Page 36 of My Best Friend's Dad

“I brought some solution, and I’ll take them out as soon as I’m done. I’ll be okay. Besides, how bad could an old barn be?”

My mind peels back the years, going through the many, many picks I did. The worse the hoard looked, the more fun it was tosift through. I throw my head back and laugh, my throat turning up to the sun. I laugh until my stomach starts to hurt a little, and I only stop when I catch Bellatrix giving me a strange side eye and studying me while pretending she’s not.

“I’ve seen some floor-to-ceiling packing before. Did you ask how long it’s been since the barn was touched?”

“They said just a few years,” Bellatrix replies.

“Great. Let’s go crack the door.”

I opt for the big double doors at the front since they’ll let in more air. They meet in the middle, so I set my water bottle and the mask down, head over to one, and put all my weight into pushing. It creaks like it’s been a heck of a lot more than a few years. The moan that shakes loose from the barn is so eerie that Bellatrix jumps in place.

“What wasthat?”

“Just the building shifting now that the door is open. It’s like a person taking a big gulp of air after bursting through the water’s surface.”

She brushes past me, trailing a mouthwatering scent of strawberries and pears, and peeks into the gloom. A low sound tears from her throat. It’s the kind of whimper that hits me straight in the nuts. I didn’t know nuts swelling was a thing, but mine feel…enlarged. It was that sexy as fuck noise she made, just like she did at the piano when I touched her…

“I see why you were laughing now. A few years probably means more like twenty unless dust accumulates at a far faster rate in the country than it does in the city.”

“Possible. There’s dirt that blows in off the gravel roads and the fields around here.”

The place isn’t packed to the rafters or anything. As far as old barns go, it’s probably one of the emptiest I’ve seen, but there’s all the usual. Stacks of boxes, some of them sagging from the weight of the ones above, mismatched crates, a few ancienttrunks, tools, gardening implements, and pieces of more than a few of the vehicles that have probably rotted into the ground out in the fields beyond. There’s plenty of garbage, too, although old bottles, cans, and magazines can have some real value. So can old vehicle parts.

That same adrenaline rush I used to get at the start of a pick creeps up on me.

It’s not the same. Not at all. I used to do all my picks alone. The picking, bartering, loading, unloading, cleaning, and posting or putting into the store when I had it up and running. It was all basically a one-man show.

This isn’t about making a living. It’s not about tallying up profit. I don’t have a trailer to fill or clients waiting for me to find something new. This is just for fun. For the sheer love of the old and forgotten, the weird and the wonderful, the worn down or whimsical.

I turn my gaze from the barn’s interior to Bellatrix’s face. Her eyes look huge, with the mask taking up most of her face, but her eyes are dancing. She found this place. She planned this. She did it for me. Again, I wonderwhyshe’s going to such great lengths forme. My chest swells so much that it almost hurts to be in my own skin.

Bellatrix deflates my lung buster by blinking at me. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

I shake myself out of my trance. “Just remember, it’s not the biggest, bestest, and most spectacular object that’s worth it. Sometimes, the thing that means the most to someone is the ugly little nugget that looks like it’s been rotting at the bottom of a swamp. Nostalgia is as powerful a motivator as real value.”

“Swampy butt nuggets. Got it.”

I still can’t tell if she’s smiling or not, but I think so.

“Is this a treasure hunt for the best thing, the weirdest, or the worst?” she asks.

“Whatever you want it to be.”

I walk past her and push the other door along its slider with all my might. Beads of sweat trickle down my neck, soaking my T-shirt at the back and front. I’m wet under the pits, too, and we haven’t even gotten a proper workout yet.

I just hope my deodorant is up to the task. The last thing I want to do is have tea with Mr. and Mrs. Davis, with Bellatrix right beside me, while smelling like last year’s barbeque sauce and old onions.

She channels all her inner deviousness into her eyes, which flash with excitement now that the stakes are different. Weird and wacky are so much more fun than valuable and rare.

It’s been an age and a half since I had fun like this with a pick. The last few years I was doing it, it was all about business and profit. I can admit that I lost the joy of it.

Cracking open these barn doors feels a little bit like the first pick I ever went on or getting a great score at a garage sale, flea market, or thrift store before I was doing it as a job. It’s more than rediscovering an old passion. It’s falling back into that passion when it was still a passion, back before I killed it by commodifying it.

Like I do on the odd night I bartend, I slip back into the parts of me that are old me. Fun me. Just me. The me that no one gets to see anymore.

I get my mask, but before I put it on, I let Bellatrix see exactly what this means to me by flashing her an epic grin that is probably a direct mirror to the one she has hidden under her mask.

Chapter ten