Page 54 of Unexpected Shot
Beau looks genuinely shocked. I don’t blame him. I never thought this day would happen either. Yes, we’ve had moments over the last few weeks that have been better than normal. But at the end of the day, this is still Beau. He still drives me crazy. He’s a pompous showboat who ruined my life.
But he’s right. I’m tired of fighting.
I hold up the two shots Frank just slid in front of us. “To a truce.”
A slow smile grows on Beau’s face, and I’m going to ignore how it slightly—emphasis on slightly—warms my black heart.
“To a ceasefire,” he says, holding up his shot glass.
“A temporary one,” I emphasize.
“To getting through four days of play.”
I bring up my glass. “To not killing each other.”
We tap our shot glasses together before throwing them back, letting the harsh burn of the generic whiskey cement our deal.
“So how do we do this?” I ask. “Are we just supposed to sit around and talk to each other?”
Beau thinks about it for a second, and then, without asking Frank, gets up and walks behind the bar, grabbing a bottle of whiskey.
“You can’t do that,” I say with wide eyes.
“I’ll pay for it,” Beau says, grabbing two clean shot glasses before he sits back down. “But this is how we’re doing it.”
“Beau, our goal was to not argue. Is getting drunk the best idea? The last time I got drunk at this bar, I tried to fight the pinball machine.”
“We’re not just getting drunk,” Beau says, pouring us each a new shot. “We’re getting to know each other.”
CHAPTER 13
BEAU
Imight be a genius.
Okay, no might. Iama genius. Because who knew, after twenty years of fighting—and twenty years of Gabi begging us to get along—that all it would take for us to be civil was cheap alcohol and a morphed game of truth or drink?
“Did you really bash Hannah’s high school boyfriend’s windows in with your five iron?”
Shelby thinks about it for a second—or maybe more, because I have no idea what time it is right now—before taking a shot.
“Really? You actually did do it?”
“Yes and no,” she says, grabbing the bottle and sloppily pouring a refill. “Yes, I did it. Gabi has video. But it wasn’t my five iron. It was my seven. Hated that club, so I figured why not shatter a few windows with it?”
I laugh and shake my head at Shelby’s nonchalance. She should’ve been arrested—community service, if anything. Vandalism is a serious thing. But Hannah’s cheating ex was so scared of Shelby, he never admitted that he knew who did it. Before long, it became an urban legend of sorts in our town.
“Okay, my turn,” she says, tapping her finger to her chin dramatically as she thinks of a question. “Did you and Chadreally have a threesome with a cart girl at the country club in college?”
I pretend to think about my answer for a second, you know, for dramatic effect. Because I know my answer, but what’s the fun if I don’t add some theater to it?
The rules of the game are simple: We each say something that we either heard over the years, or rumors that we could’ve honestly made up ourselves out of spite. If it’s true, we drink. If it’s false, we explain what actually happened. And also drink. Those weren't the original rules, but that was an hour and a lot of whiskey ago.
“How did you hear that rumor?” I ask, taking a drink of my beer to help temper the eventual taste of whiskey that’s about to come.
“I heard things,” she says with narrowed eyes. “I might not’ve been playing on that course anymore, but people talk. Especially when the rumor at the course I was playing at was that Ashcroft and Devereaux took some girl to Paris.”
“I didn’t,” I say before taking the shot. “I don’t want to speak for Chadwick, but I’m not a threesome kind of guy.”
