Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 87439 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 437(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87439 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 437(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
“Liability,” I corrected absently. “That’s not cool of him.”
“I know! I’m still mad. Gabe’s dad is shorter than you by like…five feet. I think I can beat him.”
This time I did chuckle. “It’s not a competition, buddy. Everyone grows at different rates, but yeah…I have a feeling you’ll eventually end up being taller.”
He nodded, obviously pleased with my assessment. “That’s what Frank said, too.”
“Ahh.”
My good humor fizzled like a dying balloon. Don’t ask me why. Frank Daleo wasn’t a bad guy. He was goofy and surprisingly sweet for someone who vaguely resembled a hitman. No kidding. My ex’s bald, stern-faced, and gravelly-voiced new husband could have been mistaken for one of Tony Soprano’s goons. But Frank was just an insurance salesman from Scranton who’d relocated to Fallbrook soon after meeting Sarah.
That was three years ago now, and like I said…nice guy. I was happy for Sarah and relieved that she hadn’t married an asshole. I didn’t worry about the kids when Frank was around. He was cool and deferential and yet…sometimes I resented him.
Like now.
Right in the middle of a perfectly nice father-son chat, I got Franked.
“He thinks I’ll be big and if I’m not, I can sell ice cubes in Alaska,” Chase continued, unaware of my inner reverie. “I don’t even know what that means.”
Okay, that was funny.
Humor restored, I snickered and tousled Chase’s floppy hair. “It means you’d make a good salesman someday.”
Chase made an ew face. “No, I want to be a football player or an astronaut or a logger, so I can work at the mill with you. Don’t tell Frank, but I think his job sounds boring.”
I made a zipped-lips motion. “I won’t say a word.”
“He has to be on the phone a lot and go to meetings…like everywhere.”
“Everywhere, huh?” I stacked the comics on the table, sorting out the ones we were going to purchase. It was time to get going, drop Chase off, and head back to the office.
“Yeah, he went to San Diego last week.”
Screech.
Why would an insurance salesman from Vermont need to physically go to San Diego for his job? That seemed weird.
“San Diego?”
“Yeah, we wanted to go too, but…school. And you have to take a plane, and remember how scared Ivy got when…”
I nodded and hummed along to whatever he was saying, but my brain was buzzing.
Something was going on. I had no idea what it could be, but California coming up in conversation with each of my kids within a week was a strange coincidence. I didn’t like it.
“Come on, Den. You got this, baby!”
I shot a side-eyed glance at the cowboy perched on the edge of my sofa with his fists clenched, willing the hockey players whizzing by on the ginormous flat-screen above my fireplace to put the fucking puck in the net.
“Take a deep breath, Hank. They’re up four to one,” I chided, taking a swig of my beer.
“Logically, I know this, but I can’t relax. He’s looking good, though, huh?” Hank commented, eyes glued to the screen.
Reg agreed. “He looks like a one-man wrecking ball.”
That was a bit of an understatement. Denny Mellon was arguably the best player in the NHL. He was known for his speed and agility, and he was currently the league’s top scorer. He was also an out bisexual man, married to Hank Cunningham, my boss and heir to a milling empire.
Hank’s father had founded Rocky Mountain Mills a few decades ago and, much to the board’s confusion, had expanded his reach by purchasing a family-owned and operated mill in Vermont. No one had thought Hank would last a year. Including me. And certainly not Reg.
Reg and his fellow officers had established a betting pool to predict the day Hank would hop on the first plane back to Denver, but that hadn’t happened. And while Reg hadn’t been happy to lose five hundred dollars to a rookie cop from Pinecrest, he’d begrudgingly become good friends with Hank.
As for Reg and me, we’d been best friends since sixth-grade when I’d moved to Wood Hollow. Being the new kid in town hadn’t been easy. I’d lost my dad, my friends, and my home in one fell swoop. It had been an awkward age to feel untethered, angry, and out of place, but all that had changed the second Reg La Rue had invited me into his circle of minor miscreants who smoked cigarettes in the woods and talked about boobs.
Later, Reg and I came out as bi to each other and added dick to our conversations. And eventually, we’d both married women, had kids, got divorced, and were now single.
Reg was a great guy and a decent looking one—tall, fit but with a little frosting around his middle, salt-and-pepper hair, and rugged features. Reg cared about his hometown and took his pledge to serve and protect seriously. That goodwill was amplified to the nth degree for close friends.