The Worst Best Friend: A Small Town Romance

“Weston! There are even a few here that your grandfather wrote for your grandma, and more letters she wrote back. They’re beautiful...like we’re talking romance movie material. You should read them.”

“I will,” I promise, taking a long pull of my beer.

I’m not much for fluff but I guess it’d be interesting since it’s my family.

She laughs. “When you’re not sucking down pop, you mean?”

“When I have the time.”

She pats the sofa beside her anxiously.

“Come here, I’ll fill you in. Especially this one from your grandma, you have to hear it. Hang on...” She flips back a few pages. “Here it is.” Running a finger along the writing, she says, “She’s telling your grandpa about several other guys from Dallas who also left for the war, and how practically every business is being run by their wives, sisters, and mothers. Even the feed store. Listen to what she wrote. Mable Anderson got so frustrated with having to carry the heavy bags of feed and grain! Would you believe she and her daughters built themselves a conveyor belt? Now they just load the bags, right on top of carpet she tore out of her house. They sit on the bike she connected to the belt. As the rider pedals, the belt turns and drops the bags into the back of the trucks backed up to the loading dock. It’s so ingenious the newspaper wrote an article about it. We’re all betting Elmer will keep on using it after he gets home.” Shelly sighs, blinking at me. “Isn’t that amazing? And look here, it’s the article from the newspaper she mentioned.”

“That was pretty smart,” I admit, leaning closer to skim the newspaper clipping that’s yellowed with age.

Too close. Damn, she smells so good, like rain and flowers tussled up in the wind.

Of course she does.

From the moment I sat down, I’ve caught hints of her perfume—or maybe it’s her shampoo. Whatever the case, that scent fills my nostrils and my head.

“His letter back talks about how much he misses her cooking, and how sometimes when he goes to the mess hall, he closes his eyes and pretends it’s her pork chops and fried potatoes he’s eating.” She sighs again. “Isn’t that sweet?”

She would think so.

“Sure, just don’t read that shit to Hercules.”

Her laugh bubbles up softly before she turns a serious gaze on me.

“What were your meals like in the Army?”

I tense harder than a board.

Processed protein slag and metallic-tasting coffee singes my tongue. Applesauce and oats that had the consistency of sawdust. The MREs did their job keeping us fed and alive, but you’d be hard-pressed to find the vet who missed ’em.

My mouth burns, and so do my ears a few seconds later, remembering the only thing about the grub I truly miss—the bawdy laughs of men and women I shared too many bad meals with.

Men and women who choked that shit down as their last meals.

Hellfire. Screaming. Smoke. Blood.

Why the fuck wasn’t it me? Why was I so lucky when I didn’t have a family or a sick little brother to come home to or a fiancée or a dog rescue or—

The vodka. The pain. The vomit.

The broken teeth I deserved after picking a fight with four grizzled bikers sporting Grizzlies MC patches behind my uncle’s bar.

He never knew; he never knew how sick I really was, how utterly and completely fucking broken I still am, how I wanted to fucking die because I didn’t over there—

I cough into my hand, snapping me back to the present.

Clearly, I don’t want to breathe a word about Afghanistan. Ever.

But I can’t have her staring at me like a lunatic.

“The meals were about as basic as you’d guess, but they weren’t always horrible. I’m sure a lot’s changed since Korea.” I point to the scrapbook. “What else did you find in here?”

Her eyes linger on me with concern before she flips through a couple more pages.