The Best Friend Zone

“I was, for a year. Then I quit.”

His eyes seize mine darkly as I catch up. He even sounds bruised, like I’ve just poked at a painful scab.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry…so you’ve been doing your private detective work since then?”

“That’s the long and short of it,” he tells me, though his voice says there’s a lot more.

Owl joins us as we head for the house.

“You make enough to live on with those jobs like the one we did for Grady’s friend? Not being nosy, I’m just curious.”

“Peach, you’re nosy as hell. And it’s okay.” He laughs. “Some months, the money’s good. This is a quiet town and sleepy county, but there’s always some asshole who’s five years behind on child support or runaway teenagers to find. Some months, the money ain’t great, but it doesn’t matter.”

“No?” I’m baffled how he’s surviving, especially with what he must’ve sunk into this house for renovations.

I know Grandpa Faulkner wasn’t a rich man, so he couldn’t have left behind much…

“Okay, Miss Nosy, you really want to know?” Quinn gives me a lopsided smile, his eyes flashing. “Alan, besides being a bush pilot, is a financial planner. Years ago, when he was first starting in the trade, he convinced me to let him invest my Army pay in a couple of big A’s and G’s. I couldn’t spend it on shit while I was overseas with no family to support back home, so I took the gamble.”

“Big A’s and G’s?”

“Amazon and Google, mostly, back when they were little. I’ve also made out like a bandit on a few other companies you’d recognize. He’s kept up being my financial planner ever since and makes sure to rap me across the knuckles if I ever start trying to draw out so much money it won’t last.”

“Wow. The Faulkner wolves of Dallas Street. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?” I’m being silly, but I love how his face lights up anyway.

“Let’s just say my brother’s ingenuity not only set him up for life, it’s bought me one hell of a cushion.” He gives me a cock-eyed grin.

“Good for you—and Alan! You guys are humble about it, too.”

So not like Mom’s old school money and Dad’s endless boasting about his tech stocks.

We arrive at the house a minute later, enjoying a companionable silence, and I point to the paint cans he’d picked up again just before leaving the barn. “Are you finally tackling the cupboards today?”

“Sure am.” He holds open the screen door for me to enter. “Are you interested in helping?”

“Definitely! But Owl and I have to go do goat duty first. They’ve still got a long ways to go at Neuman’s Dairy before they’re close to finished.”

He sets the cans down on the laundry room floor.

“I’ll come with,” he says, his voice serious. “We can go through the drive thru and pick up a couple breakfast burritos on the way through town, then we’ll come back and paint some cupboards.”

“I’m game for that.” I set my coffee down. “Ready whenever you are.”

He opens the door again. “Then let’s grab our stuff and go. We’ll take my truck.”

Like Uncle Dean’s, it’s a large GMC, just a whole lot newer and nicer. “We should take mine. We’ll need Owl in case we need to chase the goats around the property or something.”

“My truck’s dog friendly, Peach.”

I shrug. “If you don’t mind, neither do we. I’m sure he’ll love the air conditioning.”

“It’s not working in your truck?”

“It’s Uncle Dean’s truck,” I say. “What do you think the answer to that is?”

He chuckles knowingly. “We can have one of Jess Berland’s mechanics look at it. He owns the Chevy dealership. I bought my truck there and he’s a good guy. Grady’s nephew, Weston, also does auto work part time.”

We climb in his truck with Owl filling up the back seat.

“Sounds like overkill,” I say. “I’ll only need the truck for a couple more weeks tops.”

The relaxed smile hanging on Quinn’s face fades.

“Still thinking you’ll head back to Chicago by then?” he asks, steering us out of the driveway.

I nod, even as a tight knot forms in my stomach.

“I can’t stall forever. I have to face my other life sooner or later.” Watching the trees, the grass, the open space go by through the window, I hold in a sigh.

“I guess I’m a lot like you. The longer I’m here, the more this place grows on me. It’s nice not having the pressure of the city. All the people. All the work. All the stress.” I release my sigh then, as reality hits home. “But I’m not like you…I didn’t have an older brother invest in any magic letters for me.”

“And you miss dancing like hell,” he finishes for me.

“Maybe.” I twist my head to get a good look at him. “How’d you know?”