“Just call me David, and come have a real drink with us!”
Malachi ignored him and looked down at me. “Am I interrupting something?”
That’s what I wanted to know. I thought as I looked between the two of them.
“It’s—”
“Seriously, what’s your problem?” David snapped as he stood up. “We’ve been trying to welcome you since you got here but you’ve been nothing but rude.”
“I apologize,” Malachi said but he didn’t sound like it at all and David could tell.
Stepping up to him David dabbed into Malachi’s chest. “I don’t know who you think you are but I don’t like the way you’re speaking to me!”
“How should I speak to you, sir?” Malachi replied making it worse, considering that he was older than David.
“David, sorry we need to work—”
“You really ought to stop making excuses for him!” He snapped at me.
“David! I need your help with these.”
I looked over Malachi’s shoulder to see Eleanor, David’s grandmother and the Sheriff of Lieber Falls, calling him over, to help a few other guys who were bringing drinks towards the edge of the pool.
“Try to not act like a freak, hunchback,” he muttered before he turned back to me and smiled. “I’ll come back later, alright?”
I nodded not saying a word as he finished his drink and walked towards his grandmother. “He’s an…”
“An alcoholic, yeah. I’m sure the whole town knows. His grandmother is keeping him on a short leash,” Malachi said as he took the blanket I’d forgotten I was wearing and dropped it onto the log before handing me my quilt.
“You noticed?”
“He is exactly like my father, of course I noticed.” That was all he had to say and I understood. But he went on anyway taking a seat beside as I wrapped myself in a cocoon. “When he pulled up in the cruiser I saw the flask in the side pocket beside his seat. And the red headed woman beside him, Mandy—”
“Murphy.” I corrected.
He rolled his eyes as he twisted the top of the flask. “Whatever, Mandy, Murphy. If he called her any of those names she would answer. She’s in love with him, and covering for him too…like my mother once did.”
“If the love of your life commi
tted a crime would you cover it up?”
He poured the deep brown into his mug, the top cup part of the flask, and handed it to me.
“Coffee?”
“Hot chocolate,” he replied drinking directly from the flask. “And yes.”
“Yes?” I looked at him as I blew on the chocolate.
“Yes I would help cover up whatever crime,” he said looking up at the stars.
“Really?”
He smirked and looked to me. “You’ve never been in love, have you?”
“I had a boyfriend?”
He frowned at that as he tilted his head to look at me.