Best Friends, Tennessee (Hard Spot Saloon #1)

1. Ori

1

ORI

They say you can never really go home. Well, try telling that to the state of Tennessee… Or to Finn Hardy.

Do you ever get the feeling that you’re kind of trying to get hurt?

Not in a fun, spank-me, toss-me-in-bed kind of way. That type of hurt is just another fun night.

More like the kind of hurt where you’re pushing ninety miles an hour in your old beat-up blue Volkswagen with your ass glued to the driver’s seat, winding through Tennessee country roads with golden sunlight filtering through tall trees… and you want to take a bulldozer to every acre of it?

I let my foot off the gas before the needle on the dash reached 100.

The car lurched a little before it slowed. I sucked in a slow breath, squinting at my rearview mirror. The last thing I needed was a face full of rage from a Tennessee cop, and the old car couldn’t take it, anyway.

Maybe I wouldn’t bulldoze the whole state of Tennessee.

A lot of people say they’d never move back to their hometown, but I’d really meant it when I said it—I was 18 when I left, 24 now, and it had taken a whole lot to make me break that promise.

The Beetle rattled as I hit a bump in the road. A big blue sign at the side of the road whizzed by: Bestens, Tennessee, 6 miles.

A pit of dread formed in my stomach.

I was going to see my best friend soon.

How could things have gotten so bad with Finn that I was even dreading seeing him? Most people didn’t want to flee the moment they were in the same town as their childhood best friend, but I was already plotting my escape route in real-time.

“One year or less,” I said out loud to no one.

I vowed not to spend more time than that back in Tennessee. I repeated it now because I needed to remind myself of it, too.

But home was unfortunately the best option right now.

Even when it didn’t feel like home.

I pulled up outside Finn’s house a few minutes later, my chest twisting itself into knots as I looked outside.

I cut the engine and stayed put in the driver’s seat, staring at the front of the house through my sunglasses. I waited one minute, which became two minutes, then three. The longer I stayed parked in my car, the more it felt like a time bomb was ticking inside me, waiting to blow.

Finn’s house was a Tennessee bungalow DIY work-in-progress surrounded by oak and hackberry trees. From my car I could already see at least three projects Finn had going on: a pair of weeding gloves draped above the edge of the flower bed, some fresh two-by-fours in a stack, and a bag of fertilizer resting on one edge of the driveway.

He’d even tacked a horseshoe underneath the light on the front porch, like he was trying to signal to the whole neighborhood: trust me, a real Tennessee guy lives here. I’m just like y’all.

Which was true.

Finn really did fit in here.

That had always been the biggest difference between us.

I shifted my ass on the driver's seat, knowing I was stalling by now. I didn’t want the road trip to be over, because that meant I’d really done it, and I was really back.

And I sure as fuck wasn’t ready to see him.

But the ruby-red front door of Finn’s house finally swung open, and the decision was made for me. I held my breath, the time bomb inside me coming to a pause.

Finn’s broad figure filled the doorframe.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said under my breath, pushing down my sunglasses.

He was actually wearing a cowboy hat. Since when did he start wearing cowboy hats for anything other than a costume?

“That hunk of metal made it all the way from California?” Finn asked, approaching the Beetle as I got out. “How do you even still fit in that thing?”

I sucked in a breath and shutting the driver’s side door behind me. Finn had always thought any vehicle other than a truck was too small.

We’d always had very different tastes in cars, clothes, music… everything, pretty much.

But when we were kids, somehow it seemed to matter less.

I ignored the fire in my veins. I stretched my arms up high above my head, loosening my muscles after the long trip.

“We can’t all be pickup truck-driving country boys like you,” I said, looking him up and down. “What’s with the hat?”

He tipped the front of it toward me. “I don’t know. Stetson hats are cool.”

“You look like the dollar-store version of a young Clint Eastwood.” I could tell he was biting back a smile, even as he lifted a hand to flip me off. “Save that shit for Halloween,” I told him.

I’d been lying. Kind of.

Finn did look good, even if the country-boy thing was the polar opposite of my style, and every move he made confused me these days. His build was still as muscular as it had been in high school—he needed to stay fit working as a massage therapist.

Even the hat was clearly well-made, if I was being honest.

But the whole perfect, country, Tennessee-straight-guy look just wasn’t for me, and that was Finn’s bread and butter these days.

“Well, you look like you don’t belong here,” he said, looking me over. “What’s the term? City rat?”

Under the hat, his hazel-green eyes seemed to glow in the afternoon sun. He’d always had good lashes. The girls back in high school loved that about him.

“Rat who likes being in modern civilization,” I said.

“City pretty boy,” he tossed back, squinting down at my black Italian leather boots. “Hope you’re ready to shovel horse shit with me every morning in those shoes.”

I made a face. “Don’t tell me you bought a horse.”

He sighed, rolling up the sleeves on his green flannel. “Kidding, kidding, chill out. Just trying to put some fear in your blood. I do go down to the horses at the ranch every day at six to shovel for Mason, though,” he told me. “Part of why he lets me ride for free.”

“Sounds like a great morning routine. Nice, dewy horse shit at six in the morning.”

“Fuck off,” he said, smacking me on the back. “Pop the trunk on this thing. I’ll help you bring your stuff in.”

I rounded the back of the Beetle and pried it open.

“That’s not why Mason lets you ride horses for free, by the way,” I said.

Finn eyed me, doubt in his eyes. “Think he just likes losing money?”

I lifted an eyebrow.

“No. I think Mason wants to fuck you.”

He looked away. He ignored me for a moment, but then he couldn’t let it go.

“Right,” he said, hauling out the biggest suitcase from the back. “You don’t think anyone’s nice to each other unless they’re trying to fuck. Here in Bestens, people actually still care about being kind to each other.”

“Is that why you’re so peachy-sweet to me?”

He snorted. “You’re different.” He took out another suitcase, cutting me a look. “But now you’re just another country hick like the rest of us again, aren’t you?”

Bitter bile rose in my stomach.

Finn knew I’d hate him saying that. He knew I didn’t belong here, and knew at least some of the reasons why.

I ignored him, reaching for another suitcase. “I have a couple of rental house tours set up for next week,” I told him, already planning my swift exit from being his houseguest. “Hey, watch the suitcases. Why’s your lawn so damn muddy?”

“Here in the real world, we still get weather in the spring,” Finn said, dragging my two pearl-white suitcases across his squidgy lawn. “Next time get a more practical color for your bags, Prince Ori.”

“Usually people don’t carry them like they’re an ox hauling a wheelbarrow.”

He looked at me with wide eyes and a goofy smile, stopping outside the front door. “You think oxen haul wheelbarrows ? No wonder you left the country.”

“It was just an expression.”

He wasn’t done. “You think the ox reaches up and uses its hooves to push the wheelbarrow? Does it hum a tune and wink at you afterward, too? Maybe that’s just the Los Angeles oxen.”

“Kiss my ass.”

“You’ll be kissing mine, for letting you stay in my house.”

His front yard smelled like mud and flowers. I glanced over the red geraniums he’d planted along the front, the same kind my mom used to plant each spring.

He took good care of the place. It was nothing like the crappy, trashy house he’d grown up in about a mile from here—Finn had pledged to take better care of his first house than his parents ever did, and he was proving that now. It made me proud, even though I wasn’t going to tell him that right now.

“Thank you for letting me stay. Seriously,” I said. “Now get in there before I throw that cowboy hat in the mud.”

“You wouldn’t fucking dare,” he said, swinging the front door open.

Stepping into his home was like entering a time machine. It was more like a barn that had been fashioned into a makeshift living space. Pretty much everything was some variety of wood, and I could tell that half of it was Finn’s own DIY carpentry. It was rustic, to say the least, but he was good at making it cozy.

When I’d visited home for the past few Christmases since he bought this place, I had only briefly been in Finn’s house. For the short visits, I stayed with my parents, but since my niece had been born, their spare room was no longer available.

Honestly, I’d been surprised when Finn offered me his guest bedroom.

Growing up, he’d always joined my family for holidays, not the other way around. He’d always said he was more comfortable being a guest than a host. Finn didn’t exactly have much of his own family.

He hoisted my two biggest suitcases, turning to carry them down the narrow, paneled hallway.

“Guest room’s over here on the left. I think I got rid of most of the cobwebs.”

“Like a luxury hotel,” I said as he led me inside. The scent of old wood filled the room, and it had two small windows that looked out over the front lawn. My blue Beetle was right out there, like a reminder of the life I used to have.

“Bestens’ finest,” Finn said. Dust motes floated in the sunlight coming through the windows, and for a moment, all I could do was stand there.

Best Friends, Tennessee had been our nickname for Bestens, back when we were ten years old and had nothing better to think about.

Back when we actually were best friends.

By the time we were teenagers, we’d already wanted to strangle each other almost every time we were in the same room.

We used to fight, but I’d always been able to pull him back again.

To make him use his words, and talk to me about his feelings.

Things had gotten really bad in senior year of high school. Finn had to stay with me and my family, living with us for a few months when his mom went to rehab. We clashed in every corner of the house.

The moment I’d turned 18, I’d high-tailed it out of this place to California. Finn stayed here, where he belonged.

Each year when I visited at Christmas, Finn seemed to get more and more… Tennessee . He listened to country music all the time now. He rode horses on the weekends. His wardrobe had slowly morphed from graphic T-shirts and ball caps to workman’s blue jeans, white tees, flannel, and that stupid cowboy hat. Now we were both 24, and I’d never felt more different from him.

He was single-minded: he wanted to buy a house and marry a nice woman, all before age 30.

He’d already done one of those things.

I’d always dreamed of a different life, and by late high school, it drove a wedge between us.

He stopped talking to me about his feelings. Stopped sleeping over. Stopped spending relaxing weekends with me on the couch, playing video games and watching shitty movies. In school, I’d always felt so close to him, until all he wanted to do was be like everybody else.

The one person I was close to in Tennessee seemed destined and determined to live a life that had nothing to do with me.

Last week on the phone, he swore this place was different than it had been back then. That the people who’d treated me cruelly were gone, and I’d fit right in, now.

But so what?

Even if that were true, there was still no real place for me in Finn's life.

A hollow feeling used to well up in my chest every time I thought of him, during the years I’d been in Los Angeles. Then after a while, I'd just gone numb.

“Anyway,” Finn said now from across the guest room, jarring me from my memory and breaking the silence between us. “I’ll leave you to it.”

“Thank you.”

I was craving alone time even though I’d been alone on the road all day. I waited, watching Finn turn toward the door but then turn back again, glancing over my whole body again.

Got a problem already?

Did he hate the fact that my button-down sweater was light pink? Or did that long look mean something else?

“You’re all good in here?” he asked.

I blinked at him. “Yes. I’m fine.”

“Right. You’ll be able to find everything.”

I cocked my head at him. “The guest room isn’t exactly rocket science. Bed. Lamp. Table. Oh, shit, is that a pile of books about landscaping? What am I going to do with those?”

He cracked a smile, looking down at the hardwood for a moment. “Oh, shut it, Ori.”

“I’ll be good, Finn, I promise,” I said. “You’re being a good host, so don’t question yourself.”

I’d always told him he was too nice. To everyone.

With me, he’d let his true feelings out slightly more sometimes. And a lot more, when we got in fights.

Today, he was in too-nice mode with me, though, giving me big doe eyes as he stood planted in the guest room, clearly worried he hadn’t done enough for me as a host.

“All right,” he told me with a nod.

“Thanks again,” I said, trying to assure him.

Everything is fine.

Really, really fine.

Other than the fact that it’s so painfully obvious I’m out of place here.

“Oh,” he said, meeting my eyes. “Grabbing some drinks with Danielle at the Hard Spot tonight, if you want to join.”

Something bitter dug into my chest.

Was he trying to kick me down a peg? Finn had become better friends with my sister than me, since I’d left town, and it was a particular sore spot for me. I still got along well with Danielle, and we talked on the phone every so often, but Finn had been the one who was here . He’d gotten more involved in Dani’s life since she’d had a baby a couple of years ago, becoming a single mom when her ex moved up to Montana.

That was one thing I was determined to do, now that I had to be back in Tennessee: take care of my niece Olivia anytime I could. I still felt like a kid myself sometimes, but I wanted to be there for her, too.

“Nice of you to invite me to drinks with my own sister,” I said, already regretting my tone, and maybe regretting going there at all.

He gave me a warning look.

“You know she’s like family to me, too, Ori.”

“How is Danielle meeting you for drinks anyway? Don’t tell me she brings her 18-month-old into the bar.”

Finn glared at me. “Your mom will have the baby for a couple of hours. She watches over Olivia at least a couple of nights a week. Sometimes your dad even does, too. He’s pretty good with kids.”

I could hear the unspoken truth behind what he said: I know your family better than you do, since you split to the coast and left us all behind .

I set my jaw. “I’ll pass. Saloons really aren’t my vibe. I’ll be seeing Danielle and my folks plenty now anyway, working at the diner.”

Finn held my gaze. “Figured.”

“Well, you figured right.”

Another silence stretched out between us, like a pot threatening to boil over.

Finn turned to leave the room, then stopped, looking back my way. He lifted his hands above him, leaning in the doorframe.

“You’re going to have to get used to it,” he said. “You’re living in Bestens again, whether you bitch about it or not.”

Fire bloomed through my chest. “Leave it alone, Finn.”

“You know I’m right.”

I bit the inside of my cheek, but words came out of my mouth before I could check them.

“Guys usually only linger around me this much when they want to fuck me, you know,” I told him, lifting an eyebrow.

He looked me up and down, his gaze steadfast.

I knew he didn’t give a damn when I joked about gay things, and he’d joked about them plenty back in the day, too. But I still wondered if I was pushing a button. Going too far.

“Just don’t make this worse on yourself like you always do, all right?”

“Like I always do,” I repeated. “As if it’s my fault I hate this place.”

His gaze was serious. The sunlight was making his eyes shine again, standing out like amber jewels against his tanned skin.

I felt like an animal ready to strike. I knew he remembered what I went through when I lived here, and how half the people in my high school saw me as nothing but a human dartboard. A target. Not even because I was gay—just because I had the nerve to be different from them at all.

“A lot of isn’t your fault,” he said. “Some of it is. We all went through shit, you know.”

I turned away, literally biting down on my tongue so that I wouldn’t lash out and say something I’d regret.

Because the truth was, it was a lot more than just cowboy hats and country music.

There may as well have been a canyon between the two of us.

I looked down at a place on the windowsill where Finn must have been wiping away dust earlier, but had missed a spot in the corner.

Finn had gone through shit, too. Even when we’d been at our worst, when he had to stay with my family in senior year, I knew it couldn’t have been easy for him. His dad had split after cheating on his mom when Finn was eight, and his mom’s addiction to pills had finally led her to rehab when he was seventeen.

But on the surface, it never seemed to phase him.

He was solid as a rock.

Back in school he was a popular football player, friends with almost everyone, and somehow got pretty good grades, too.

Sometimes I forgot he’d been through anything at all. He never let it show.

“Have fun at the saloon,” I said.

When I turned around, he was already walking away.