The Worst Best Friend: A Small Town Romance

As soon as she’s standing again, that traitor pig is at her side, rubbing his thick hide against her leg and butting his snout beneath her hand like an overfriendly dog.

Fucking lovely.

The self-propelled stomach from hell picked a great time to make new friends.

Herc normally doesn’t get along with anyone, human or animal. Besides Aunt Faye, I mean, who graciously bestowed the little monster on me not so long ago, claiming Herc always had a soft spot for me.

Yeah. About that...

He also picked a hell of a time to demonstrate his ever-evolving escape artist talents. If he keeps it up, he’ll outshine Edison and his Houdini feats so the old stallion can retire.

“What are you doing out of your pen, guy?” I ask Herc miserably, swiping a hand over my face.

“Don’t sound so angry!” Shel hisses, leaning down to pet the pig. “He needs a little comfort.”

“He almost got flattened. So did you,” I grumble.

“Yeah, well, I’m not dead.”

“Thank God for small miracles,” I reply, venom in my voice. I can’t help the frustration boiling over.

“Drop dead, West,” she flings back.

I stare. It’s harsher than the tone I remember.

She’d say that to me years ago, jokingly, and I’d always replied with, “Why? So you’ll have nobody but Marty for help?"

We trade glares, our old cliché turned nasty and too close for comfort.

“I see you’re just like the rest of Dallas. You never change,” she tells me.

“And I see you’re Miss Big City now. Congratu-fucking-lations.”

“Thanks. Jealous much?” she quips.

I let out a harsh laugh.

“Jealous of being a snob? Hardly.”

Christ. This little reunion is worse than anything I ever imagined.

I always knew seeing her again would be hell.

Even when I left town years ago, I seesawed between wishing I had that hell and avoiding it like the plague. Shel was ultimately the reason I made my choice to enlist and blow town.

She was a complication, catching feelings chemically designed to detonate our lives if either of us ever acted on them.

I knew there could never be anything between us from day one.

She clung to a high school crush she should’ve saved for boys in her class.

We were certain doom, and I knew it, the minute I ever let those inklings I started to get for her transform into anything real.

She was my best friend’s little sister, for fuck’s sake.

I couldn’t let that happen back then, and that goes double for now. Not that she looks like she’s aiming to do anything except spit in my face.

I just hate that she’s turned into a full-blown woman with the same sharp words and rocking new curves in all the right places. This woman is a tactical nuke, and I didn’t get trained on identifying radiological threats for nothing.