Last True Hero by Diana Gardin

then points me in the direction of her house. I pull into the long, circular driveway and look over at her.
    “I’ll call you later.”
    She nods, and the corner of her lip disappears into her mouth. “Thanks, Dare. For last night.”
    I nod. The front door of the house opens, and the impeccable woman from the night I took Berkeley home appears. She stands in the doorway, arms folded.
    “Huh. Momma doesn’t look too thrilled.”
    “What else is new.” Berkeley sighs. She reaches over and squeezes my hand. “See ya.”
    I watch her as she walks up the driveway and up the stone steps to the house. She breezes past her mother, who spends another second staring at me before slamming the door shut.
    Then I drive away.
    The strangeness with Berkeley and her mother barely affects me as I drive home with a grin plastered on my face. While driving I decide that I’ll finally call my brother today.
    Chase might be a pain in my ass, but he’s my brother, and he deserves for me to at least hear him out.
    As a teenager, I got into my fair share of scrapes. Unwanted kid in the system in Florida, I had to find my own way. Make my own friends. Without any guidance. Sometimes I made the wrong choices. Sometimes I found myself in deep shit with guys bigger and tougher than I was. Chase always had my back. Some scuffles were more serious than others, and if Chase and I hadn’t backed each other up, we may not have made it to where we are today.
    Where I am today is a pretty good place, all shit considering. Where Chase is? Not so much. He can’t seem to stay on the right side of the law. When we turned eighteen and I enlisted, I tried to talk him into doing the same. I told him that we could travel the world together, do something important with our lives. He declined, stating that the world was too big for him. Rather than get lost in the great unknown he’d rather stay in Florida and take his chances with the devil he knows.
    No sooner do I have that thought than I pull into my driveway to the sight of a strange car parked behind the Challenger.
    When I open the front door, Drake is sitting on the couch with his arms crossed and a deadly serious expression on his face. Across from him, next to the ornate stone fireplace, stands my brother.
    I no longer need to return his phone calls.
    Chase, and possibly the problems he’s currently dealing with, have come to Lone Sands.

10
Berkeley
    I ’m allowed to move five paces into the foyer before my mother explodes.
    “Berkeley Jane Holtz !”
    I turn, facing her wrath head-on without even cringing. I’m so proud of myself that I smile before I forget my mother is about to rip me a new one.
    “Momma—”
    “Don’t you dare ‘Momma’ me! You’ve been out all night, probably with that Mea and her crew of misfits, and you arrive home this morning in the passenger seat of a pickup truck— ”
    I bite my bottom lip to keep from bursting into hysterical laughter. This is beyond ridiculous. I’m twenty-two, not twelve.
    “At least it wasn’t a motorcycle,” I offer. Then my mind drifts away to a world where sexy-as-hell Dare owns a Harley.
    My mother’s mouth drops open. The shock and disgust are written like a story all across her face. “You’re joking about this? It isn’t funny, Berkeley! What if your father had been home to see you arriving with…who was that?”
    Here we go. “Nobody. Just a friend of mine.”
    She shakes her head in disbelief, her elegant blond bob barely shifting with the movement. “Get upstairs. I can’t even look at you right now.”
    I nod. “I have to shower and change, anyway. I’m working the lunch shift.”
    Her mouth opens to argue, but I don’t wait to hear it.
    I’m just done.
    When I get out of the shower, I have a waiting text from Dare.
    You working lunch or dinner today?
    I smile, typing out my response.
    Both. I’m on for a double. My feet are gonna be so sore 2nite.
    I get dressed in a pair of ripped jeans that I absolutely