The Worst Best Friend: A Small Town Romance

She also mentioned the pushy little fuckwit wanting a look at some old arrowheads and rocks that weren’t for sale, but she’d mentioned offhand.

Thankfully, she never let him inside.

When she’d started these sales, I warned her not to let anyone in the house. Everything for sale should be outside or in the garage.

Dallas is a good town, full of good people, but we do get strangers off the highway every so often who don’t have the best intentions.

Sometimes, we get oily creeps like Hudson.

I shouldn’t let it eat me.

Aunt Faye doesn’t have anything of massive value she’s selling. The silver coins were probably the most valuable, and she took them to an antiques store in Dickinson where they fetched a few thousand bucks.

I stab at a beer tap, filling a new round for a table of guys playing pool, trying not to watch as the two of them take a seat at a table on the far side of a dark, cozy corner.

Almost as dark as my twitchy insides right now.

Why do you care, asshole? a voice growls in the back of my head.

Shelly’s a grown woman now. Remember?

She’s probably gone out on hundreds of dates with preppie Eastern boys who’d make Hudson look like a disheveled bum.

Key difference: I wasn’t there to see her with those dudes.

I wasn’t there to slowly go insane from the acid jealousy swirling in my head and burning my gut.

Trying like hell to ignore them, I focus on my bartender duties, but son of a bitch, it’s hard.

I swear the place has gotten noisier. The music louder, the customers shriller, laughing and talking like they’re at a football game and it’s still not loud enough.

Somehow, I can hear Shelly’s laugh the most through it all. And it sounds brighter, happier than when she brings Herc breakfast and dives into those adorable tug-of-war sessions with the pig.

Even with my back turned, I fucking hear her.

Drawing in a breath like a ragged snarl, I shake my head.

This shouldn’t surprise me one damn bit.

They have more in common—more to laugh about—than she ever would with me.

Between Thelma and Marty, I’ve heard about her every move the past few years.

They talk as if she loves city living. City people. City dreams.

For all I know, they’re having a riot over what a shitty podunk town this is compared to what they consider civilization.

I need a fucking drink in the worst way.

Curling my lip, I stare at a whiskey on the rocks like it might just claim my soul. It’s meant for a guy at the end of the bar who’s already plastered.

Before I can pick up the glass and get it out of my sight, Stacy approaches with another drink order.

The other three waitresses file in behind her, and I throw together their drinks, feeling the booze pulling at my brain like gravity.

By the time I’ve assembled all the orders, I consider pouring myself a straight shot. Something I haven’t tasted once since Uncle Grady’s wedding, a rare exception I regretted mightily the next day.

Only, I’m better than that.