Home Sweet Home (A Southern Comfort Novel) Read Online Free PDF Page B

with work that he couldn’t join the Willow Springs volunteer firefighters, but he could do his part by commiserating with his best friend who was, frankly, a drama queen. Of course, no fireman wants a house to catch on fire on account of lives endangered and property damaged. But Kyle was an adrenaline junkie and a rowdy, and being on call meant he had to stay close to home and sober. He used to spend his weekends on call with the other guys and gals at the fire station, but the captain had begged Jake to have mercy on all of them and babysit.
    So Jake was doing his part for the citizens of Willow Springs.
    Kyle was particularly grumpy because while he was on call, sitting around and not drinking like a normal red-blooded American man, Missy was out at the bars with her girlfriends. Kyle and Missy had only been dating for a few weeks this time, but they had dated for a couple of weeks on and off since high school. Jake wasn’t sure why, if they drove each other so crazy, they couldn’t just quit it. He liked Missy well enough, but he really couldn’t see going out with someone who drove him as crazy as she drove Kyle. He asked Kyle about it once, and Kyle had slugged him. So they didn’t talk about feelings anymore.
    Missy was out and Kyle was home, and he’d been a beast all weekend, torturing himself with the kinds of trouble Missy was getting into without him. She wasn’t helping, sending pictures of herself doing shots, hugging the bartender. If Jake didn’t know Missy so well, he would’ve said she was being cruel. Well, she was being cruel, but Jake knew she was just giving Kyle hell. And Kyle had moped and whined, and Jake finally had to hide his car keys so Kyle didn’t go out and chase Missy down.
    So on Monday, no longer on call, Kyle staked out the hospital where Missy worked, finagled her into the car when she was done with her shift, and Jake didn’t hear from either of them until Tuesday afternoon. By then, Kyle was feeling tied down and claustrophobic, and Missy was sick of his crap, so Jake invited himself over to Kyle’s house where they basically did what they’d done all weekend, but this time with beer.
    Jake had spent more nights than was probably healthy on Kyle’s couch. He had even gone out and bought his own pillow to keep in Kyle’s linen closet. It was the only remotely linen thing in there. But last night Jake had had too much whiskey on top of his beer, and he’d made do with the scratchy throw pillows and his sweatshirt.
    Which was now buzzing on his cheek.
    He dug around the mess until he found the pocket, then pulled out his cell phone. He didn’t recognize the number, which usually meant he shouldn’t pick up. But he was tired and hungover and wanted to take it out on someone, so he picked up.
    “H’lo?”
    “Hi, is this Jake?”
    A woman. He squinted across the room at the neon Schlitz clock. It was awfully early for him to be staring at neon, let alone for a strange woman to be calling.
    “Hello?” the woman asked.
    Jake grunted in response.
    “Hi, this is Grace Williams. Um, your sister sold me that house?”
    Right. The professor who lived in that money pit. He thought he was off the hook with that obligation. If she needed him to hang her cat pictures, he was going to be pissed.
    “Yeah, hi. What’s up?” he said in the most uninterested way possible.
    “Sorry, did I wake you?”
    Years of maintaining relationships with difficult clients had taught Jake to politely deny when he was being inconvenienced, no matter how big a lie it was.
    “Yeah,” he replied. He wanted her to know that she was inconvenient.
    “Oh. Sorry. Like I said.”
    “What do you want, Professor?”
    “Um. You know what? Never mind. I’m fine.”
    He heard her hesitation, and he knew she wasn’t fine.
    “What do you need, Grace?” It did not, in fact, kill him to be a little bit nice.
    “I told you, I’m—”
    “I promised my sister I’d help you out, and if she finds out you