaze, gray like mine but dark and full of fury. “No, I just keep your bills paid and your beer stocked. You’ve never asked questions before, so maybe you should quit asking them now.”
His eyes narrow and his face twists with rage as his fingers clench by his side. For a second, I wonder if he’s going to graduate from backhanding to a closed-fist punch. The anger stamped on his features says he’d like nothing more than to hit me, but something holds him back.
“Ungrateful little bitch. When’s the last time you thanked me for making sure you have a job or a place to live? You want to be jobless and homeless? I can make that happen.”
I refuse to cower. Holding the sheet to my chest, I glare at him with years of resentment and disgust.
“Do it. I dare you. You’ll be out on the street right behind me because no one’s gonna pay your bills when I stop.”
“Brandy could run this bar.” He sneers, going for the low blow. “In fact, I bet she’d do a better job than you.”
I snap back in bed, feeling the force of those words more than I ever felt the back of his hand.