Flywheel by Alex Kendrick

Author:Alex Kendrick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2013-01-31T16:00:00+00:00

MAX

“I was just fixin’ to call you,” Garrett said.“Didn’t think you’d show.”

“Here I am.”

“Here you are. And we both know you ain’t got any prettier, Max.”

“Be worried if you thought otherwise.”

Garrett guffawed. He was broad shouldered, with a beer belly that parted the folds of his leather vest. “C’mon in,” he said, slapping Max hard on the back. “Be just like ol’ times, what you say?”

Max followed the man through the swinging door with the single diamond-shaped window. The pool hall was a time machine, preserving everything just the way it had been for ages—same wood-paneled walls, flickering beer signs for brands that had gone out of business in the last century, and scuffed billiard tables stained dark green, almost black, from years of cigarette smoke. The smell of beer and smoke reminded Max of dozens of wasted nights, empty conversations, and a life that was now dead and gone.

“Garrett, I gotta be back to work soon.”

“Work? Don’t know what that is. I’m retired.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“You don’t look none too glad.”

“I am,” Max assured him. “There’s no hard feelings about what happened.”

Garrett slapped his back again. “Good to know, good to know. Let’s give ’er another shot, what you say?”

“Eight-ball, you mean?”

“You betcha.”

“Kinda rusty. It’s been two years.”

“Took that last beatin’ pretty hard, huh?”

Max felt pride swell in his chest and thought about duking it out right here, then reminded himself of his reason for coming. Just being in this place shifted him into old patterns of responding, but he wasn’t that man anymore.

From the jukebox came the sounds of Creedence Clearwater Revival. “Garrett,”Max said, “I’m really just here to look at that flywheel. If it ain’t what I’m needing, I’ll leave you be.”

“And if it is?”

“I’ll pay.”

“You’ll pay, all right.” The words sounded threatening, yet Garrett showed nothing but good humor in his stance and tone. “Deal’s this . . . One game o’ eight-ball, and you get a peek at the part. If you win, it’s yours for three-seventy-five. Tha’s final.”

“I wanna see it first.”

Garrett shrugged. “Done told you the deal.”

“Is it here? Tell me that.”

“Near ’nuff I could spit on it.”

“Rack ’em up then.”

“Tha’s what I like to hear.” Another thundering backslap.

Max selected a cue from the wall rack, rolled it on the table to see that it was balanced and true. Garrett assembled his cue from a bag on a nearby table. Max won the lag, but he failed to drop in a single ball on the break, and his opponent took over.

It ended before it’d even started.

Garrett ran the table with masterful ease, calling the pockets and banking the eight ball into a corner. He grinned and joked throughout, never mean-spirited, just a retiree having a good time. He didn’t rub salt in Max’s wounds. He didn’t gloat. He simply looked across the green felt when he was done and said he was sorry, he truly was.

“You’ve been playing,”Max said.

“Could say that.”

“Never had a chance, did I?”

“Could say that, too.”

“So, what about the flywheel? No longer on the market?”

“Said no such thing.

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