“Uh-huh. That’s fine. Keep your secrets. Can you at least tell me where you are that requires your personal attention? And why are you holding out on me? Let me see the room, bitch!”
And just like a best friend, she heard the uncertainty in my voice and changed the subject.
“Have you heard of Devil Springs?”
“Maybe. It’s in Tennessee, right?”
“Yeah, in Ritch County, right at the base of the mountains,” I explained. “Anyway, that’s where I am.”
“Looks like you found a good place to stay.”
“Girl, let me show you,” I said excitedly and carried my phone around the suite and into the bathroom to show her the luxurious amenities.
“Look at that tub! I’m surprised you found a place like that in such a small town.”
“I thought so too, but it’s actually a lot bigger than I thought. It’s a three-McDonald’s size town.”
She choked on a laugh. “That’s how you judge the size of towns? By the number of McDonald’s it has?”
“Think about it for a minute. How many did the town you grew up in have?”
“One when I was growing up, but there’s two now.”
“Okay, and what about where you live now?”
“Five,” she said.
“Yeah, and Cherryfield has fifteen.”
She gasped. “I can’t believe you’re right! You can judge a town’s size based on the number of McDonald’s it has.”
“I’m glad I could share some useless knowledge with you. You’d be surprised what kind of little gems I’ve got stored in my brain just waiting for their day to shine.”
“Oh, now I have to know. Tell me another useless fact.”
“A pig's orgasm usually lasts for thirty minutes.”
Her mouth dropped open in shock. “Do pigs masturbate? Stop laughing and Google that shit. I have to be prepared for this if it happens. What am I going to say if that happens in front of children?” she asked while I laughed my ass off at the thought of her sassy pet pig having a thirty-minute orgasm at an inopportune time.
“I am not asking the internet if pigs masturbate. That’s a question no one needs to know the answer to,” I managed to say through my amusement.
“Okay, okay, we have to get our game plan together for the week, so I can do some research and prevent my nieces and nephews from being scarred for life by a porcine porn show.”
Thankfully, I didn’t have anything on my schedule for the following week that required special attention. I was in the middle of writing the first story in a collection of short stories for an upcoming release. As long as I had my laptop—or at least a notebook and pen—I could do my job from anywhere.
With our few loose ends tied up, we ended our chat, and I spent the rest of the day working on the first half of a short story about best friends who go through with an arranged married in order to gain access to their trust funds only to find out they must produce an heir—the old-fashioned way.
When I heard a knock on the door, I saved my progress and called it a day before checking to see if I reached my daily word count, which should have been a red flag since it was something I never did. But I was excited to see if Bronze was at the door. Part of me didn’t want to let myself believe he was coming back while the other part had my fingers figuratively crossed from the moment he left.
Pausing to take a deep breath and calm myself, I peeked through the peephole, did a celebration dance, and calmly opened the door. “Hey,” I greeted and widened the door in invitation. “You hungry?”
He entered my room and nodded. “Yeah, I could eat.”
“Good,” I smiled. “I was thinking about going back to Precious Metals. The cheese fries were delicious.” As far as I was concerned, cheese fries were cheese fries. The only thing special about the ones at Precious Metals were that they were from the place I thought I might find my sibling.
He snorted. “They’re good, but not good enough to have me hanging out there when I’m not working.”
“Oh, I didn’t think about it like that. You’ve been there all day. Of course, you don’t want to go back.”
He shook his head. “I wasn’t at the bar today. My job is being the VP of the club, which means I work wherever I’m needed.”
“Hmm,” I mused. “I don’t know if I would like that. While it wouldn’t get boring, I think I’d