Chikalu Falls 3 - Protecting You by Hendrix Lena

Author:Hendrix, Lena [Hendrix, Lena]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B09G9LLLRL
Published: 2021-12-02T05:00:00+00:00

Twenty

Deck

Now

The house band was rocking The Pidge tonight, and Colin’s deep voice had most of the crowd on their feet and dancing to a popular, upbeat song. I stayed planted on my stool, doing my best not to stare at the door. Earlier, Colin had said that Honey mentioned her and the girls meeting up with us tonight. Excitement had my knee bouncing, and I tried to play it off as moving along to the beat of the music.

Lincoln walked up to me and passed me a fresh beer. “What’s new, brother?”

Everything. My entire universe has tilted on its axis, and it has everything to do with Maggie O’Brien.

“Not much, man,” I answered instead. “Work’s been busy.”

Linc eyed me as he took a pull of his beer, and it had me wondering how much Maggie had told her girlfriends. Had the game of small-town telephone already made its rounds through our small circle of friends?

“Any luck on finding who’s been tagging the buildings?”

“Shit, man.” I sighed. “I thought I was close the other night. I spotted them, but something came up, and they slipped away.” I thought back to Maggie’s odd reaction in the car, and something scratched at the back of my skull. Brushing past the thought, I focused on our conversation. “Though now I’m fairly certain it’s high school kids. Locals.”

“Sounds about right,” he said. “You remember that night we smeared Vaseline all over Johnny Achman’s windshield?”

A deep laugh rumbled out of me. “Oh shit! I’d forgotten about that. Goddamn, he was pissed. Didn’t it take, like, hours for him to get it all off?”

“Yeah. He didn’t realize what it was and made the mistake of flipping on the wipers.” A rare grin from Linc had me laughing and lost in old memories. As kids, Colin, Lincoln, and I had gotten into all kinds of bullshit. Usually Maggie stayed out of it. She was too focused on school and working to get a scholarship, but I’d always told her what we were up to, and she would roll her eyes and laugh. Idiots she’d always say as she shook her head.

Maggie was woven into the fabric of my childhood, and just thinking about getting a piece of that back had my heart shifting and rearranging in my chest. This morning, she’d left early, and we didn’t have the lazy start to the day I had hoped for, but I could respect that she had her own life full of responsibilities that didn’t include me. That fact didn’t stop me from driving past the flower shop a time or two just to get a peek of her. Every time I saw her through the large glass windows, helping customers, she was smiling and radiant and gorgeous, and when I caught my reflection in the glass, I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I didn’t look quite so hardened.

Linc shifted in his seat, and my eyes tracked him to see Honey and Jo working their way through the crowd toward us.

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