 by Frankie Love.jpg)
Total pages in book: 18
Estimated words: 16461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 82(@200wpm)___ 66(@250wpm)___ 55(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 16461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 82(@200wpm)___ 66(@250wpm)___ 55(@300wpm)
But now that they are all grown up, things are changing.
For one, their invention has a shot at being more than a pipedream.
If they get an investor, they could make their dream a reality.
As they work toward their joint goal, William starts to realize he doesn’t just want to run a business with Windy. He wants a whole life with her.
But telling the truth might mean losing the one girl he has always put first.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
1
WILLIAMS
“It’s on the house, Williams, you did one hell of a job with my old truck.” Mitch slides me a glass tankard across the counter, filled to the frothy brim with my preferred booze.
“Think nothing of it. It’s my job. And you paid for it.”
Mitch leans on the counter. It’s pretty slow right now, so he doesn’t have any other patrons to tend to. “You went the extra mile. My truck is from the 1980s and you got parts in for it ASAP.”
I shrug. “I know you need it to go visit your mother. It’s really no big deal.”
“Oh, it is. I had a breakdown in Seattle once and I had to spend a week in a hotel because they refused to speed up any of the orders.”
I laugh. They were probably just lazy. I didn’t tell Mitch this, but the repair job I did for him only required a bit of tinkering, making another truck’s part fit his older model. I have some minor engineering skills that serve me well in my job.
“If you really want to spoil me, how about a batch of the saloon’s famous mozzarella sticks?”
“Be right out for you, Will.”
This is small-town life. It’s about supply and demand, bartering. You watch other people’s back, you help them out, and they’ll help you out in turn. Sure, you still exchange money. That’s just how the world works today, and people need money to get by. But it’s mostly about being a community, an extended family of sorts.
It’s the great thing about a place like Burly.
I sip my beer, looking about, passing my time. It’s still the early-bird hours at the bar, but I wanted to make sure I have plenty of time before nightfall.
I’ve never been the type to come to the bar to drink alone. I come here with purpose. Today I’m meeting with an old friend.
Mitch returns, dropping off the basket of mozzarella sticks. “Fresh batch, right out of the fryer, just for you, Will.”
“Thanks a lot, Mitch. You treat a man just right.”
“Just doing my job,” he says with a smile, throwing my words back out at me.
Chuckling, I take one, dip it in the healthy supply of marinara he gave me, and chew as I think about the person I’m about to meet.
Windy Jones.
Middle school best friends, and we always wanted to keep it like that. Burly isn’t a very big town, and the school we went to reflected that. Most of the kids were pretty typical small-town, rural types. Into horse-riding, sports and the like. Windy and I? We were nerds compared to them.
Not the Dungeons and Dragons kind—we were into machines and technology, and how it all worked.
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been interested in what makes things tick. How did our tractor plow the field? How did the milking machines work? I created my fair share of chaos back in the day taking things apart only for my Dad to have to call the repairman in to put them back together.
That isn’t an issue anymore. My brother Cash is taking over the ranch, but I’m still on board as the all-around repair guy. It’s the twenty-first century, even ranches gotta be wired up. I keep everything flowing so the business can be done, and all the machines are in good order.
Growing up, Windy was a kindred soul. We both had a curiosity about machines and technology, and she was the only girl in the our high school mechanics class. Maybe because the other guys thought less of her for being a girl, I hit it off with her. As friends, I remind myself.
We never became anything else. We were close, but so many stories of relationships becoming more than friends and failing scared me off of pushing for more. And I knew her well enough to see it scared her too. So we stayed friends. Even though we were single, even through the prom. Which we went to together. As friends.
Both of us were really dedicated to not crossing that line.
We went to a state technical school together, and then I went back to the ranch to be useful there.
Windy, though?
She had to go elsewhere. Burly’s too small of a town to find a job like what she was looking for, and our local auto mechanic didn’t need another set of hands. Her father runs an auto parts store, but it’s just a store, not a garage, so off to Seattle she went, working on cars and making some good money. The money’s a consolation prize for not being able to work where she wanted.
We’ve stayed in touch. Mostly over the internet. She seems to hate it in Seattle, always bickering about big city life and how rude everyone is to her. But she’s kept at it, and has done well for herself.