Page 12 of Unravel Me

Rhett

Irolled out my shoulders as the sun was setting at my back. There was only another hour tops of daylight, but I was just about done anyway.

I’d been hunched over the engine of my 1983 F-250 since I got home from work, already having polished off a few beers, and my best friend was on his way with more.

When his car rolled down the driveway, I peered around the hood.

Kylan, or Ky as I’ve been calling him since we were ten, walked up, a six pack of some new craft beer in his hand, wings in the other. We were too old to be living like bachelors, but at this point our Friday night tradition has been going on for so long, neither of us were going to say shit to each other about it.

“Damn man, weren’t you working on this thing last Friday, too?”

I paused, scowling from under my greased-up baseball hat. He knows how I feel about this truck, even if I'm fixing some shit on it every weekend.

“She just needed some fluid. Routine maintenance.” I tightened the cap and lowered the hood gingerly.

“That’s why I went electric.” Ky nodded towards his new car that probably cost more than what I made last year.

“Yeah. You know that’ll never happen. She’s good as gold.” I slapped the hood and whistled for my dog.

Ky makes good money, lives in a new-build condo on the edge of town and is happy working behind a computer screen for most of the day. He might be my best friend—a brother to me, really—but we couldn’t be more different.

He thinks practically. To him, the truck I've been driving since I was in high school is just something that eats time and money. But to me, it’s the last piece of my dad I have. He taught me how to drive a manual in it. I picked up my first date in that truck at 16, hell—I lost my virginity in the damn truck bed. My mom gave me the keys to it the day after my dad’s funeral, almost thirteen years ago, and I’ll be driving it ‘til it’s turned to dust.

“The game starts in a few; you got the screen up?” Ky asks and I nod, following him to the back yard.

We settled in, stretching out on the outdoor sofa and chairs, the big screen secured to the side of the house. In reality it was simply a white tarp I found at the thrift store, but I recently splurged on a projector so now I had an outdoor theater. A redneck version. It was cool for watching games though, and I knew the moment my six-year-old nieces saw it, they’d freak out too.

“Dude, did you see Beck’s wife is pregnant?” Ky asked, and I knocked a beer against the wooden coffee table I made, the cap landing somewhere into the grass.

“No shit?” I didn’t look at Ky but saw him nod from the corner of my eye. For such a quiet guy, he sure gets all the gossip immediately. Almost quicker than my mom.

“Well, good for them.” I take a swig of beer and lean back, trying to focus on the baseball game but I can’t. “So, I guess we are the last two lucky bastards?” I chuckle but Ky doesn’t.

“Last ones standing. We’ll see if they all show up tomorrow.”

I gaze over to my best friend and scoff. “They’ll show up. It’s your birthday.”

We’ve watched our friend group dwindle down over the past few years. Everyone’s gotten married, had a kid or two, moved closer to the city for work. Our Friday nights used to be a group of five of us, shooting the shit around the firepit in my backyard. I couldn’t really be mad; everyone was going their own way. Family came first, I get it.

But now it’s just Ky and me. While I know he secretly worries he will never find a wife and have kids, something he’s always wanted, I don’t worry, which equally annoys him. Maybe that’s my issue, I’m pretty content with where I'm at, with what I have. Sure, a partner would be nice, but I spent my early twenties angry at the world and a straight up asshole in my love life.

I spent plenty of Saturday night’s getting into fights, drinking too much, and bringing home women I had no intention of seeing again. It took hitting rock bottom, spending a night in the county jail, and my mom begging me to straighten up my act to turn shit around.

Five years ago, I also started taking my carpentry business seriously, bought this foreclosed farmhouse, and have been turning things around little by little.

“You won’t believe who I saw coming out of the gas station on the corner of Main yesterday,” Ky starts again.

I reached for a wing, being eyed down by my bloodhound who would probably kill me for the basket of chicken.

“Who?”

“Johnny Kent.”

My head whipped so fast towards Ky I nearly choked. “You’re fucking kidding me? I swear if he even comes within a hundred yards of Desi’s house, I’ll run that fucker out of this town.”

“He looked washed up as hell, man. I doubt he was here for anything but to collect money from his parents. He keeping up his end of the deal?”

“According to my sister, he is,” I grunted.