Page 43 of Walking Wounded

Will scowled. “Easy to say for you: you’re not dating a dizzy blonde.”

“No, I’m not.” Finn leaned back, and that was when Will realized how close together they’d been leaning, heads almost touching. Finn braced his hands back on the floor and sighed, a lock of dark hair falling across his forehead. “I’m sorry.”

It wasn’t what Will expected. “For what?”

“Dragging you out tonight. I knew you’d hate it.” Because they were the sort of friends who never really wounded one another, most apologies were given with a laugh or a wink. But this one was heartfelt, and Finn looked sad around the eyes. The sight put a lump in Will’s throat.

“I didn’thateit.”

“Yeah, but that’s not your scene.”

“What, girls?”

“Surprise girls,” Finn said. “A blind date like that. Thanks for indulging Leena.”

Will bit back what he wanted to say, and instead said, “I know Leena means well. She’s a sweet girl.”

“Yeah.” Touch of wistfulness in Finn’s voice. Then he shook himself and sat forward again, forearms braced on his thighs. “We’ve got to find you the right girl is the trick. The one who’s perfect for you.” He grinned. “Your very own Leena.”

Will rolled his eyes. “My very own Leena would eat me alive.”

Finn laughed. “Yeah, but you might enjoy it.”

His laughter was infectious, so Will found himself chuckling along, shaking his head.

Finn drained the rest of his glass and said, “Hey, you know what would be fun?”

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At one point in the four-mile drive to the Maddox house, Finn clapped a hand over one eye because he, quote, didn’t know which of the two roads stretching before them he was supposed to drive on. Comforting.

“I could have walked,” Will said for the seventh time when they were parked in front of the carriage house, miraculously intact.

“You think I drove all the way over here just to drop you off?” Finn asked with a tipsy smile. “That’s real flattering, but you ain’t my date, Maddox.” He opened his door and staggered out from behind the wheel. “I’m just here for your tire.”

“My what?”

“Just come with me, you big lug.”

The dew had already settled, and they were wet up to their hips by the time they waded through the uncut summer grass in the back field. Will’s slacks clung to his legs and he knew his mother would chastise him when she found them in the laundry hamper, but no chastisement in the world could have kept him from following Finn out to the old barn.

It took both of them to heave the doors open, hinges rusted and grass growing up through the thresholds. Summer moonlight poured down the center aisle, catching on cobwebs and slumbering hornets’ nests. The thick planks that made up the stalls and tack room were all still in place, all still solid, but time seemed to keep whittling them down, thinner and thinner. There were gaps between the boards now. It all looked like a doll’s barn, something a child had composed for a bunch of toy horses. Even shielded from the elements, the working part of the building was slowly shrinking down into oblivion.

The tire swing held pride of place in the center of the aisle, still suspended from the central beam overhead, right where Will’s father had secured it eight years ago. He had countless memories of pushing Finn on it, of Finn grabbing his feet and winding him around and around, letting him go so he spun like a top. The tire was spidered with cracks, but it still looked solid enough. The rope was anyone’s guess.

“Think it’ll hold?” Will asked, because he wasn’t sure that it would at all.

Finn rolled up his shirtsleeves and shot him a quick wink, eyes glittering in the moonlight. “Only one way to find out.” He launched himself at the swing, took a running leap and landed with his feet braced on the wall of the tire, arms taking a practiced hold on the rope.

“Jesus,” Will hissed, anticipating disaster. At the least, Finn would fall on his ass. At the worst, the beam overhead might come crashing down on their heads and bring the whole roof with it.

But the components all held, the tire swinging slowly back and forth like a pendulum, Finn crowing in triumph from his perch.

“Damn, I missed this,” Finn said, voice too-loud and fuzzy with bourbon. “Why did we ever stop coming out here?”

Will watched him, unable to hold back a smile. “Maybe because we got too old for it?”

“Nah. No such thing. Get your ass over here and push me.”

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