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Of all the stupid-ass shit I’ve done in my life, tonight took the frigging cake and flushed it down the toilet.
Shelly had every right to tell me to fuck off and mind my own business.
A text isn’t the greatest way to apologize, I know, but it’s late as hell and I’m worried she won’t ever talk to me again. Even if radio silence might be for the best.
I’m also sure she’s asleep. I hope so.
I also hope she’s in bed alone, and that muckety-muck serpent didn’t slither his way into her pants.
Fuck. There I go again, being a nosy, overprotective, OCD asshole fixated on her life.
I stare at the text I sent.
It didn’t bounce, but I took a wild guess. I’m not sure if that’s her number anymore.
It’s the only one I have, and I didn’t feel like nudging Marty out of the blue to ask this late at night.
The entire world is probably sleeping, except for me.
I’m lying in this big old farmhouse alone, caught up in the fog of years gone by, and wondering why it’s cursed me with the brain of a field mouse.
I wound up here almost by default. After my parents moved south, they offered to sell it for a bargain and agreed to have Grady look in on it until I was honorably discharged and Dallas bound.
I took the deal.
Not because I’m stuck on childhood memories here, the average happy moments of an average kid in Average Small Town, USA.
Big, boisterous family holidays and meticulously built snow castles with Marty and the other kids had their charm, sure, but they didn’t factor too deeply into my motivation to resume life here.
No. Deep down, I know why.
I wanted this place because it was next to Thelma Simon’s.
Next door to the one place where Shelly might return, whenever she was done seeing the world and living out her promise.
I swallow hard.
It’s still unbe-fucking-lievable when I find the stones to admit it. All these years I tried to deny wanting another glimpse of her, only to have tonight happen and prove me dead wrong.
My phone pings and I sit up, clasping the phone with a cold sweat beading on my brow.
New message.
I snort. No doubt I’m being ridiculous.
I’ve seen more death than a coroner, and I’m nervous to read her reply?
Shoot me now.
With a deep breath, I click the icon. Warmth floods my insides at her two-sentence message.
You were always hardheaded, West. Just don’t let it make your brain a rock and we’re good.
“We’re good?” I snort again, shaking my head.
What went down tonight—everything that’s happened since she came back—is the screaming definition of anything but good.
Without thinking, I punch the call icon. She answers on the first ring.
