LITMIR.BIZ

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“You haven’t been yourself lately.”

      Finn gave a snort. “I’m good.”

      “You seem unsettled.”

      Finn almost said something about the military changing a man, but he didn’t want his grandfather to latch on to the notion that he was suffering from PTSD. He wasn’t. He forced a smile. “Maybe I grew up a little while I was overseas. I’m fine. Anything else?”

      His grandfather took a few seconds before shaking his head in a way that told Finn that the matter was not yet considered finished. “Nope.” Mike focused back on the ledger in front of him and Finn left the office.

      Until now, he’d thought he’d done a pretty good job of hiding the fact that he no longer wanted to spend his life selling grain and Western doodads. He wanted to do something that spoke to him, that meant something. It wasn’t sales and it wasn’t mechanics, which had been his specialty in the service.

      Finn had always been woefully bad about choosing the right path, unlike his cousin Dylan, who’d managed the store while he was overseas. He and Dylan had grown up together, sons of brothers, but Dylan’s father had been terminally ill during their teen years, so his cousin had been all about school and academics and doing well so that his father would be proud. Finn had been all about good times. Academics had never interested him. He excelled at sports, so that was what he’d pursued. After graduating from high school, he slid into the family business, apprenticing under Mike before taking it over when Mike semiretired.

      The business had done all right under his watch, but it hadn’t thrived as it had under Dylan’s—or rather his fiancée Jolie’s—and Finn knew that was because managing the store was not what he wanted to do. It was what had been easy to do. His real life had started after closing, but that life—hitting the bars, playing sports, watching games—no longer called to him, either.

      During the service a crazy thing had happened—he’d discovered that he enjoyed teaching new recruits the ins and outs of mechanics and enjoyed working with people in a way that didn’t involve ringing up a sale or loading a bag of grain. Teaching made him feel...valuable...in a way he’d never felt before, and on the flight back to the States, he’d come to the conclusion that he wanted to teach industrial arts, to show kids how to work with their hands. He had a feeling he’d be good at it, that it would give him satisfaction, but he didn’t know how his grandfather was going to take his abandoning the store.

      Mike was getting older, had retired once, and there would come a time when he would retire again. Who would manage the place then? Because both he and Mike felt strongly about having a family member present in the family business.

      Maybe Jolie when she and Dylan returned?

      That would be a perfect solution.

      One that he was going to discuss with his cousin as soon as he got a chance.

      * * *

      AS SOON AS the water had gone down, Molly took the top off the drain and shone a flashlight down the drainpipe, but she couldn’t see any obvious obstructions. She then pulled up a video on YouTube about snaking drains and watched it with Georgina looking on over her shoulder.

      “Where are we going to get one of those things?” Georgina asked, pointing at the reel holding the industrial-size snake.

      “I don’t think we are.” Not unless she could find a place that rented the equipment. She doubted that Finn had the equipment necessary to handle the problem either...unless of course he was a plumber. Which was totally possible, so she paid close attention to the last names of the plumbing experts she found online before choosing one to call. She wasn’t about to ask Mike Culver for his recommendation again, because she didn’t want to explain why she’d sent his grandson packing. She hoped to stay friendly with her neighbors.

      Plumbers in the area were busier than she’d anticipated, working on the new houses going in around the lake. But the forecast was clear and sunny for the next seven days, so Molly didn’t panic when she couldn’t get an immediate appointment without paying an emergency fee. She took the first regular appointment, two weeks away, and told Georgina that they wouldn’t be storing anything that wasn’t waterproof in the garage for a while.

      “Maybe you should have let the hot prom guy handle it.”

      “Homecoming, not prom. And I’d rather sing opera naked in the park.”

      * * *

      “YOU SURE YOU don’t want to watch the game with us at McElroy’s Bar?” Karl asked as Finn got ready to leave the store for the evening. “We three could attract the girls and maybe one of them would feel sorry for you.”

      “Hard to turn down an offer like that,” Finn said with a grin. “But I’ve got some stuff to catch up on at home.”

      From the way Karl and Cal exchanged glances, Finn gathered that Mike had shared his concerns with the boys. Finn had to admit that he’d never turned down an offer to go out in favor of kicking around his house before he’d gone overseas, but he hadn’t had a focus or direction then, either.

      “Give me a rain check,” he said. “The guy who sublet my place while I was gone let a few things go to hell, and if I don’t take care of things now, I’ll regret it later.”

      “We understand,” Cal said, stepping forward to clap Finn on the upper arm, as if he were about to embark on a perilous journey and making Finn wonder if he’d be better off going with the guys to McElroy’s and letting them attract women for him. It’d get these two off his back, but the truth of the matter was that he wanted to register for classes and before he did that, he wanted to give his cousin Dylan a call.

      “Thanks for understanding,” Finn said with a grave nod. He’d have to go out and disgrace himself one of these days to keep Mike from worrying about him.

      He grabbed his coat off the peg by the door and headed toward the side exit. Behind him he heard Karl, Cal and Mike shutting down the office in preparation for dinner out followed by the evening game. He was glad his grandfather had good friends, because it was going to make it easier when Finn informed him that he wasn’t going to be with the store forever.

      After returning home, Finn signed into his newly created account at Eagle Valley Community College and registered for two evening classes, figuring that would allow him to ease back into school without affecting management of the store. He finished his registration, then got to his feet, feeling a surge of energy. No, make that energy coupled with unexpected anxiety.

      What in the hell had he just done?

      When he’d walked across the stage wearing his mortarboard twelve years ago, he’d sworn that he’d never subject himself to anything close to a formal classroom again. Yet here he was, wading in.

      For a good reason.

      He opened a beer, turned on the game and tried to focus, but even though the score was close, he kept going over the pros and cons of his plans for his future. Maybe he should have used the money he had coming due to his military service to dive in with both feet and do a four-year college program instead of a couple of courses at the local community college. That would show commitment. Was signing up for only two classes a wishy-washy approach to his new life?

      Finn didn’t do wishy-washy. But on the other hand, he couldn’t just abandon his grandfather on short notice...although he had a feeling that if he did, Mike would wish him Godspeed and hire someone to do his job at a lower salary.

      He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Action erupted on the screen in front of him, the announcers went crazy, and Finn opened his eyes again. His team had pulled ahead. Cool. Karl was probably going nuts because he hated Finn’s team. Finn smiled faintly and took a long drink, wishing he was enjoying the moment more.

      Finally he reached for the phone and dialed his cousin’s number. Dylan answered on the first ring.

      “I’m going back to school,” he blurted as soon as his cousin had said hello.

      “No

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