The Whiskey Brothers: Willard

Leave me alone

Willie

Leave me alone.

She asked me to leave her alone and to be honest, I have no idea how to do that and her words pissed me the fuck off. It took everything in me not to follow her home. All I wanted...all I needed was her.

How the fuck was I ever going to tell her this without sounding like a fucking creep? I understood that she needed her space and that she needed to process what had happened to her papa, but fuck, I hated this desperate and empty feeling.

Talk about fucked up timing!

Watching her papa die was some tough shit and I felt terrible for both her and the situation. But her reaction to the whole ordeal was what through me the most. She seemed almost emotionless...almost as if she were numb, like she knew this was going to happen.

I mean, I could sense that she was on the verge of tears but there was something else there that I just couldn't put my name on. The whole situation made me feel absolutely useless and I hated that.

The pain in her eyes was haunting and all I wanted to do was take it away from her. I wanted—needed—to make her happy. I wish I could take it all away. I wish that I could take her into my arms and hold her tight. But she was distant, and she didn't seem to be all there in the head, and I couldn't blame her for that.

Fuck.

It wasn't that she didn't care, she did I could see that in her eyes, but she played it off like she didn't, like it was just whatever. It was as if she had already accepted that he was dead even before he took his last breath. I couldn't explain it and I didn't understand it, but when she walked out of the hospital room, she seemed to be a different person altogether.

What pisses me off the most was that she wouldn't let me, or my brothers, help. I just don't understand.

It had been 24 hours since Mike died, and Evie hadn't reached out at all. So here I am driving to her parents' house after finding her apartment empty.

Her parents owned three acres of land with a small farmhouse styled house only 10 minutes from the distillery. My brothers and I had taken turns going over to the house to check on Mike over the past two years. After his wife, Laura, died my brothers and I made it our job to ensure Mike had everything he needed. Mike had insisted that he needed more hours, and we all fought him on it, but he said it was the only thing that could keep his mind off losing his wife.

Evie was right, we didn't understand that kind of loss, so we did what Mike had asked and gave him more hours which I we all were against. We often went by his house once a week to make sure that he had food and that the house was still in good shape. From what we had heard, his relationship with Evie had suffered tremendously after Laura's death. The old man hadn't even remembered that it was Evie's birthday yesterday.

It was me. I asked him if he was doing something for Evie's birthday and he scrambled to get her a gift. A bottle of an older batch of whiskey. He even insisted on paying for the damn thing, the stubborn bastard. He was a stubborn old man and there was little to nothing that my brothers and I could do to make him see the error in his ways.

Obviously, my brothers and I had never suffered a loss as deep as Mike and Evie but still, the fact that he didn't even check in with his own daughter pissed me the fuck off. I knew for a fact that it was Evie that made sure he had food in his fridge. Anytime we went over to check on things, the fridge and cabinets were fully stocked. She obviously cared deeply for him, but he did little to nothing to mend their relationship.

Grief was a bitch. That much I knew.

I pulled into the long driveway off the dirt road. Most of Whiskey Hills was consisted of dirt roads. I parked behind Mike's truck and climbed out. Wyatt pulled in behind me and nodded at me.