by J. L. Fynn
Contents
Cover Image
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One -
Chapter Two -
Chapter Three -
Chapter Four -
Chapter Five -
Chapter Six -
Chapter Seven -
Chapter Eight -
Chapter Nine -
Chapter Ten -
Chapter Eleven -
Chapter Twelve -
Chapter Thirteen -
Chapter Fourteen -
Chapter Fifteen -
Chapter Sixteen -
Acknowledgements
About the Author
The Short Game
J.L. Fynn
Copyright © 2013 J.L. Fynn
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.
This is a work of fiction.
Any resemblance it bears to reality is entirely coincidental.
www.jlfynn.com
ASIN: B00H8BEHKI
For Mom. Your support means the world.
CHAPTER ONE
I PULLED THE ten-dollar bill out of my wallet for the tenth time and held it up in front of me. “Ten measly bucks,” I mumbled under my breath. I shoved the bill back into my wallet and sat up so quickly I cracked my head on the ceiling. The bed I usually shared with my brother was on a platform overhanging the hitch of our family’s travel trailer and had less than three feet of space between mattress and ceiling. Shay and I had argued with our mother Maggie for years about moving to the back where the trailer’s double bed could be converted into two twins, but she dismissed the idea out of hand, insisting that no one would sleep there but her.
I swung my feet around so they dangled off the side of the bed and rubbed at the top of my head. It still throbbed, but maybe a minor injury would finally teach me to stop getting so worked up over the ten dollars Shay’d quick changed from Tracy.
The Hardware Store Girl, I corrected myself. I needed to quit personalizing her. The Sheedy boys liked to call me soft, and even though I made it a point to kick their asses once in a while to prove I wasn’t, deep down I knew they were right. I was weak.
Clearly. A week had gone by and I was still sweating the couple bucks we’d scammed. It was time to get over it. It’s not like ten stupid dollars was going to make or break Tracy’s life.
The Hardware Store Girl’s life. God damn it.
“You look more anxious than a sinner at Saint Peter’s feet,” Maggie said, eyeing me up and down. She was almost at eye level even though she stood on the kitchen floor while I still sat on the shelf bed. Our trailer was only about a couple hundred square feet, and from the kitchen you could pretty much see the entire place. “Yer head all right?”
“Fine,” I grumbled. Usually I was fine with the small space, but lately I really hated living in such a dinky trailer. I loved Maggie, but I was twenty-three, and a man needed some time on his own.
“Thinking about your brother?”
Her words shook me from my thoughts and made me realize what a dick I was being. My baby brother was off on some fool mission our clan leader had concocted, and all I could think about was some hardware clerk.
At least I’d finally stopped thinking of her as Tracy.
“Yup. Worrying about Shay and forgot where I was,” I lied. If I admitted I was hung up on some country girl, Maggie would probably box my ears, recent injury or no.
Anyway, I really was worried about Shay. Paving or roofing scams were one thing. They were barely scams at all. We really did pave the gull’s driveway or give them a new roof; we just cut a few corners here and there while we did it. There was little danger in that. Once the gull realized the quality of our work (or lack thereof), we’d be long gone.
This mysterious job Shay was off doing for Pop Sheedy: now that was dangerous. I was sure of it, even if I was a little hazy on the details.
“You have that phone, right?” Maggie asked. My hand instinctively moved to my pocket to make sure it was still there. The feeling of carrying a phone was a new one, but it was also a comfort.
“Yeah, it’s right here,” I said, patting my hip. Travelers were usually paranoid about having cellphones, but for this job I wanted Shay to have a direct line to me. The feeling of the hard rectangle in my pocket reassured me that if anything went wrong, he could contact me at a moment’s notice, no matter what sort of situation he found himself in.
“Well, good,” Maggie said. “Then you know everything’s okay. Shay would call you if he needed anything.” She turned away and busied herself with the teakettle. “Why don’t you go back out on the road with your uncle tomorrow? There’s still three months left of the season. You’re going to get bored spending the whole time in the Village alone with me.”
I narrowed my eyes at my mother. Even though we could always use the money, Maggie was the first person to discourage me from going out on the road with the rest of the clan. In some ways, she was more Traveler than any of us, growing up in Ireland and all. But in others, she stuck out like a sore thumb.
“Until Shay gets back,” I said, “I’m staying here. I don’t trust—whatever it is he’s doing.”
“I don’t see how staying in Louisiana does anything to help your brother all the way up in Pennsylvania,” Maggie said.
“I’d like to keep an eye on Pop,” I said, trying for an ominous tone. Maggie just stared at me with her hands on her hips and an expression that indicated she wasn’t impressed. “You know, it’d help if you’d tell me what you and Pop talked about the other day before Shay left.”
Maggie sighed. “If you don’t want to go out with John, why don’t you at least get out of the trailer for a little while? Your constant mooning about is enough to drive a woman mad.”
“Mooning?” There was no way I was mooning. Whatever that was. Maggie said the oddest things, like when she’d scold me for taking a notion or tell Shay to cop on to himself if he knew what was good for him. I usually chalked it up to her growing up in Ireland, but something told me even if she’d been Village born and bred, she’d still talk funny.
“Aye, mooning! Now go on.” She moved her hands in a shooing motion like I was a slow cow that refused to get out of the barn. “And don’t come back before dinner.”
“You’re kicking me out?”
“I’m kicking you out.”
“Fine.” I hopped down from my platform and stepped out of the trailer.
Beckett and Yeats, our Irish Wolfhounds, sat lazing under the tree. I whistled for them and patted my thigh, but neither seemed motivated to come over and keep me company. Beckett lifted his head and yawned, then laid it back down on his paws. Yeats didn’t bother to move at all, except to shift his brow in a way that told me I wasn’t worth the energy. “Thanks guys,” I said. “Way to show your support.”
Now what was I supposed to do? I shoved my hands into my pockets and felt the phone on the right side and my wallet on the left. The wallet felt warm. Like I could feel the ill-gotten money from the hardware girl burning through the leather.
Ah, fuck it. What else did I have to do?
CHAPTER TWO
I PULLED INTO a space in the hardware store parking lot and immediately felt like an idiot. What were the odds Tracy was even working today? Was I going to go up to whoever was at the counter and tell them a week ago I was given too much change? Who does that? Even country people would have the sense to pocket the money and go on with thei
r life.
This was stupid. I put the key into the ignition to restart my truck, and unsurprisingly it sputtered, but not to life. The truck was a dried out pile of crap, but I hadn’t been able to give up on her.
Although, maybe it was time. Shay always thought Maggie was the one who wouldn’t let us get a new truck, but in reality I was the one who couldn’t let go. Maggie had gone along with the lie even though she’d suggested we put the old girl to rest years ago. I’d argued we didn’t have enough money, but Maggie insisted there was always money to make sure Shay and I were safe.
But this truck had been my da’s. It was the only thing I had left of him. It was bad enough that I barely had any memories from before he died. Giving up his truck seemed like letting go of him for good, and I just wasn’t ready for that.
I turned the key again, but the engine didn’t cooperate. “Come on girl, you can do it.” The truck coughed a few more times, but refused to turn over. If I tried the key again I was liable to kill the starter.
I guess St. Jude had spoken. I was supposed to go in and give the ten bucks back.
I walked into the small store and at first didn’t see anyone there. No one was behind the counter or in the aisles as far as I could see, but then I heard a voice from the back. “Just a minute.”
I recognized the cheery trill right away. Tracy turned the corner and the first thing I noticed was her hair. It was a beautiful, buttery blonde and it fell in waves to the middle of her back. The second she saw me, she greeted me with a wide smile that showed off two rows of perfectly straight teeth. She had a high hairline, which made her forehead just a bit too big for her face, but this flaw—if you could call it that—somehow only made her cuter.
“I remember you.” She circled around to the back of the counter. “You ever finish that deck with your daddy?” Lord, the way she said the word daddy with her bayou drawl; it was almost too much to bear. There were so many accents in Louisiana it was hard to keep them straight. Cajun, Creole, the kind of New Orleans accent that sounded more like New Jersey, good ol’ boy, affected Midwestern. You name it. But the way she spoke, it was like honey dripping off her tongue. I couldn’t help but wonder if she tasted as sweet as she sounded, but I pushed the thought away. Messing around with country girls on the road was one thing, but messing around with buffers who lived this close to the Village was a one-way ticket to trouble.
It dawned on me that I should actually respond. “Umm, yeah,” I said, slipping into the good ol’ boy accent I’d gone with the last time I was in here. We never spoke in our true accent—an Irish brogue with a hint of southern drawl—around buffers. We found they treated us better if we talked like they did, and anyway, we didn’t like them knowing who we were. “Yeah, we finished the deck.”
“So you came back just to say hi to me, then?” she asked, leaning against the counter on her forearms. This new angle allowed me to see the slightest hint of cleavage over the white tee shirt she wore underneath her hardware apron. Dear Lord, could this girl get any sexier?
“Yeah. I mean, no. It’s, umm, I realized you gave my brother too much change when we were in here before.” I pulled the ten-dollar bill out of my wallet and held it out to her. “I thought I’d bring it back.”
She looked at the bill in my outstretched hand, then up at me, then back to the bill again, but she didn’t move to take it.
“I mean, if you don’t want it—”
“No, it’s not that,” she said quickly. “I’m just surprised you brought it back is all.” She grabbed the bill out of my hand and shoved it in her pocket. “You really are the sweetest peach.” Her smile broadened, and her nose scrunched up a little with the effort.
I returned her dazzling smile with an awkward one of my own and shoved my wallet back in my pocket. What the hell was I doing? I needed to get out of this damn store. “So, umm, I guess I’ll be going now.” Why was I acting so weird? She was just some girl in a hardware store. I walked purposefully toward the door.
“Hey,” she called, and I turned back around. “I never got your name.”
“Jimmy.”
“Thanks, Jimmy. I’m Tracy.”
I know, I thought, but didn’t say it. “It’s nice to meet you, Tracy. You make sure you do important things with that ten dollars, you hear?”
The second the words had left my mouth she shot up to standing and held up the index finger on one hand. “I have a great idea for how to use the money.”
“Yeah?” I couldn’t help but smile. She looked so excited.
“Have you ever played shuffleboard?”
“You mean, like the old person game?”
She giggled. “No, not that kind of shuffleboard. Like, the kind in bars.”
“I don’t think so?”
“Perfect. I’m off in ten minutes. You want to grab a couple happy hour drinks with me? My treat.”
“Are you even old enough to get into bars?”
“Twenty-one as of last month. Why—aren’t you?”
“I’m twenty-three,” I said with a chuckle. “But I don’t think I could.” Immediately her face crumpled. I don’t think even the wolfhounds had ever managed to make their faces look that pathetic. “I mean, I don’t think I could…let you pay. For the drinks. I was the one who took your money in the first place. I should buy you a drink to make it up to you.”
“Really?” she asked, her face lit up with hope. It was astounding how quickly she could shift her expression from happy to sad and back again.
“Yeah, really.” What was I saying? Going out with this girl was a terrible idea. Either I’d have a bad time, in which case what was the point? Or I’d have a great time, which would be even worse in the long run. I needed to make up some excuse to get out of it before anything started.
“Great,” she said. “Meet you outside in,” she turned to look at the clock on the wall behind her, “eight minutes.”
“Yeah, sure,” I agreed without a hint of hesitation.
I knew I was making a mistake, but she held me captivated. There was something too sexy about a girl in a tee shirt, jeans, and a hardware store apron. The girls in the Village liked to wear eye-catching dresses that showed a lot of skin, so you’d think a girl dressed so plain-Jane would be boring. But truth was, there was something more suggestive about a white tee shirt than a low-cut top. It made me wonder what might be under it and whether Tracy might ever let me find out.
CHAPTER THREE
I HELD THE door open for Tracy, and we entered a surprisingly well lit bar. We were about twenty miles from the Village, and with most of the clan back out on the road, I wasn’t too worried about running into anyone. Even so, I pointed Tracy to an open booth closer to the back.
We sat, and a waiter came by and left us some laminated menus. As if on cue, my stomach growled.
“Hungry?” Tracy asked, smiling at me.
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess I forgot to eat lunch today.”
“Well, why don’t we order some food then?” She leaned her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her hands, looking at me expectantly. It was like she sat at home practicing how to look adorable. “You wouldn’t want to drink on an empty stomach and give me an opening to take advantage of you, now would you?”
“Certainly wouldn’t want that.” I winked.
We ordered a couple of beers, and I looked over the long bacon-themed menu. Bacon cheese fries, bacon wrapped-jalapeno tater tots, bacon tzatziki dip, bacon desserts. I had no idea bacon was so versatile. “This menu is very…bacony,” I said.
“Yeah, isn’t it great?” She beamed. “Unless you’re a vegetarian,” she amended, giving me the kind of wary look someone might give a stray dog they weren’t sure whether to pet or shoo off. “I guess I never really asked you that. Are you?”
“Nope. Not a vegetarian.”
She let out a huge sigh. “Amen for that. Never trust a vegetarian,” she said. “The double bacon cheeseburger is amazing. Better than any other burger
on the planet.”
“That’s a bold statement,” I said.
“You won’t think so once you try it. I drive over here at least once a week to get one after work.”
I looked her up and down. She looked about five foot nothing, and everything about her was tiny, from her slender wrists to her narrow hips. “Where exactly do you put it?”
“Put what?”
“The burgers?”
“Oh, just you wait. People always underestimate my ability to pack it away, but you’ll see. I bet I can eat more than you.”
“We’ll see about that.” Maggie always complained about how much food Shay and I went through. There was no way this tiny thing was going to out-eat me.
We each ordered double bacon cheeseburgers with fries, and when our food came a few minutes later, I stared at mine with anticipated indigestion. Each patty had to be at least a quarter of a pound if not more. Thank God I was hungry.
“Mmm,” I moaned involuntarily as I took my first bite.
“Good, huh?” She shoved a fry into her mouth. “I told you. This place is amazing.”
We ate in silence, each focusing on our burgers, but by the time I was about halfway through with mine, I knew it wasn’t going well. Tracy was ahead of me and my stomach was already telling me that a quarter pound of meat was plenty, thank you. Still, I soldiered on, determined to at least finish the thing.
Tracy looked up at me through lowered lashes every few minutes, smiling behind her ever-shrinking burger. She was a strange combination of bold and bashful that had an intoxicating effect on me.
With two bites to go, I knew I was done. Or rather, I should’ve been. Tracy had already polished off her burger and was working on some fries. I forced the last bites into my mouth, sure I was going to regret it later, but feeling satisfied that at least she hadn’t shown me up.
“What did you think?” she asked.
“It was great,” I said, trying to repress a belch I felt festering in my throat.
