Page 4 of Brand
CHAPTER TWO
Brand
The shop was oddly quiet. This day had been a bust so far, and I wasn’t expecting it to get any better. I had come to find out that Thursdays were the worst day of the week for business. I’d been toying with the idea to close up the place on Thursdays from now on, but for some reason, I kept showing up to open the shop every week.
“I got you the special,” Sketch said as he plopped the white paper bag on the countertop beside me.
“What is it?” I asked as I dropped my pencil without a care where it landed and began to unroll the top of the bag. I looked up to see him giving me a ‘fuck if I know’ shrug.
“Uh, there’s three different cheeses on there, I know that much.”
“Shesuggested it, huh?” I raised a brow at him. I didn’t even need him to answer to know the truth. “This is the third time this week, man.”
With a sigh, I peeled back the wrapping that held the mystery sandwich. I had no doubt that whatever it was wouldn’t be that bad, but it just wasn’t what I wanted. I’d been craving the number three from the deli two blocks away, but it seemed that sending Sketch to make the hike to get the food was the wrong move. He came back with something that wasn’t number three every damn time.
I had an idea that it had something to do with the cute girl that took the orders at the counter. For some reason, she suggested the special of the day to him every time, and the asshole never turned it down. Even though he wouldn’t ever eat it. No, that special always ended up in front of me, and on my dime too. Meanwhile, he got whatever he wanted, extra meat and all.
“Is this vegetarian?” I asked, pulling up a corner of the sliced bread.
“It might be,” he replied with a careless nod as he all but unhinged his jaw to bite half of his sub.
While I wasn’t some macho, meat only man, the soggy thing I held in my hands was far from the rare roast beef and salami sub I wanted to fill my mouth with.
Not to mention the thing was cut in half on the diagonal. Who did that shit to grown-up sandwiches? And as I picked up one half of it, I imagined myself taking a bite right out of the middle then holding it up to my mouth like some sort of strange sandwich smile. Yes, like I used to do when I was five. Don’t even tell me that I was the only one that did that, I would know you were spouting lies.
The bell on the door jingled and my eyes snap up from the sad soggy mess in front of me. A huge smile threatened to split my face because…well, why wouldn’t it withthis guy? It might have been a couple of months at most since I’d seen him, but he seriously felt like my long lost twin.
“What’s up, Chris?” I asked as I hopped off of my stool and round the counter to greet him. We did our usual hand dance—I mean man-slap thing, and then ended with a quick hug and slap on the back. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming down?”
With a quick shrug, he flopped down on the velvet couch in the front of the shop. Something was up, I could tell by the look in his eyes, only I hadn’t the first clue what it was.
“I missed the beach?” The fact that his voice went up an octave while his face did some sort of weird scrunch thing wasn’t lost on me. “And you. And Lake. And Ky. Oh, missed you too, Sketchy-boy.”
“What did I tell you I would fucking do to you next time you called me that?” Sketch said with a half-joking tone.
“Punch me in the head and tattoo a vagina on my nuts. Yeah, yeah. Deal with it, because I might be here a while and I, for one, think the name is perfect.”
“First, I said pussy. Who the fuck says vagina, anyways?” Sketch rolled his eyes and shook his head. “And two, fuck you.”
A boisterous chorus of laughter bounced off the shop walls. Those two liked to do their best to get under each other’s skin, but it was all meant in good fun.
“Wait,” I said pinning Chris with a hard stare once our laughter died down. “What do you mean a while?”
“So,” he said as he folded forward and rested his forearms on his thighs. “Long story short, I had an uncle I didn’t really know much about. Dad and his brother had a falling out long before I was around and didn’t talk. Well, that brother, my uncle Roy, died and left his inheritance to Dad, my brother, sister, and me.”
I was doing my best to understand where the fuck he was going with this. I’m sure the confused look that overtook my face helped him to move it along.
“My point is, I recently came into enough money to buy a house of my own. I mean, not like I didn’t actually have the one in Moon Hill. But it was sort of like ahad toinstead of awant to. So, I was thinking about where it would be that I might want a house, and the beach popped up in my head. Loaded up the car with everything I wanted to keep. Sold the rest. And here I am.”
He smiled as he stretched his arms out wide like it was just as simple as that.
“You’re moving here?” I couldn’t even lie, I was pretty damn excited.
“Yep,” he said with a bouncy nod. “Think I can stay at the clubhouse until I find a place?”
“Fuck yeah!” It wasn’t like I had to run it by Iron, Chris was always welcomed there. Matter of fact, he always stayed there whenever he was in town. He hopped up and we shared an excited hug.
We chatted for a little while. He ate half of my sandwich after eyeing me with a look like he was wondering why I’d ordered such a sad thing. All I needed to do was to point at Sketch for him to understand.
