Just A Small Town Girl: A New Adult Romantic Comedy Read Online Free PDF Page A

said. "It's very simple. Originally Bob just needed a little help with the sales and distribution side of things..."
     "Drug dealing," I said.
     Steve leaned over. "Will you keep your voice down? Since when did you get so pious anyway? You smoked enough yourself."
     I leaned over to meet him and lowered my voice. "I was never a dealer," I said. "Dealers get busted - that's why I never did it, stupid. What the fuck am I supposed to say if the cops show up at my door? 'It's all a mistake, officer - that ganja rainforest in there is strictly for personal consumption'? They're not gonna buy that. Snoop Dogg couldn't smoke his way through that shit..."
     "...if you'll just listen to me."
     "Listen to what? What's there to listen to? 'Oh hey, Clayton - I have a perfectly good reason for filling your house with illegal substances and I want you to sit quiet and listen nicely while I explain why'?"
     "Yes," said Steve. "In essence, that's exactly what I'm asking you to do."
     I sighed, realizing there was no point arguing further because whatever I said I was going to yell myself hoarse at a rate of about fourteen fucks per minute and Steve was not going to budge an inch. It had always been like that ever since we were little; Steve could always come up with a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why we should attempt to climb the chain link fence into the junk-yard at night, or why we should try to build a scale model of a medieval trebuchet with the intention of firing his younger brother into next door’s pond. He'd been class president through most of High School, prompting some of the staff to worry that he might consider politics as an actual career; they all agreed that his unusual talents would be better channeled in less harmful directions, like pyramid selling or cult leading.
     "Okay," I said. "Fine. Hit me."
     "It's simple. What happened was our man Robert ran into a little difficulty with an old friend and this led to a certain need to expedite the uh...the redistribution of certain assets. Do you follow?"
     "No. Try that again. This time in English."
     Steve glanced round and lowered his voice. "Okay. Bob got arrested for beating the shit out of someone in a bar fight down at the Fuzzy Duck. Basically he needed to hide his weed-growing operation before the police showed up at his house and found the goddamn place smelling like the inside of Bob Marley's sock drawer."
     "And you said you'd take care of it?"
     Steve looked shifty. "Some of it."
     "Some of it? Hence the psychotropic jungle in my fucking house? How did you get mixed up with that maniac in the first place?"
     "It doesn't matter," he said, taking a napkin from the dispenser to polish his glasses. "You're making things needlessly complicated. The fact is that Bob couldn't just ditch the stuff in the compost - it's too close to harvest. You know how much those hydroponics set-ups cost? And you have to buy every little bit separately and cover your online footprint because the police have geeks who are paid to look for these things..." He sighed. "Look, just don't sweat the small stuff. It will be gone before you know it. We just gotta dry it out, sell it on, take our cut and kick back to Bob."
     "We?"
     He held up a hand. "Don't flip out on me, Clayton. This kind of merchandise, this kind of quantity, I'm talking ten grand each."
     "I don't care," I said. "What the hell is wrong with you? You make enough money unloading used cars. Is this because you spent those two weeks in July marathoning Breaking Bad ? Have you got delusions of druglord grandeur or something? Do I have to write a strongly worded letter to fucking Netflix or something?"
     "It's merely a brief business association," said Steve. "Nothing more. I was thinking of you."
     "Me?" I was thinking of strangling him when the waitress came over to top off my coffee. She fetched an extra cup for Steve and I sat back wondering where the hell it had all gone wrong. I could have blamed