GIANNI DROVE the ancient Chevy out to Chris’s place, hunting grilled meat. Chris was living in his folks’ house, so Gianni wondered where they were. Surely he would have heard if they were dead or something. Chris was older than him and Xavvy, but not that much.
Smoke was trickling up from the back, so he pulled around, behind the pecan trees.
Chris waved at him from next to the grill, his gimme cap shadowing his face.
Chris was a match for Xavvy size-wise, white-blond and blue-eyed where Xavvy was dark.
God, he’d pay to watch a fight between them. Xavvy would probably take him up on it too. Gianni parked before hopping out to saunter over to Chris. “Smells good, buddy.”
“Burgers and dogs. Hey, Boyardee, how you been?” Chris gave him a big bear hug.
“Ugh.” He hugged back, though, pounding Chris’s shoulder. “Good. How are you, man?”
“Eh, same shit different day. Have a sit. Beer?”
“Yeah, thanks.” He grabbed a beer out of the cooler Chris had indicated. Shiner. Nice. Better than the Lone Star they’d consumed as kids. He planted his ass in a lawn chair. The place was just the same—a neat little ranch, classy, but not McMansion, everything kept up, freshly painted, deck clean, grill shiny. “So did your folks move to Florida?” He hoped to God they were alive. If not he sounded like an ass.
“Mexico. They’re living in a condo on the beach, eating ceviche and sucking margaritas. Mom has a pool boy named Jorge.”
“Holy shit, man.” He stared. “Your momma.”
“Tell me about it. My ever-so-proper mother called me to ask me how to roll a joint the other day, man.”
“Jesus.” He barked out a laugh. “Well, good for them.”
“I guess, yeah.” Chris sucked his longneck down, tanned throat working. “You liking being home? How’s your people?”
“They’re good. It’s weird being back, man. Especially with a task force in tow.” He rubbed the beer bottle over the back of his neck.
“Yeah. I’ve been hearing all the gossip. New cowboys. New staff. Town’s buzzing.”
“Good. I want them all excited.” He needed it, in fact. Gianni had to play lord of the manor to someone.
“You going to throw a big cookout deal?”
“At some point, yeah. I have to get to know the team a little better first. Just in case.”
“You got a fine group. Your super sent me a jacket. Privately, here at the house.”
“Tom’s all right.” And a sneaky bastard.
“Yeah. It’s good to be local and friends with the crazy foreigner running the sting.”
“Shut up.” He swigged at the beer. His folks had taught him to drink wine at a young age. His Texas friends had taught him about beer. His Texas friends had taught him a lot of lessons that he’d never wanted to forget.
Chris beamed at him, clearly tickled to have gotten one up on him.
“Had breakfast with Xavvy this morning.”
Oh, that earned him thunderclouds. The scowl was immediate and deep.
“He wants to go under with the biker gang,” Gianni added.
“He’s an idiot. He’s going to get himself killed.”
“You gonna blame yourself if he does?” He wasn’t going to go any easier on Chris than he had on Xavvy.
“Fuck off, John. You don’t know shit about me or Xavier. He’s a ticking time bomb.”
“Yeah. I think it’s best to give him some work. He’s bored.”
“He’s broken.”
Gianni raised an eyebrow. “Is that why you turned him down?”
“Fuck you. He didn’t know what he was doing, man. He was drunk and hurting.”
“Huh.” He reserved judgement on that. He thought Xavvy had known exactly what he was doing. “So what about you? You gonna run for sheriff?”
Chris shrugged. “I guess. What else can I do?”
“Well, you could look to another law enforcement agency. The Rangers, the DEA….” His background check said Chris was the senior deputy when the sheriff and undersheriff retired due to a sex scandal. He didn’t want the damn job.
Gianni saw a flash of desperation in Chris’s eyes. “Yeah, I’ve thought about it. A lot.”
“So, do it. You have the qualifications.” When Chris glared, he grinned. “Yeah, I’ve seen your whole resume, backgrounds, everything.”
Chris flipped him off. “I don’t like Xavvy in with those assholes. They ain’t locals.”
“I know.” He sobered. “He’s insistent.”
“He’s dangerous. He’s… a wild card.”
No, Colt was a wild card. Hell, Colt was a nuclear explosion waiting to happen. “I’ll keep him reined in.” This was a clusterfuck waiting to happen.
“Buddy, this is a giant assfuck and you know it.”
“Yeah. I know.” He shook his head. “Jesus, Chris. This is huge. My operation, but also the drug operation. Did you know they were moving product through here?”
“No. I mean, I suspected they were distributing—but low-level shit. Nothing like what y’all are talking about. This sort of shit is hard-core.”
“They’re moving it across my land.” He got really damn pissed when he thought about it. “And Jerilyn’s. Thank God I got here before someone hurt her.”
“I would have been there to protect her. I’ve been sheriff for a friggin’ month, man.”
“Hey, I trust you. You know that. This is personal, though.” He hated that his land, his mom’s legacy, might be harboring a fucking biker gang running drugs. Hated it.
“The club is on the county line. Was just a honkytonk up to… I don’t know, a year and a half ago? Marla sold out, and then suddenly there’s hogs everywhere.”
“Okay. I’ll get that to my info tech.” Gianni wanted to know who’d bought it and everything about them. “That smells freaking amazing, man.”
“I do love a burger. You want to fix your bun?”
“Yeah.” He hoisted up so he could move to grab a hamburger and hot dog bun. “Are we expecting more company?” There was a prodigious amount of meat on the grill.
“Nah. I take them for lunch, but you eat as much as you want.”
“I bet your office is popular at noontime,” he teased. God, Chris was chafing at the bit.
“Not usually.” Chris finally sat across from him, burger in hand. “I hate it, man. I loved being a deputy. I was the best investigator and worked with the state a lot. Now I’m a paper pusher.”
“What happened with the sheriff?”
“You know full well, he got caught dipping his wick with an underaged girl. Ugly shit.”
“The undersheriff too?” He opened his eyes wide.
“No, he ran the cover-up. I tried to get them to appoint someone else, maybe bring back Griggs.”
“Griggs has to be ninety.”
Chris shook his head. “Seventy-six.”
“Still. Dude. Just don’t run.”
“If I can figure it. I’m trying to do the right thing here.”
“Do the right thing for yourself. The county will recover.” He munched on his burger. Damn, that was good. Man grill meat. If Chris decided not to be sheriff, he could be a short-order cook. “You ever thought about a restaurant?”
“Shut up.”
“Seriously, you’d rock it.”
“No. I want to be able to carry a gun.”
“Hey, Old Ben did that at the Dairy Mart.” The mart had closed when Ben died, but all the kids for a lot of generations remembered him and his shotgun.
“Oh man. Those onion rings…. You remember those?”
“God yes. And the pineapple milkshakes.” Xavvy had always gone mint chocolate chip, but Jerilyn had taught him and Chris the value of a pineapple shake.
“With malt! Oh fuck, man, I hadn’t thought of that in eons!”
“We should sucker Jerilyn to make them for us. She has Ben’s recipe.” He fist-bumped Chris, laughing like a loon.
Chris suddenly looked young, twenty years falling from him.
Okay, it wasn’t his job to fix this shit, but he was sure gonna try. Chris needed to get out from under the weight of all these local expectations. It killed him, how they had been the three musketeers for two years and now they were virtual strangers.
He wanted to fix that too.
He ate his hot dog after his burger, the crispy casing making him sigh happily. “I might have to have another one.”
“Have all you want. I got plenty.” Chris grabbed some chips and another beer.
“Thanks.” He grabbed a dog and a burger. If he couldn’t finish, well, he’d wrap it up and take it home. “Maria hasn’t had to do for so many in a while, and it’s causing us all rumbly in the tummy. I’ve had to hide my chocolate stash three times.”
“You are a chocolate whore, man. Always have been. I got Maydell to make me a couple chocolate pies. Real ones, not the pudding ones.”
“As in you have them here? Now?” Chocolate pie was always a winner, no matter how many he’d had.
“As in I have them here. Now. In the fridge.”
“Damn.” He put the burger aside for home and ate the hot dog sans bun. He wanted that pie.
“Slut.” Chris’s eyes twinkled.
“I so am.” He would give out blow jobs for chocolate pie. He had, more than once.
“So, what do I need to expect from you when you’re up to the house? Lord of the manor, Eurotrash shit?”
“Yep. I’m going to play it over the top. I need the bikers to think I’m a cream puff.”
Chris looked him over. “Wear loose clothes. You’re built like a brick shithouse.”
“Thanks, buddy. You should see the ATF guy.”
“Yeah? I can’t wait. He playing cowboy?”
“Chauffeur. I’ll bring him into town soon.” Greg would probably love to be shown off.
“Chauffeur. Oh sweet Jesus, I love it.”
“I know, right? Auntie is loaning me a stretch from her garage.”
“You’re not serious! You are going to turn people on their ears. I can’t wait.”
“Me either.” Though he knew it would take effort on his part. He was an ass, but not that much of an ass. “Pie?”
“Pie. Whipped cream?”
“Please and thank you.” He stood and helped clear up dishes and stuff.
The house was just like he remembered. Just like. Nothing was different. How weird. Chris had to own the place now. Why wasn’t he making it more modern? “How long have you been staying here?” Gianni asked.
“Seven years, I guess? Six and a half?”
“What?” Wait. Now he was confused.
“What what?”
“Why haven’t you changed anything? It looks like your mom moved out yesterday.”
Chris shrugged. “I’m not here much. I’m just… waiting.”
“That blows.” He pulled out two more plates. “I mean, dude, get new curtains.”
“Who buys curtains anymore?”
“You do. I swear. I’m going to send Jerilyn to take you shopping. How old are your sheets?”
“Huh? They’re sheets. They don’t wear out.”
“How old are they?” Gianni stormed back to the master bedroom so he could tear back the very serviceable brown comforter. “They have cabbage roses! These are your mom’s! You are a queer guy! Even closeted you ought to do better than this.”
“They’re free!” Chris stood in the door, face like a thundercloud.
“They’re your mom’s! That’s gross, man. You were probably conceived on these sheets.”
“I will wrap you up in my momma’s sheets and beat you until you can’t breathe!”
“Uh-huh. If we could be seen in public, I would take you right now to Kohl’s. In fact….” He grabbed his phone, dialing Colt. “I need sheets.”
“Pardon me?”
“Hang up the phone, asshole.”
“No.” He ducked Chris’s reaching hands. “Two sets of king-size jersey sheets. Manly colors. Put it on my Kohl’s or Macy’s account.”
“You got it, boss. Anything else? Towels?”
“God, yes. Towels, hand towels, and washcloths. Pillows.”
“Boyardee! Stop it.”
Colt hooted. “Did he just call you Boyardee?”
“He did. You do not have my permission. Curtains. Manly curtains.”
“What size?”
“A kitchen sink window and two standard front room ones.” The bedroom was just green curtains.
“Goddammit! Stop it!”
“And some damn throw pillows!”
Chris tore the phone out of his hand, clicking it off. “You. Are. An ass.”
“Uh-huh. You’re caught in a weird nonsexual time loop. You need an intervention.”
“For fuck’s sake, Gianni! I’m stuck in my old hometown in my parents’ house, under the fucking microscope of the sheriff’s office. There is no way to get laid. None!”
He stopped, shook his head. “Buddy, that’s just wrong.”
“I know!” Chris threw up his hands. “Can we go back to the front room?”
“Yeah. Yeah, you promised me pie.”
“You don’t deserve it, butthead.”
“Hey!” Gianni couldn’t keep a straight face. “I got you sheets.”
Chris grabbed him, gave him a noogie. “Fucker. I missed you. Asshole.”
“I missed you too. Now give me pie.” They walked out to the kitchen arm in arm, and Gianni was glad he’d made his friend feel more like himself. This whole thing was horked.