Read All the Pretty Lies for Free Online Page B

biggest smile. “Hi, Bear!”
    “Hey, Sloane,” he replies in his soft voice.
He’s just a little taller than me with has mousy brown hair and big
blue eyes. He seems very unassuming. You’d never guess by looking
at him or listening to him that he would be such a badass, but he
is. According to my brothers, he’s a fourth degree black belt with
a nasty temper, which is where the nickname comes from—Bear, as in
don’t poke the…
    Sig cups my elbow and steers me to an empty
booth. He nudges me, trying to get me to sit. I resist, bracing one
arm against the table and straightening my legs.
    “Sig, stop! You’re gonna make me spill my
drink!”
    “Does that have alcohol in it?”
    I lift my chin and meet his eyes,
automatically puffing out my chest. “Yes, it does. I’m twenty-one,
remember? It’s my legal right to drink.”
    “I’m not even gonna address how moronic this
is for you, you of all people—”
    “Stop right there! There’s absolutely no
reason—”
    “I said I’m not gonna address it,” he snaps.
“But why in the everlovin’ shit would you come here to do
it?”
    “ This is exactly why I came here. I
have a statement to make and this seemed like language you
Neanderthals would understand.”
    “Maybe a regular old explanation would
work on this Neandrathal.”
    “Sig, I’m all grown up. I think you see that
a little more than Scout and Steven and Dad. Especially Steven and
Dad. But I need to make them see it.”
    “Why? What’s so terrible about the way you’ve
been treated?”
    That feels an awful lot like a sucker punch.
“God, Sig, it’s not that I’ve been abused or anything. Please try
to see this from my perspective. I can’t live like a prisoner for
the rest of my life. I can’t. And I won’t. But it’s my hope that
y’all will be able to see me for who I am and what I want. To be
happy when I’m happy, whether I’m making the choices you’d have me
to make or not.”
    Sig watches me with eyes so like my own. I
see his mind working behind them. Processing. And like the Sig that
I know and love, and have been closest to my whole life, he thinks
not just with his head, but with his heart, too.
    “So what are you waiting for then?”
    “Huh?” I ask, confused by his question.
    Sig takes the short, sweating glass from my
fingers and holds the straw near my lips. “Bottoms up!”
    I search his face and I see acceptance.
Reluctant acceptance, but acceptance nonetheless.
    One down, I think. He’s over the
tattoo hump and now the drinking one. Maybe at least one of the men
in my life will finally see me as an adult.
    I lean in and take a long sip from the straw,
my eyes smiling up into his. When I swallow, the liquid sears a
path all the way down my throat. I sputter reflexively.
    With eyes that are now distinctly amused, Sig
reaches around and pounds me on the back.
    “Holy shit! What’s in this, turpentine?” I
ask.
    Sig laughs outright. “Milk is for babies,
sis. Welcome to adulthood.” Sig sets the glass on the table and
turns to his partner. “Why don’t you go get a couple of beers and a plain Coke?” Sig reaches into his pocket for his wallet and
hands Bear a few bills.
    “What the hell? I thought you were—”
    Sig interrupts me. “The beers are for you
two. I figure you won’t be able to handle more than one of those,
so it’s beer for you next. The Coke is for me, because somebody’s
gonna have to drive your obliterated ass home.”
    Sig pushes me into the booth and then slides
in after me. I lean over to rest my head against his shoulder for a
second. “You’re such a good big brother.”
    He flicks the end of my nose and I jerk
upright, yelping at the sting of it. “Damn right I am. Because you
know who’s gonna get an asskicking for this, don’t you?”
    “Nobody. Because this is all on me. Part of
being an adult, right? Dealing with the consequences?”
    “Yeah, but you’ve never had to ‘deal’ with
Dad. Or Steven really. They