Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 59489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 297(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 297(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
Watching all my friends come home and find wives probably didn’t help either.
As I rode back to the ranch with Ryan, I tried to pretend I wasn’t listening as he got a phone call from Allison. She had been a great match for Ryan, and now I could barely think of one without the other. They fit so well together, complementing each other at every step. Where he was laid-back and relaxed, she was feisty and fiery. She pushed him to think bigger, to dream higher, and in return, he provided her the solid ground she could jump from to reach the stars.
They were wildly in love, and my mind drifted to my other friends who had similarly found their partners. Graham came back home after being a Major League pitcher who developed a bum arm after a terrible injury to find love in Mallory and the little boy he never knew he had. Vic came back home after a nasty divorce to meet Melanie, and together they ran the local grocery store in town, building it up a million times better than it had been before the tornado wiped out the original building.
Then of course, there was Mark and Carmela. My own sister. She and Mark ended up together when I invited Mark to stay at the ranch with me after he moved back to town to take over his late father’s medical practice. I thought I was just bringing in my buddy for some video games and beer, but when Carmela needed a fake fiancé for a wedding with her ex and her former best friend, Mark stepped up to the plate and ended up turning it all into something real.
Yet, here I was, the only one who’d never left Murdock, and the only one still single. And I was going back to college like a damn teenager.
“So, you bought a backpack?” Mark asked as we leaned against the fence, watching as Carmela and Mallory rode horses. The other girls were inside the big house, farther out onto the property, happily having a girls’ night while we boys tried to figure out what we were going to do after sundown.
“And pencils,” Ryan said. “And a Trapper Keeper.”
“Not going to lie,” Graham said, “I had a Trapper Keeper full of notes on hitters all the way up to my last year in the league.”
“Of course you did,” Ryan said. “You’re a giant man-child. Camden buying a Trapper Keeper is fucking weird.”
“I like it,” Mark said. “Lay off of him a bit. The man wants to get his education.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Like the rest of you nerds did, save Ryan who got all his learning in the desert.”
“Hey, I have an idea,” Victor chimed in. “Why don’t we take this lug out to the campus and go to a bar down there? What’s that bar we went to when Graham was in town?”
“Big Danny T’s?” I asked.
“No, no, the one in Slater,” Vic said. “The Wooden Leg?”
“Oh yeah,” Graham replied. “The one that’s owned by the former wrestler who had a fake leg in his boot for years and no one knew about it.”
“What?” Ryan asked. “I must have missed all this.”
“You did,” Vic said. “You were still in the desert. Trust me, this place is cool. It’s real big for the kids at Slater since they let you in at eighteen, but they mark your hand with a stamp of a pirate so you can’t drink underage.”
“A pirate?” I asked.
“Wooden leg,” Mark and Vic said at the same time, then laughed.
“All right, fine,” I said. “I’ll go for a little bit, just because of the pirate and wrestler stuff. But I reserve the right to leave early.”
“Sure, sure,” Graham said. “It’s your celebration.”
Rolling my eyes, I headed back to the house to get changed. It didn’t take much, just a change of shirt and jeans. The last thing I wanted to do was possibly meet some other student or teacher or something with dirt all over my clothes.
Mark ended up as the designated driver, drawing the short straw among the others. I was exempt on account of them wanting me to experience a little bit of the college life. As we drove into town, a good half hour away, I started feeling uneasy about the whole thing. Most of these students were half my age, and I didn’t want to seem like the creepy old guy hanging around trying to pick up freshmen. I wasn’t there to pick up anyone. I was barely there at all.
The girls decided to come as well and were caravanning behind us with Carmela at the helm, and as we got out and headed inside, she poked me in the back and laughed.
“You going to get out on the dance floor and meet some college girl?” she teased.