Acceptance (Club X Book 5) by K.M. Scott

go toe-to-toe with him on more than one occasion, and she held her own, even as he towered over her glaring down at every word coming out of her mouth.
    “I think you underestimate your wife, dude. She’s not some dainty flower that is going to wilt at the first sign of bad times. Hell, last Fourth of July I thought she was going to slug you after you broke Cash’s wrist arm wrestling. I think if Olivia hadn’t freaked out, she would have torn you a new one.”
    Looking out the front window, he sighed. “It’s not the same thing. That’s harmless fun.” A small smile turned up the corners of his mouth. “Well, harmless unless you’re Cash.”
    Since I had him talking and I’d even gotten a rare smile from him, I asked what had been on my mind since hearing that Cash had just found out about the bad feelings between Abbi and Shay. “Hey, I’m curious. Why does your wife still dislike my girlfriend? I mean, that was years ago and nothing happened.”
    In a flash, everything about him iced over. “No idea.”
    If I was a suspicious man, I might have wondered what this sudden change in behavior was about. I knew Kane, though. His unwillingness to speculate on why Abbi continued to irrationally dislike Shay over one night years ago that didn’t even involve them having sex was the result of some kind of guilt he still carried to that day.
    Not that he shouldn’t feel shitty about how he acted way back when. He should. It just seemed that the whole jealousy thing Abbi carried around should have a statute of limitations even if his guilt didn’t.
    I wanted to say that, but why bother? He’d either not respond at all or get pissed and take a swing at me. After sitting there for hours bored out of my gourd, the last thing I wanted was a slugfest with the brother I had no chance of taking. If it was Cash, I might have at least entertained the idea. On off days, beating him was a definite possibility.
    Then again, Cash would have never forced me to sit in some old car listening to goddamned golden oldies for hours while he remained sullen and silent staring out the window. At least with him I would have been sitting on some luxury seat.
    Just then, Kane leaned forward toward the dash and pointed at someone walking out the back door of the restaurant. “Look.”
    I did as he said and saw a dark haired male leaving alone and walking toward a car on the far end of the parking lot. Well, staggering was a better description. The guy looked like his brain had forgotten how to put one foot in front of the other.
    After a few seconds of watching his drunken ass stumble and seeing him nearly go head over heels over a curb, I wondered aloud, “Are we going to let this guy drive anywhere? He looks like he can barely walk, much less drive.”
    Kane made some noise that sounded like he was disgusted and opened his door to get out. “Stay here if you want. I don’t think he’s going to be much to handle in his state.”
    “What are you going to do with him?”
    As he slammed the door, I heard him say, “I’m going to make sure he doesn’t kill himself or someone else.”
    Confused as to why I just sat doing the incognito thing for hours if we were going to meet the damn guy face-to-face anyway, I jumped out of the car and jogged to catch up to Kane as he got to Sebastian, our potential new brother who currently was fall down drunk and lying on the pavement.
    “Dude, he’s fucked up,” I said with a chuckle as we stood over him. “You’re going to have to take him home.”
    The look on Kane’s face told me this was way more than he’d signed up for when he picked me up tonight. As distasteful as it was to me too, we couldn’t leave the guy in the shape he was in and risk him driving somewhere when he woke up. We’d have to get him home.
    Hopefully, he wasn’t so fucked up that he didn’t know where he lived.
    “You know, this could mean he’s not one of Dad’s. We handle our drink a little better than