Page 52 of The Nook for Brooks
I blinked. “What?”
“The war,” he said firmly, as if there had only ever been one.
“Which war?”
“The one I fought in!”
“Which was… ?” I prompted.
He frowned, the lines on his forehead folding into deep creases. “Could’ve been Korea. Or the big one. Doesn’t matter. Point is, we fought you and we won.”
I shook my head. “Pretty sure Australia and the United States have always been on the same side.”
“Not when Hitler crossed your borders.”
I stared at him. “That’s Austria.”
“Exactly!” he barked, as though I’d just proved his point.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Different country. Different continent. Different hemisphere.”
“Convenient excuse,” Walt muttered darkly.
I tried again. “Look, all I need is—”
“A bath plug!” Walt barked, slapping a random box into my hands. “There. That’ll shut your Austrian mouth.”
I looked down. “This is a box of toilet flush valves.”
“Same thing,” he growled.
“It’s not.”
“You just don’t know how to use it properly. Typical foreigner.”
I was about to argue when a calm voice cut through the aisle. “Walt, what did we say about terrorizing customers?”
Walt spun around, indignant. “He’s not a customer, he’s an Austrian!”
A large guy with pecs bulging under his T-shirt appeared at the end of the aisle, broad-shouldered, sleeves rolled up, wiping his hands on a rag. He gave Walt a look that was at once firm but calm. “Go count screws.”
“I already counted them last week.”
“Count them again,” Harry said evenly. “They might’ve multiplied.”
Walt grumbled something under his breath and shuffled off, leaving me clutching the box of toilet flush valves.
Harry turned to me, smile warm and steady. “Don’t mind him. He’s been mad at the world since 1924.”
“He’s that old?”
“No. But some days it feels like it.” He relieved me of the box of toilet valves and put it back on the shelf. “You’re the Australian in town. Cody, right?”
I blinked. “That obvious?”
“Not to Walt, apparently. I’m Harry,” he said, offering a hand. His grip was firm, reassuring. “My boyfriend Dean and I saw you at Bea’s the other night, talking to Brooks.”
My ears warmed. “Oh. Right. That.”
