Out of the Blues by Mercy Celeste

kind of person do you think I am?” She said and launched into a version of I Will Always Love You that would make Dolly Parton weep with joy.
    Mason clapped when his sister finished the first verse and bowed to the table. “Brava. Now shut up and eat your finger foods.”
    I finished my breakfast and actually felt better than I had since waking up on the legless sofa, naked, and in a cold sweat because I had drunk way too much and I didn’t know where I was. I handed my plate off to the waiter and watched as Hunter and his new family made their plans for the day, and then this evening. Nothing much, just a bonfire out by the lake with a traditional barbecue. In the south that didn’t mean throwing some frozen burgers or hot dogs on a grill. That meant real pit smoked meats.
    “Finally, something edible. And please don’t make this something out of the Southern Belle Handbook . Make it simple.”
    “Since when do you know what simple means? I haven’t forgotten the chandelier you had over the table at our graduation party, or the real china. There was pink divinity if I recall.”
    Mason groaned and hung his head. “You win, Harper. What do you claim as your spoils of war? My head on a pike?”
    She grinned; her gaze drifted over me in a way that made me feel like a bull at market. “I’ll have to think about that,” she said with a wink to me and grabbing her mother’s hand, she dragged her out of the chair and they sashayed out of the dining room.
    Mason looked up and shrugged. “I have no excuse for her. None. She was crazy as a child. She’s crazier now. I pity you, Hunter, you’re stuck with her crazy.”
    “Her crazy is fun,” Hunter said with a smile so bright it could only be true love. “I think you make her crazier, but it’s a good crazy. I enjoyed watching her sharpen her claws on you.”
    “Only because they’ll be dull by the time she gets around to using those same claws on you.” Mason reached around me to clap Hunter on the shoulder. He avoided his dad’s gaze. “Anyway, I have business in town. So I’ll see you gentlemen later.”
    I watched as he made his way out of the dining room, slowly, stopping at tables of people he knew to chat for a bit and then he was gone. Doug followed not long after that but not before arranging to ride with Hunter and myself to the tailor.
    When we were alone, Hunter poured us both a cup of black coffee and looked me dead in the eye and said, “Mason looks well fucked.”

Chapter Twelve
     
    Mason and the self-storage of broken dreams.
    Everything that was left of Cody Gillette’s legacy was in a self-storage locker in town. I’d put it all there after he died so that his estranged family couldn’t take it to sell on Ebay. He’d left everything to me and Harper. He’d had his will changed a year before my mother divorced him and I wondered if he knew then that it was coming.
    I sat in front of the roll-up door and played with the key I kept in my wallet. I didn’t know if I wanted to go inside. I didn’t know if what I was looking for was even in there. I can’t remember where I packed things. I could have thrown the manila folder out instead of packing it in the things to go to storage.
    I’d taken his favorite acoustic guitar with me to school when I left. I had it in my apartment in Napa even now. No one knew it had been his. Hell, no one knew that he was my stepfather. I kept myself off the grid as far as my famous family members were concerned.
    Arden hadn’t wanted us in the spotlight, so Harper and I were lucky in that regard. There wasn’t much out there about us. Definitely no pictures, though the paparazzi had tried.
    Arden was never actually famous-famous, not really. More like infamous. She was one of those model/starlets more famous for being famous than actually doing anything to make her famous before it was fashionable. That and she had a series of famous ex-husbands.
    I often wondered why she’d only had two children, and