The Worst Best Friend: A Small Town Romance

I follow her, my eyes drinking her in with her back turned.

I swear to God Almighty my fingers itch to grab that ass. I shove my hands in my pockets so I don’t do anything stupid, like a greedy kid resisting a lost twenty on the ground.

“They aren’t as efficient as furnaces, and most modern fireplaces are gas now. They do well enough with the aesthetic, but you’re right, it’s not the same vibe. Not much different from cars now,” I grind out. I’m always up for rattling off a litany of problems with most vehicles that rolled off their assembly lines since 2000.

“C’mon. Half the people in this town must be bringing you twenty or thirty year old junkers to fix. We don’t even need a car show to see some classics.” She laughs, her nose scrunching up adorably. “I can tell you’ve put a lot of work into this place, though, just like your shop. I’ll have to stop by sometime.”

I nod proudly. There’s no denying the obvious.

The weathered bluestone fireplace is one of my favorite upgrades. Marty helped me throw it together over a case of beer and a long weekend job.

Overall, the place is in decent shape. I’ve been planning to finish repainting some rooms, but still haven’t gotten around to it.

Remembering why she’s here, I gesture to the built-in bookcase on the far wall.

“The scrapbook should be around here somewhere.” I pause just as I start looking when my phone buzzes. I’d left a message for Faulk as we were driving home from Faye’s and now he’s calling me back. “It’s Faulk. Check out the top corner by the engine manuals. You can’t miss it.”

She nods and I step away to answer the phone.

While explaining the situation to Faulk, I watch her from a distance. She stretches to retrieve the thick scrapbook on the top shelf and ferry it to the sofa.

“Weston, my man, I’m thinkin’ if we wire up your aunt’s perimeter right quick plus the house, we’ll catch anybody stupid enough to come prowling around for a return trip...” I listen to Faulk go off about security systems in his Oklahoma twang and techno-jargon worthy of the former federal agent he used to be.

I take his recommendations to heart and agree to meet him over at Faye’s tonight so he can figure out what he’ll need and get it ordered.

“Care for something to drink while you flip through it?” I ask Shel after hanging up.

She’s sitting cross-legged on the sofa, smiling down at the thick book in her lap, already fully engrossed in the distant past.

“Yes, please! Whatever you have on hand. This stuff is amazing, by the way. Have you read everything?” She looks at me with excitement flickering in watery green eyes.

“Some of it,” I answer with a shrug, grabbing two bottles of a dark root beer from the fridge.

“I think you’ve got more pics of the Three Musketeers than anybody! I see your grandpa Larry, my grandpa, and Jonah Reed when they were about your age. They’re so dapper, all dressed up for what must be the day they went to Minot to catch the train. They were off to the Korean War. There’s so many pics of them overseas later on...”

Walking into the living room, I answer, “Oh, yeah. I do remember those war photos.”

I unscrew the lids on the bottles and hand her one.

She takes a swig and I watch her swirl it against her tongue with too much amusement.

After a second, she decides she likes the spice well enough and swallows.

“Dang, that’s rich.”

“Yep. Special brew from our resident movie star and his butler. Barnet Farms started making soda to go along with their beef business and his father-in-law’s pumpkins now. I think you’d enjoy talking to Tobin the butler since he’s a history freak like you. He’s always got his nose stuck in a brick of a book. I asked him about this doorstopper he was carrying around about the French Revolution once at the bar...dude gave me nightmares about getting my head chopped off by psychos for the next month.”

She laughs.

Goddamn, do I love that sound, far more than I should.

“European history is cool, but my interests have always been closer to home,” she says softly, setting the bottle down on the coffee table. “Did you read the letters?”

I have to be honest. “No.”

“You didn’t?” She looks appalled, and it’s annoyingly cute.

“Never had the time.”