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“This is really good,” I say. And then because I can’t seem to stop the awkward from coming out of my mouth, I add, “Thank you for feeding me.”
“You’re welcome. None of these other yahoos have brought a woman home, so we haven’t had much practice.”
I wave that away. “You’re doing great. Did Boone tell you about the bear he ran into recently?” I know that he didn’t, but I’m throwing him under the bus anyway to keep the conversation going.
“Jem,” Boone quietly admonishes me.
I shrug and grin at him.
“You ran into a bear?” Duke asks.
Before Boone can downplay it, I say, “Yeah, and he’ll have a nifty new scar on his thigh when the stitches come out.”
All but the grumpy one want to see the stitches, and Boone shakes his head once the demands die down. “I’m not dropping my pants at the dinner table.”
A few of them chuckle but then Rhett says, “Come on, we know you’re not shy. Do you remember in your senior year when you went strea—” The statement is cut off when a piece of garlic bread smacks him in the head. I glance at Boone, whose hand is still lowering from the throw, and I smirk.
“Streaking, huh? Where did this take place?” I ask.
“Idiot,” he says to his brother before turning to me. “I lost a bet and had to streak the length of the football field the night of homecoming.”
Finch chimes in, “But he had a mask on, so no one really knew it was him. Never seen him run so fast in my life though. Would have given The Flash a run for his money.”
“You remember Ms. Carlisle and how she demanded the sheriff’s office find the person responsible for tainting Dolly’s eyes?” Duke asks. “She didn’t give that up for almost six months.”
I laugh. God love small towns. Turning to Harlan I ask, “Were you working there then?” If I remember correctly, Harlan’s the oldest so it would make sense that he was already working at the station.
“Yeah. I’m the one who had to hold a straight face every time she came in asking if there was any progress on finding the masked streaker.”
I roar with laughter at that. “I bet that was fun.”
He smiles at me, and I feel like I just won a little bit of favor with the taciturn Calhoun. “Not so much. But then Bucky married that exotic dancer from Boise and the talk of him opening up a gentlemen’s club distracted her enough to forget about seeing my brother’s pasty-white ass for thirty seconds.”
I turn to Boone, grin permanently etched on my face. “Well aren’t you full of surprises.”
* * *
After cleaning up dinner, we all move to the deck, which like Boone’s is set up for company. I’m sprawled in a chair with a beer in hand admiring the sky when the stories start.
Boone’s brothers tell me about him growing up, and each story makes me laugh harder.
Hal jumps in, sharing tales about all of his sons when Boone’s brothers try to one-up each other on embarrassing stories about my man.
Finch is just finishing telling me a story about how Boone drove the four wheeler into the back of a parked trailer because he was distracted by a couple of tourists in their bathing suits at the lake.
“That was right before…” Finch trails off.
“Mom died,” Boone finishes and takes a deep drink of his beer.
The six of them follow suit, drinking their beer while it’s quiet.
Harlan sets his bottle down on the table with a deep thunk. “That’s the last embarrassing story we have for you, Jem, since Boone didn’t come home much after that. Not sure what he’s gotten up to in Felt since we never hear from him.”
“Come on, Har. Not tonight,” Rhett—I think—says.
Harlan stands and even I—who just met him—can see the anger and irritation in the gesture. He keeps his tone deadpan when he says to Boone, “I’d like to have a word with you.”
My gaze ping-pongs between the two, and after a minute, Boone stands up and hands me his beer. “I’ll be right back.”
