“Short and dirty version,” I said in a whisper so that it wouldn’t interrupt the yelling between the two people in front of me. “They’ve hated each other since high school. One time, Boone caught Nettie kissing a boy under the bleachers. He’d always had a crush on her, and he got mad. Told our parents, maybe. I’m not sure how they found out. Nettie was grounded for a month and missed junior prom. Nettie holds a mean grudge, and that only fueled her ire when it came to Bartholamew Daniel Windsor. The rest is kind of murky, and it’s things that I had to piece together on my own, but Nettie got pregnant by Boone right before he graduated. It had to do with a dark room and control issues. The problem was, Boone had just gotten accepted to a college half the country away. He had to ship out like the day that Nettie found out. Nettie was so pissed. She had an accident while playing soccer one day and fell really awkwardly. A person fouled her really hard. When she came back up, she was bleeding. Went to the hospital and everything was fine. But this is where it gets nuts. Nettie swears that the nurse practitioner there gave her something to take to help with the pain or sleeping or something that was supposedly safe for the baby. When she took it later that night, she started having cramps and bleeding heavily. She lost the baby. Boone wasn’t able to come home. It was a nightmare. They’ve been like this ever since.”
“You know, I’ve always wondered who the girl was.”
I looked over at him then, unsure I heard what he was saying over the fighting. “What?”
“The girl. The one that Boone talks about getting away when he’s drunk off his ass. It must be her. He says that she doesn’t live here.”
I couldn’t help the small smile from overtaking my face. “She doesn’t. She lives in Miami now.” I hesitated. “Though, I think she only stays because she doesn’t want to be here. To see him.”
“I think he said the age gap was a year?” Weaver asked. “That’s a pretty big age gap still for high school.”
I confirmed with a nod.
“The Nettie and Boone show knows no age.” I laughed. “They’ve been hating each other for as long as I can remember. I think Boone ran over Nettie’s bike when he came home from college. She’s called him a reckless driver ever since.”
“Was it on purpose?” Weaver wondered.
“No.” I shook my head. “She’d laid her bike down on the side of the road. Most of it was in the ditch, but a part of the tires and some of the frame were partially on the road and curb. He didn’t see it and ran it right over.”
“Guess it’s good to know that it didn’t have a kid on it when it was run over like someone else I know.” His gaze went to a man and a woman who were at a table a little in the middle of all the bikers. They were watching the show, enraptured. “Though it didn’t seem to work out too badly for those two.”
I was about to reply when Boone leaned forward and said, “At least I came home. You’re too fuckin’ scared to make the move.” Boone tilted his head. “Hey, Vandy. Didn’t your dad say that the Montana Cowgirls were trying to recruit this one? They were all excited, talking about a hometown girl on their team. Then that fell through. Wasn’t it because little ol’ Nettie here was too chicken shit to come back home?”
“Shit,” I said as I got up and walked toward the two of them.
I caught Nettie before she could launch herself forward at Boone. A move that Boone had fully expected.
“Boone,” I said stiffly. “Don’t.”
Boone’s gaze flicked to mine, then back down to Nettie.
He opened his mouth to say something but Nettie said, “You open your lying ass mouth again, and I’ll make you wish you didn’t say a word.”
Boone smiled and opened his mouth to say something, but the man I’d been trying not to stare at all night was standing next to him and interrupted whatever he was about to say.
“Come on, Boone,” Weaver said as he threw his bulky arm over Boone’s shoulder. “Let’s go have a beer.”
Boone let himself be pulled away, and soon I was left with a panting Nettie.
“You want to go home?” I asked.
Nettie shook her head. “No. I want to get drunk.”
And because I was a glutton for punishment and in need of some serious forgetting moments, I drank right along with her.
I drank so much, in fact, that I blacked out and couldn’t remember another second past the fourth beer.
Seven
My own death doesn’t frighten me but yours? Oh, that’s my deepest fear.
—Weaver’s secret thoughts
Weaver
The snoring woman on my couch would’ve sounded cute had she not followed that snore up with a moan.
Now she was just making me hard.
