Page 33 of The Wrong Guy
Maybe it’s my stellar personality, or more likely, my grunting caveman ways, but she smiles happily. “You got it, honey-baby. Coming right up.”
It’s early enough that the table in the back corner is vacant, so I rack the balls, grab a cue from the wall, and line up my opening shot. The crack! shoots out along with my breath, and balls scatter across the table.
I do it again and again, letting my mind clear of everything but the next shot as I clear the table. At some point, Charlene silently sets a pitcher of beer and a cold mug on a nearby table. A few minutes later, she delivers a burger too.
But I keep playing.
One game. Two games. Three games. I lose track of how long I play. At some point, I eat the burger and drink a beer. The restaurant fills up as people get off work and want to grab dinner or play a game themselves. I ignore them all, and thankfully, no one approaches me. Until two guys come up who I have to talk to.
“What’d that eight ball do to you?” Wyatt Ford asks, helping himself to a glass of my beer.
Wyatt’s married to my sister, Hazel, and for some strange reason thinks her special brand of batshit crazy is charming and adorable. They literally met when she attack-jumped a guy who’d turned into a sore loser after a pool game. Wyatt intervened, pulling her off the guy’s back and getting yelled at for his efforts. But that sketchy meeting somehow resulted in Wyatt falling in love with her, and now my sister is his problem.
I look up from my shot to meet Wyatt’s eyes. “Looked at me wrong.”
And with that, I make the shot blind without glancing back down at the ball. I don’t need to follow it to the pocket to know it sunk cleanly.
Wyatt chuckles and leans over to his brother, Winston, who’s wearing his sleeping son in a baby carrier on his chest. “Looks like someone’s in a piss-poor mood.”
“Don’t say p-i-s-s in front of Joe.” He covers the baby’s ears even though he spells out the not-cussword and the boy’s so deeply asleep there’s a puddle of drool on Winston’s shirt. “You good, man?” Winston asks me.
Winston’s a good guy, even if bringing a baby to Puss N Boots is ... weird. I worked with him quite a bit when he was an architect at Ford Construction Company, working for his uncle. But he escaped and started his own design firm, married the girl of his dreams, and they have a baby named after Avery’s grandpa Joe, who has taught his namesake wayyy worse words than piss.
“Nah, I’m fucked. Royally fucked.” They don’t deserve to get hit full force by my ugly attitude, but I’ve been holding it inside for so long that Winston’s kind question pops the top and all my anger rushes out like a beer shotgun. “But not as bad as the guys. Did you know Alan’s wife is expecting again?”
Crack. Crack. Crack.
I keep shooting as I wait for his answer.
“Meredith? She doing alright?” Winston’s trying to figure out why Alan’s should-be-happy situation has me trying to kill billiard balls.
“For now. Not that your uncle gives a rat’s ass.”
That’s the missing piece they need. There’s no love lost between the Ford boys and their uncle, who nearly destroyed their dad and Cold Springs in one fell swoop.
“What’d he do now? Other than get his mistress pregnant, lie to his wife, and steal more oxygen than he’s entitled to.” Winston could list off more wrongs Jed has done, but he’s already rolling his eyes and shaking his head at the latest round of misdeeds.
I lower my voice to keep what I’m about to say between us. The last thing I need to do is start a panic in town. “Chrissy’s going after the company, which means it’s frozen. No construction after the existing permits expire or are completed.”
The Ford brothers understand construction and permits, with Winston being an architect and Wyatt having done quite a bit of specialized historical woodwork restorations on old homes. But apparently, they didn’t know about Jed and Chrissy’s issue.
“She’s what?” Winston balks. “No way.”
“Straight from Jed’s mouth,” I counter. “Have you met the new woman?” When they shake their heads, I fill them in. “Young, blonde, pregnant. She calls him Jeddie-Weddie and they baby talk to a disgusting degree.”
“Jeddie?” Winston says.
“Weddie?” Wyatt finishes.
I nod. “And Lucy-Juicy.”
A collective shiver runs through all three of us. “Let me in for the next game. I need to hit something, too, after that,” Wyatt says, putting a dollar on the rim of the table.
I hand it back. “Keep your money. Game’s on me.”
I clear the table, and Wyatt racks the balls. We play for a while before Charlene risks coming over again. She sidles up next to Winston to make cooing noises at Joe, who’s waking up from his nap, and then says, “Hey, honey-baby, good to see you. That one needs a friendly face.” She lifts her chin toward me. “Getcha anything?”
“Fries, please.”