The Worst Best Friend: A Small Town Romance

Weston McKnight.

Marty’s lifelong best friend and once the bane of my heart. When I heard he’d be here, supposedly driving in the event...I let my curiosity take the wheel.

And from the way Marty starts shouting and whistling and waving, I’m ninety-nine percent sure Weston must be driving that big blue truck that’s about to start pulverizing cars like stuck beetles.

Fitting.

Because I know a thing or two about Weston stomping things flat. Once upon a rotten time, I was the one under him. I was only sixteen then.

Too young, too innocent, too trusting, and yes, too stupid.

I thought I had a life mapped out that included him. Then he ran off to join the Army with a promise to write, to check in on me, to care.

Not a single word came back.

That’s not the kinda letdown you expect from your best friend, your guardian, your teenage everything.

For years, everyone teased me, saying I had two big brothers in Marty and Weston. They were only half right.

To the outside world, it looked like I had two big brothers.

To me, the difference was stark raving clear.

One young man was my brother. The other was just the love of my life.

Every future I’d etched out, imagined, or dreamed included Weston damn McKnight. He was a pillar and a gateway, an anchor and the sea itself, a miracle I was foolish enough to believe I deserved—and a miracle I could keep.

The day I stopped expecting a single letter wasn’t just soul-crushing.

It was a lesson.

Weston McHeartbreaking Asshole taught me not to hang a life on dreams about anyone else.

Oh, don’t get me wrong; this isn’t some bitter rant. No woe-is-me grudge. No awful regret.

My curiosity here today doesn’t mean I’m not safely over him.

I came up with a new blueprint years ago—a very good one—that doesn’t need his stupid handsome face in my life. Frankly, it’s all turning out better than I’d planned.

I’ve got the degree and the experience to match my passion. And I’ll pick up right where I left off at a world-class museum after this odd little detour through old stomping grounds.

As soon as Gram is back on her feet—hopefully dancing on them with her new hip—I’ll be back at the Smithsonian for my first paid position.

I’ve got up to eight weeks until then. Just a couple months to help, to revisit, to stroll down memory lane. A rare chance to make peace with the harsher parts of my past like Weston the heart thief.

But can I when my heart dives?

When just being in the same vicinity as him still twists my pulse into an anxious pitter-patter?

For a second, I almost duck back down on the bench.

I don’t want to see Weston’s truck drive by, much less cheer for him.

Like I said, I’ve moved on.

Yes, I’m living out my dreams.

Hell yes, I’m still mad as hell at him for ghosting younger me like a bad match on a screen when I knew him most of my life.