“Baby, what’s wrong?” Trixie asks as I plow through the clubhouse door, my head down.

“Where’s Brooks?” I demand.

“I have no idea. Haven’t seen him. What are you doing back already? Are you ok? Do you want some breakfast?” She’s going on and on, nervously twittering about, pacing back and forth.

“Trixie, shut up and find me Brooks or get the fuck out of my face,” I growl.

“Find him yourself,” she barks back, storming off.

I feel a twinge of regret popping off at her. She’s a good woman, she’d do anything for me, anything for the club, and I definitely don’t feel like she needs to feel the brunt of this, but right now, I don’t have time for playing nice. I need to find Brooks and come up with a plan before my dad has a chance to stick his nose in this shit storm.

“What’s up, brother?” I ask Goob, laying on the same couch in the corner as yesterday. His leg is propped up on the coffee table. I don’t want him in on this either. Not yet.

He’s smiling from ear to ear.

“You look happier today. What happened? Heat give you a sponge bath or something?”

“Not quite,” he says. “I got something for ya, though.”

He slides a manila file folder across the coffee table.

“I decided that while I’m laid up like this that I needed to do something productive with my time. Figured it was the least I could do for the club.”

The look in his eyes is maniacal, and I can’t even imagine what’s inside that could be bringing him so much joy.

“What is this?”

“Open it!” he says gleefully. “I’ve been doing a little detective work.”

I am staring her right in the face. She’s frowning, her hair matted down, the gaze behind her eyes completely blank. It’s Sloan’s mugshot photo.

“Where’d you get this?” I growl. “This has to be fake or something.”

“Flip,” he says.

There’s a document with all sorts of legalese that I don’t have the patience for right now.

“I don’t have time for this shit, Goob. Tell me what’s going on.”

“What’s wrong, Mr. Law School? You getting rusty in your old age?”

“No, I’m tired and I’m pissed and I don’t feel like playing childish games. Spill it.”

Everything about what I’m looking at and everything I saw with my own eyes earlier and heard with my own ears is making me sick.

“Basically, your little girlfriend got arrested one day. Then, conveniently, she was sent home the next day. No bail. No nothing. Just sent out in the wild to do as she pleased. That is, until it was time for her to testify in court.”

“She was working with the law?”

“Looks like it. Got Arthur Petroski locked up for a long time. She was dating him at the time.”

“Has Dad seen this?” I ask him. There has to be more to this story. I can’t hardly believe Sloan is some sort of legal mastermind who works with the police to find criminals to seduce so they can build cases against them. I need to buy some time before this spreads through the club. Once it does, it’s gonna be messy.

“Of course he has.” Goob laughs. “You guys don’t take me fucking seriously. Never give me the chance to hold an office or do anything cool. I’m proving myself.”

“Prove that you can stay clean for more than a week. Prove that you can graduate fucking high school without getting expelled for beating up on your teachers. Prove that you can do any job around here without stealing from one of us or running off to get high and crashing your fucking bike. Then you can hold office and do all the cool stuff you want.”

“That’s classic Gavin. Trying to distract everyone with my problems so they don’t realize how badly you fucked up. What’s wrong? Now that I’m an adult you can’t just throw me away or send me off whenever I inconvenience you. Sucks, doesn’t it? And don’t fucking call me Goob anymore. My name is Hank. I’m sick of being treated like a child.”

“Whatever,” I mutter. “Where is Dad?” I need to talk to him and tell him I’m done with her. He knows about her past, thanks to this nosy asshole, but he doesn’t have to know about what’s going on right now. As much as it would be mountain justice, as angry as I am at her right now, I think about the days we shared. I don’t want to see her physically hurt. I just need her to stay far away from us. She’s already seen and heard too much.

“I think he’s heading to the Poconos for the day. Had a couple drops to do. Took Brooks with him.”

Maybe it’s for the better. Let things die down a little bit before we get ourselves all worked up.

“Did you see this shit?” I shout to Esther, waving the envelope.

“I did,” she says softly, pursing her lips.

“What do I do?”

She sighs. “I don’t know. You know how that stuff works. I’m sure the whole story isn’t there. Plenty of reasons for a girl to turn on a guy. Maybe he was hurting her. Maybe he was cheating on her. I don’t know.”

I want to believe what she’s saying. There has to be more to this story, but I know what I heard at her apartment. I know what I saw. What Esther is saying makes sense, but the things that cop was saying leads me to believe otherwise.

I just don’t understand why she hid this from me. I don’t understand why she snuck away. Am I really that bad of a person, that scary of a guy that she would be afraid to open up to me?

Of course I am. And of course she would. Why wouldn’t she be?

I walk behind the bar and grab a jar of moonshine off the shelf.

“Gavin, it’s 9 a.m.,” Esther warns.

“And?”

“Don’t you have shit to do with your life or something?”

“Nope,” I say, pouring myself a glass. “Tried that out, didn’t go so good for me. Looks like I’m back to full-time Misfit. I’m sure you’re fucking thrilled, just like the rest of them.”

She takes the glass away from me and dumps it down the sink.

“Don’t put words in my mouth. I’m not the one who hurt you.”

“It hurts me to look at you,” I say. “You just remind me of how terrible we all are.”

“Get out of here with that bullshit,” she says, waving me off. “You don’t get to tell me what kind of person I am.”

“Sure don’t. But you’re literally a whore and everyone knows it, so I guess you already know what kind of person you are.”

She slams the glass back down on the bar and grabs the bottle, dumping it until it’s full to the brim. “At least I know my place,” she whispers in a hoarse raspy voice. Her hands are trembling. “You, on the other hand, you want to play both sides of the mountain. You want to pretend like you’re not just as fucked as the rest of us whenever it suits you. We all see right through that, Gavin. Maybe that’s why Sloan didn’t want to tell you the truth about herself. She’s not dumb.”

She storms away, her high heels heavy on the hardwood floor.

“And if you were so concerned about my profession, you’ve had every chance to put a stop to it. But then, how would that serve you?”

“Esther,” I bark after her. “Get back here.”

It’s too late to calm her down, but she’ll come around. It’s what we do here. And she’s absolutely right. I do play both sides of the fence. I thought Sloan would bring out the good in me though. Instead, she’s just proven that I can’t hide who I really am. I hang my head and start working on my morning moonshine. If I’m going to be wasting my days up here alone, I might as well be wasted.