Make Me Beg by Julie Kriss

Author:Julie Kriss [Kriss, Julie]
Language: eng
Format: epub

Fifteen

Dex

* * *

Jace was the youngest Riggs brother. He was also the smartest of us, a guy who had stacks of books, even before he had a lot of reading time in prison. After me, he’d taken the second-most amount of shit from our father, because Dad hated smart people almost as much as he hated me. Also, Jace had never had a birthday party. None of us had.

I wasn’t even sure we were having one now. I knew that we were at the Guardhouse bar—Luke, Jace, Ryan, and me. I knew that we were shooting pool. And I knew that, as usual, my brothers were getting on my nerves.

“There’s definitely something wrong with you,” Luke said to me as he chalked his cue. “You don’t seem like the same Dex.”

“Shut up, dickbag,” I said.

Luke nodded. “Okay, that part’s the same. But there’s something else different.”

“It’s his hair,” Ryan said, picking up his beer from the bar. “He’s been washing it. And he got it cut.”

“Is that a new shirt?” Jace added, sipping his beer and smirking at me.

“I can’t believe I’m related to any of you,” I said, racking up the balls on one of the pool tables. “Are we done talking about my hair and my clothes? If you want, I can give you my skin care regime.”

“That isn’t it,” Ryan said, pointing to the glass of water I’d put on the bar table behind me. “You’re not drinking. And the joints are gone.”

“Ah, that’s it,” Luke said, relieved. “I’m seeing you clearly instead of through a weed haze. It makes you look entirely different.”

Listen: I grew up with these three idiots. And I was the oldest, which meant there was a lot of ribbing for them to get revenge for. The potshots were expected.

I wasn’t going to admit they were right. The haircut, the new shirt. The weed and the drinking. “I told you, I have a stomachache,” I said to Luke. It was the best explanation I could come up with for not having a beer, when pretty much every particle of my body longed for one. Getting drunk sounded fantastic right about now. But I’d promised Lauren, and I wasn’t off the hook yet. Not until we knew she was pregnant.

And if my brothers knew about that little scheme—the ribbing would be insane.

“I call bullshit on the stomachache,” Ryan said. “I work with him every day, and he’s never hung over anymore. If he has a stomachache, he’s had it for over a week.”

“I have had a stomachache,” I said. “It’s from listening to you being an idiot all day.”

“Maybe he’s on a diet,” Jace said, picking up his cue and advancing to the table.

“Maybe there’s a woman,” Luke said, stepping up to take Jace on for the first match.

“I’ve never cleaned up for a woman in my life,” I said. First rule of having three brothers: Always be on the defensive. Never show fear. Even if you’re lying.

Jace and Luke flipped a coin, and Jace got the first shot.

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