Shattered by Karen Robards

yet, and unless Ryan's finances had changed considerably, Ryan wouldn't have had the money to bail him out in any event. So the possibility that their dad was one of the people in his house seemed remote.
    Surely Ryan hadn't brought some friends--he didn't even want to think about what kind--to party in the empty house.
    It was full twilight now. The purple of encroaching night should have softened the worn steps, the dusty porch that retained only a few slivers of its original gray paint, the scarred black front door. But nothing had changed since he'd lived there, and Scott 's memories of the place he 'd used to dread coming home to were too entrenched to allow for any softening. The curtains were drawn over the front window as they had always been, so that from the porch you saw the stained, once white linings of the puke-green dollar-store specials that had been hanging in the living room for as long as he could remember. Bud Buchanan watched a lot of TV, hated glare, and was obsessed with the idea that people were looking in at him at all hours of the day and night, and never mind that only a few people ever drove past and the nearest neighbor, Grayson Springs, was too far away for anyone to see in even if they were interested, which they weren't.
    Music pulsed through the door, and he could hear a number of voices. He tried the knob and wasn't surprised to find that the door was unlocked. People rarely locked their doors around there. Although he had locked this particular door himself not more than an hour previously, the new arrivals clearly hadn't felt the need. Pushing it open, he stepped into the lamp-lit living room, took in the scene at a glance, and stopped dead.
    For a moment everyone else in the room stopped in mid-motion, too, while they all stared at one another with roughly the same degree of shock.
    The kids--he'd walked into a roomful of teenagers--recovered first.
    "Oh, shit," one of the boys said. Then they all started to scramble, off the couch, off the floor, out of the chair, pinching out joints, putting beer cans on the ground. The sickly-sweet smell of pot wafted beneath his nose.
    "What the hell?" Scott broke off as a slight blond kid with shaggy hair, saggy jeans, and a skull and crossbones on his black T-shirt sauntered out of the kitchen, chugging a can of beer. Spotting him, the kid choked on the mouthful of brew he was swallowing and froze in his tracks, the can now clutched in a death grip, his blue eyes going wide, while Scott's eyes narrowed on his face. On their feet now, banding together at the far side of the room, the rest of the kids, five in all, three guys and two girls, eyed him with alarm.
    "Chase." Scott's tone turned grim as, in that moment, the scenario became crystal clear. This wasn't his brother but his brother's only kid, who was, if his memory served him correctly, a fifteen-year-old sophomore in high school. Ryan, who lived in Lexington, shared custody of Chase with his former wife, Gayle, who lived in Versailles. Given that Ryan's truck was parked in the yard, Scott was pretty sure that the kid had come from Ryan's. One thing he knew for sure: Chase wasn't yet old enough to drive.
    "I thought you said your grandpa was in jail," one of the boys said in an accusing tone. "I thought you said the house would be empty."
    "My grandpa is in jail." Chase recovered his aplomb. "My bad about the house being empty. This is my uncle. Hey, Scott."
    With an elaborately casual nod at him, Chase resumed his walk into the living room, taking a swig from the beer in his hand for good measure. The purpose, Scott knew, was to prove to his friends just how cool he was.
    Shit.
    He didn't want to embarrass the kid, but there was no way he could let this pass. He barely knew his nephew, just like he barely knew his brother anymore. Just as he himself had, Ryan had done his own thing since escaping from this hellhole, and if they spoke once every three or four months they were doing something.