Free The Revelations of Preston Black (Murder Ballads and Whiskey Book 3) by Jason Jack Miller

with her.
    “Yeah. I think it’s time for pecan
pie. We’ve been in the South long enough, right? Long enough to build up
immunity. Pecan pie and butter pecan ice cream. I wonder if that’s even a
thing? If not it should be.” She stood up. “I have to pee. Order it so it’s
waiting for me when I get back.”
    With that, she sauntered over to the
bathroom. Leaving wood-paneled romance for the bright lights of hand driers and
liquid soap.
    I ordered her pie and played with the
silver barrette she’d left on the table. Out of curiosity, I picked up her
phone and saw that we hadn’t texted each other since October. Meaning that
since last fall, we’d spent almost every waking minute together.
    While I waited I thought of the words
she’d challenged me to come up with earlier. I tried to think poetically and
lyrically. Romantically at first, then more straightforward. In metaphor and
scientifically. I approached it as John Lennon would, with a bit of clever wit,
then as Paul, all gooey and straightforward. I thought about it in terms of
Southern symbolism—warm nights and magnolias and peanuts. I thought about it as
a Mountaineer, imagining my love for her in terms of wide mountains and deep,
dark forests.
    “I love you more than…”
    It didn’t matter that I seemed lost
before I’d met her, or that my heart only beat half as strong, or my days were
all nights until she came into my life.
    “I love you like…”
    And the funny thing was it didn’t
matter. And I knew exactly what I’d say as soon as she sat back down and dug
into her pecan pie with butter pecan ice cream. I knew that I loved her like
only I could. Like only Preston Black could. A love greater than my love for
The Beatles or The Clash. Greater than my love for Pink Floyd’s Dogs or Yankee
Hotel Foxtrot .
I loved her more than my Tele. More than music, which she knew was like air and
blood to me. That my life was just quarter notes and tempos without sound until
I met her.
    Her ice cream melted as I waited,
excited that I finally had something to tell her. I laid her fork and napkin on
the paper placemat next to her phone and purse. The texture of the ice cream
scoop softened as it melted, ridges turned into soft curves that caught the
light and dribbled over the sharp edges of the pie and onto the plate where it
pooled.
    While I watched, the puddle deepened
one drop at a time. Bits of pecan emerged from the ice cream on top of the pie
as it melted. Eventually it overflowed, and a tiny drip fell onto the table
without making a sound.
    I knew she wasn’t coming back.
    I interrupted our waitress as she
counted out her tips and asked her if she’d seen the girl who’d been sitting
with me. When she explained that she hadn’t, I asked if she could go into the
bathroom and look. She hesitated and I knew that the seconds mattered. And I
dialed 911 before I even heard the bathroom door open back up.
    “Brown hair just past her shoulders,
blue eyes. Fair skin. Wearing a white short sleeve shirt with a pattern of
little navy blue birds and tiny buttons. I mean blue with white birds. I always
had a hard time getting the buttons with my clumsy fingers. Um, a few silver
bracelets on her left wrist, and a silver band on her right ring finger. And
jeans and brown heels. Like, light brown. Brown like a baseball glove. And she
had on a little fake brown leather jacket with a green army-looking jacket over
top of it because she was cold.”
    The dispatcher asked me to clarify.
    “My jacket, because of the cold air.
And I had toothpicks in the right pocket and a receipt from a Waffle House in
Warren, Kentucky.”
    The dispatcher asked about medical
conditions.
    “None. Like, sometimes her blood sugar
gets low when she’s hungry and gets a little irritable, but nothing serious.”
    And even when I hung up I kept
describing her. I wanted to call back and tell them all the things I’d thought
of since I’d gotten off the phone.
    I’d been in the parking