Clear Water Read Online Free Page A

fingers under the kid’s chin, even as he huddled under the covers, and forced the kid to look at him.
    “If you want the pain to stop, sit up and do what I’m telling ya,” he growled, and the kid did, sitting up slowly, like every muscle in his body ached, and dislodging the oversized towel that Whiskey had used to cover him with.
    He was… well, fit. But thin. He probably used the gym regularly, but not to bulk up. He had long muscles, the kind that were comfortable on very young bodies, and Whiskey suppressed a groan. God, please let this kid be legal, just to make that whole wood thing less disgusting.
    Whiskey pressed the tablets into his hand and then gave him the water and watched as he obediently drank all sixteen ounces.
    “Now I want you to go back to sleep,” Whiskey said sternly. “There will be another bottle here—drink it when you wake up, okay?”
    The kid nodded, and again, that image of a kitten, a little white one with tousled fuzz on the top of its head and blue eyes. “Why does everything hurt?” he asked, his eyes so dark with pain they looked like bruises.
    “Two reasons,” Whiskey told him shortly, taking the empty bottle for the recycling bin. “The first is that you were in a car wreck.” While the kid’s eyes got really big over that, Whiskey added the kicker. “The second is that you were drugged to the gills. Any idea what you took?”
    The kid scrubbed his face with his hands, closing his eyes and making a sound like Whiskey had hit him. “Oh Jesus, fuck… shit, shit, shit, shit….” The kid collapsed on the bed and groaned, turning his head toward the wall.
    “Kid?”
    “Was I driving?” His voice was flat and emotionless.
    “No.”
    “Where’s my car?”
    “In the bottom of the river. I would imagine by now someone’s noticed the hole in the guardrail and they’re probably hauling it out by now.”
    “Where’s the person who was driving?” he asked in that same flat, incurious voice.
    “I couldn’t tell you, kid. He bailed. I pulled you out and you… you hadn’t even noticed we’d gone in.”
    There was a deep breath and it came out shuddery, like a wobbly antique table. And another one. And another one.
    “Oh for Christ’s sake… kid, are you crying?”
    “No.”
    Worst. Lie. Ever.
    “Look, kid—do you want me to tell the police you’re here?”
    A sudden pause, almost optimistic. “Do you have to?” came the muffled reply, and Whiskey shrugged.
    “No. Are you in trouble with the law?”
    “Not that I know of.”
    “Do you have any idea what kind of drugs you were on?”
    The kid groaned. “Roofies, Ritalin, and beer.”
    Whiskey crossed his eyes with the pain of all of that. “Jesus, kid—what were you trying to do?”
    Again, that suspicious sniffle. “I was trying to get my life together. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to wallow in how well that worked out, okay?”
    Whiskey’s mouth lifted in appreciation. The kid was a smart-ass. Of all the wide variety of asses—feminine and soft, male and hard, open and begging, reluctant and tight, Whiskey’s most favorite, very bestest type of ass was this type right here. The snark-at-the-world smart-ass.
    He dropped a hand to the kid’s shoulder and squeezed. “Okay. You’re entitled. When you wake up, there’s clothes in the drawer and a shower in the head. It’s a small boat. You’ll find your way around. We’ll talk when I get back, okay?”
    There was another sniffle, this one bravely held back. “Did you pull me out of the car?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Thank you. Should have spared yourself the trouble.”
    “Wasn’t any trouble,” he lied. “I wasn’t getting any sleep anyway.”
    One of those horrible sounds followed—the kind when you laughed reluctantly through tears. “Glad to help,” the kid mumbled. “Now please go away?”
    “Yeah. Hey, kid—your scrip bottle—it says Patrick. That your name?”
    “Yeah.”
    “You can call me Whiskey.”
    Patrick turned away