Faked (Ward Family #2)(4)

That should've told Scotty how serious I was about this because I hated coming back to Seattle.

The drive from Vancouver down to the Emerald City was as familiar as the back of my hand, which is why I hated making it. The kind of drives that I loved making were the ones where I was a hairpin curve away from the next mountain vista. Not knowing what might happen next was what made it exciting, made my blood pump and my brain hum with bottled-up energy.

That was not the case when I drove from my home base by Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains back down to where my dad and Adele lived with my half-brother Finn. No matter what the circumstances were, I avoided going home like the plague.

"You gonna go home while you're there?"

I snorted. "Gotta stay somewhere."

"Did you warn them?" he asked dryly.

"Nope." There was a certain level of glee in my voice that had Scotty chuckling despite himself. "Can't wait to see Adele's face when she warns me for the thousandth time not to corrupt her angel while I'm home."

"She doesn't do that anymore," Scotty said. "Quit making shit up."

He was right, but I'd heard my stepmom say something along those lines so many times over the years that it felt like she still said it.

Finn, don't listen to a word he tells you, look at where his choices have gotten him.

Sometimes, I heard it on a loop in my head even though it was close to seven years since she'd said it. She'd leaned down and said that to my just turned fourteen-year-old half-brother as I finished packing my bags to move out. My parting piece of advice had been not to do every single damn thing that they told him to do because otherwise, he'd end up miserable.

"She sure as hell thinks it, though," I pointed out. "The second my years of teen attitude ended with me in handcuffs, she wrote me off for good."

Scotty harrumphed on the other end of the phone. "Yeah, well ... without those cuffs, you never would have ended up with me, so consider yourself lucky."

I grinned. "I do, old man."

"You still haven't thanked me for not pressing charges, you ungrateful little shit."

Destruction of private property (which turned out to be Scotty's house) hadn't been my finest moment. But the spray paint on my hands and my skateboard had been pretty damning evidence when the cops caught up with me a few blocks away from the scene of the crime, so to speak.

But it had led me to Scotty, who'd seen my skateboarding skills in the neighborhood and offered to train me, teach me how to snowboard, if I was interested in working off my debt to society. Lucky for him, and me, I had.

"Scotty, love of my life, what would I do without you? When are you coming home again?"

“Next week.” He snorted. "And that is a sad commentary on your love life, which I know doesn't suffer."

I scratched the side of my face. "Actually, I think I've been in a rut. No one catches my interest these days."

"Bauer’s having a dry spell?" he gasped.

I flipped off my phone even though he couldn't see. "Very funny, old man."

"I think so." He cleared his throat. "First, I only say that because I know you're not as much of a manwhore as you like to pretend to be, and second, don't change the subject from Burton."

"What do you want me to say? I think it's a good idea to go talk to them, and you disagree."

"Just take a couple of days and cool off, Bauer. You're a hothead and say stupid shit when you're mad. Give it some time. You'd be amazed what you could accomplish if you just calm your ass down and try being nice to people instead. Schmooze instead of bulldoze."

"I'm hanging up now."

"Bauer," he warned.

I punched the button with a sigh, cranking up the volume on my music.

The Bluetooth in my Jeep interrupted almost immediately.

"Fricken Scotty," I said under my breath.

My thumb punched angrily at the button to answer the call. "Scotty, I'm not discussing this."

"Bauer?" a different voice responded.

I blinked down at the screen. Shit. Not Scotty. The caller ID proclaimed it loud and clear as my little brother.

Golden Boy, as I'd stored him in my phone.

"Finnegan," I greeted as formally as possible.

"I heard about your sponsor." He coughed. "Since you never answer texts, I figured I'd call and see if you'd answer."

My forehead creased at the sound of his voice. "You sound awful."

"I feel awful."

"Let's talk about you being sick then because I don't need to rehash losing my sponsor."

He sighed. "What happened?"

I shifted in my seat. "You saw the video, right?"

"I saw what was posted on Twitter, yeah."

"Well, then you know what happened."

Even to my own ears, I sounded like a grumpy asshole. It made it so much harder when Finn was being nice to me because then I actually felt bad. Adele treated me like trash because that was how she'd seen me for years, so I felt no guilt being rude to her. If anything, it brought me great joy to rile her up. But being mean to Finn was like ... punching a puppy for no reason. Anyone with a soul couldn't really stomach the thought of it.