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“Don’t pay any attention to him,” Rufus returned. “It sticks in this desk jockey’s craw that I’m out on the street every day.”
"You're a double wide dick."
"That's what the ladies tell me."
“Yeah, yeah.” Brick rolled his eyes. “Remind me where you and your big dick were during that downtown structure fire a few years back, when we firefighters were hauling line up twelve flights of stairs. Working the barricade?”
“Protecting civilians from the risk of a collapsing building,” Rufus responded, “while you pyromaniacs were playing in your favorite sand box.”
He wasn’t as tall as Brick, but he was still a big man, like a compact tank. After he tossed Brick another grin, Rufus engulfed her hand in a cordial shake. “So this little slip of a girl is the one who holds our big arson detective’s heart.”
“He’s talked about me?” Les asked.
“Unless there’s some other young lady with big hazel eyes studying to be a doctor.”
“I told him what a pain in the ass you are,” Brick put in.
“Only a woman who means something to a man can drive him insane.” Rufus winked at her.
She laughed. “How long have you two known one another?”
“Since we were little kids.”
“Really?” When it came to Brick’s past before Fairhope, she’d been limited to the information she overheard at their house. “How did you become friends?”
“You remember my dad is an American history teacher,” Brick said. “Rufus’s was also a big history buff, specifically the Civil War, which was my dad’s favorite time period.”
“You did re-enacting together,” she realized.
Brick nodded. “I wasn’t doing as much of it with my dad by the time I moved to Fairhope and discovered football. But Rufus’s dad was into reenacting too. They did the battle and living history events. And brought their sons along.”
“Some boys went fishing with their dads, did sports or hung out together in a hunting blind,” Rufus confirmed. “We did reenacting.”
Registering her fascinated expression, he held up a finger and rose. When he disappeared inside his trailer, Brick gave her a look of amused patience.
Rufus returned with two 8x10 framed photographs. The first was a group shot. Several young boys stood in front of a line of men, all in Union uniforms, wearing somber expressions. That and the sepia tint gave it the look of the time period.
“That’s my daddy there.” Rufus pointed him out, and Les saw a broad man with Rufus’s features. “I’m the pudgy kid in the middle. I got to be a drummer, which meant my mama had an excuse to get me away from the TV and outdoors, to practice.” He affected an exasperated feminine tone. “‘Rufus, baby, go play your drum under that big shade tree there.’”
“One that was about half a mile down the road,” Brick quipped. He jerked his thumb at the truck. “Where do you want this stuff? I’ll unload it while you tell her lies.”
Rufus pointed to a metal storage building in the same shape as the trailer. “I’d help, but you need to impress your girl by flexing your overinflated muscles. Plus I haven’t finished my coffee.”
Brick shot him the bird. As he strode away, Les indulged a glimpse of his purposeful movements. The look of the man in his jeans and Richmond Fire Department T-shirt was too much to deny herself.
Though she brought her attention back to Rufus quickly, she should have known a cop would notice.
“Yeah, most women can’t keep their eyes off his ass. I even look at it every once in a while. It’s mesmerizing.”
As she chuckled, he handed her the second picture. “This is me and Brick.”
“I’ve never seen pictures of him younger than high school.” Delighted, Les held the photo in both hands as she took a closer look. Before puberty, Brick’s arms and legs had been long and ungainly. He was also incredibly skinny. Those freckles she’d noted on his back had had more company in his youth, a good scattering of them on his face. Even at this age, his expression said he wasn’t afraid of a fight for the right reasons, though his eyes looked ready to laugh.
He and Rufus had their arms around each other’s shoulders, Brick uniformed in the Confederate Gray, Rufus in the Union Blue. They’d affected cocky but still unsmiling expressions, chins lifted and thumbs hooked in their belts.
Brick’s dad had been almost too good of a teacher. Looking at the picture, some of the more dramatic details he’d taught them about the War Between the States came back to her. Including the death toll on both sides.
She was definitely a little frayed emotionally if she was unsettled by the photograph because it made her imagine Brick dying in a battle over a century ago. She cleared her throat.
