Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
“Ohhhhhh. Wait.” When I look over at her, that beautiful face of hers is all crinkled up. “I think I heard something about this.”
“I think everyone heard something about this. It was a big fuckin’ deal in Congress the last two years.”
“Yes. They had a commission about it.”
“They certainly did. All the people running it—all my superiors—well, most of them went to prison over the whole thing. And not the super-fancy-fancy kind, either.” She giggles. “They all got ten years in the fuckin’ brig.”
“Yeah, I do remember that. Did you get in trouble?”
“Well, not officially. It was a military operation, but we weren’t military. That’s the part Congress took offense to. See, these generals, they made a… a private army, if you will. According to Congress, we were mercenaries. But according to our contracts, we were security.”
“Well, this sounds sticky, Collin.”
“Oh, you have no idea how fuckin’ sticky that whole thing got.”
“But you’re out now? I mean, you are, right? You’re here, startin’ a business. It’s not some front for the US government, is it?”
“Fuck. No.”
She relaxes a little. “Good.”
“That’s all you got to say about that? Good? I’m not government, so that’s good?”
Her smile is real, but not big. “It’s very good.”
I decide to leave it at that because we’re coming up to the little place I’m taking her for dinner. She leans forward when I pull into the parking lot of a log-cabin restaurant on the Watauga River. There’s an old painted sign over the huge front porch that says ‘Watauga Waffle House.’
Lowyn huffs out a little laugh. “The Waffle House?”
“Not the Waffle House. The Watauga Waffle House. But don’t worry, the online menu says they serve spaghetti and meatballs.”
She slaps my shoulder in a playful manner that makes me so homesick for high school, my stomach aches. “I still do like a good meatball.”
I laugh too. Turn the Jeep off. Then I look over at her and take her all in. She’s got on a white tank top and a white overshirt that makes her look girly and feminine. There are no buttons or anything on this overshirt, it’s a cotton jacket with eyelet lace on the collar and the bell sleeves, with two pieces of white satin tied in a bow at the dip of her waist. She’s wearing jeans too. Tight jeans that really show off her curves. And boots. Lowyn McBride always did like a good pair of vintage cowgirl boots.
“So… listen, Lowyn—”
“You don’t have to.”
“You don’t even know what I’m gonna say.”
“I kinda do. Whatever happened, happened. That’s how I see it. I understand why things went the way they did. It was a really fucked-up night, ya know?”
She’s talking about the night I killed that man. “Yeah. It certainly was.”
“And… well, we were too young to process it. I’m really glad you’re back though.”
“You sure? Because you were pretty mad at me when you realized it was me you took home that night.”
“That reaction was a combination of things. And I’m not gonna pretend that I wasn’t hurt when you left, but it’s not about that. Not exactly.”
“What’s it about then?”
She unsnaps her seat belt and turns in the seat so we’re more facing each other. Then she starts wringing her hands in her lap. “I lied about something. That was part of it. It was embarrassment, maybe. And… yeah, I was mad at you for leaving me. But that was a long time ago. And then you made that nice offer to let me come pick your place and… and I realized we don’t have to be mad at each other. Ya know? That… I dunno. Maybe we just needed time apart and it wasn’t meant to be back then.”
“And now?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. But before this goes any further”—she points at me, then herself—“I have to tell you something about that room of yours in my house.”
“My room?”
“Yeah. You see, it’s not for sale.”
“But I saw it on the website. It’s all on there.”
“Yeah. It is. Because that same morning that we woke up in your bed, I put a bunch of pictures up on the website to make you think that.”
“So… you’re telling me… you’ve kept my childhood bedroom like a shrine for… for why?” Her face goes sad, which confuses me. “Lowyn, what is going on?”
She lets out a long breath and then reaches for my hand.
This startles me, so I pull back. And I don’t mean to do that, but before my mind can catch up with my reaction, it’s already done. “I didn’t… I don’t… just tell me what’s going on.”
“OK. But I’m sorry ahead of time, OK?”
I shrug. I don’t even know what to do with that statement. “OK.”
“OK. Well, after you left, the preacher, your daddy, well he got weird, Collin. The sermons got dark. People stopped comin’ to the Revival. The towns started losing money. People just… glossed over it the first year. He’s upset, he’s… whatever. They thought it would pass. But the second year, he was worse.”