“What is with all the sweet stuff tonight, Ray?” I said, wrinkling my nose.

Trenton picked up one of the shot glasses and touched it to his lips, tilting his head back. He slammed it on the table and winked. “Don’t worry, babe. I’ll take care of it.” He stood up and walked away.

I didn’t realize my mouth was hanging open until my eyes met Raegan’s and it snapped shut.

“Did he just drink your shot? Did that really just happen?”

“Who does that?” I said, turning to see where he went. He’d already disappeared into the crowd.

“A Maddox boy.”

I shot the double whiskey and took another drag of my cigarette. Everyone knew Trenton Maddox was bad news, but that never seemed to stop women from trying to tame him. Watching him since grade school, I promised myself that I would never be a notch on his headboard—if the rumors were true and he had notches, but I didn’t plan to find out.

“You’re going to let him get away with that?” Raegan asked.

I blew out the smoke from the side of my mouth, annoyed. I wasn’t in the frame of mind to have fun, or deal with obnoxious flirting, or complain that Trenton Maddox had just drunk the shot glass of sugar that I didn’t want. But before I could answer my friend, I had to choke back the whiskey I’d just drunk.

“Oh, no.”

“What?” Raegan said, flipping around in her chair. She immediately righted herself in the chair, cringing.

All three of my brothers and our cousin Colin were walking toward our table.

Colin, the oldest and the only one with a legit ID, spoke first. “What the hell, Camille? I thought you were out of town tonight.”

“My plans changed,” I snapped.

Chase spoke second, as I expected he would. He was the oldest of my brothers, and liked to pretend he was older than me, too. “Why are you being so pissy? Are you on the rag or something?”

“Really?” Raegan said, lowering her chin and raising her eyebrows. “We’re in public. Grow up.”

“So he canceled on you?” Clark asked. Unlike the others, Clark looked genuinely concerned.

Before I could answer, the youngest of the three spoke up. “Wait, that worthless piece of shit cancelled on you?” Coby said. The boys were all only eleven months apart, making Coby just eighteen. My coworkers knew my brothers had all scored fake IDs and thought they were doing me a favor by looking the other way, but most of the time I wished they wouldn’t. Coby in particular still acted like a twelve-year-old boy not quite sure what to do with his testosterone. He was bowing up behind the others, letting them hold him back from a fight that didn’t exist.

“What are you doing, Coby?” I asked. “He’s not even here!”

“You’re damn right he’s not,” Coby said. He relaxed, cracking his neck. “Canceling on my baby sister. I’ll bust his fuckin’ face.” I thought about Coby and T.J. getting into a brawl, and it made my heart race. T.J. was intimidating when he was younger, and lethal as an adult. No one fucked with him, and Coby knew it.