Free Homecoming (A Boys of Fall Novel) by Shannon Stacey Page A

was a small parking lot behind the insurance company, and an exterior set of stairs led up to a deck just big enough to allow him to open the screen door without knocking himself off.
    After hours, the lot was only for residents, but during the day people who couldn’t parallel park worth a damn used it when they had errands on the main street. As he climbed into the bed of his truck to grab the last box, Sam noticed a small car doing a slow roll past him.
    He looked at the driver and couldn’t hold back the grimace. Edna Beecher. The Wicked Witch of Stewart Mills. Nobody knew exactly how old she was since she seemed to predate every other living person in town, but she didn’t seem to be slowing down any.
    She thrived on being in everybody’s business and, if she didn’t like what she saw, she threatened to call the FBI. Half the time, she
did
call them, and Sam could only imaginewhat they thought of her. She’d even called them on Alex recently because he was taking pictures of the teenage boys. The fact that he was a photographer chronicling the football team didn’t even slow her down.
    Edna glared at him as she slowly drove past, and he thought for a minute she might stop and roll down her window to give him a hard time. But she didn’t. Many years ago, she’d insinuated that Sam’s father hadn’t run off, but had been “taken care of.” At the time, Sam had simply smiled and refused to rise to the bait and, ever since, she’d given him a wide berth. She’d watch and glare and let him see she was there, but she didn’t verbally harass him like she did other residents.
    “She’s watching you,” he heard a voice say, and he turned to see Paul Decker standing on the other side of his truck.
    Deck was a big tree trunk of a guy and he’d been the heart of the Eagles defensive line back in the day. Now he owned and operated Decker’s Wreckers and had a wife and two boys. He was also holding what looked like a pie carrier, and Cheryl Decker was no slouch in the kitchen.
    “Tell me that’s for me.”
    “Yeah. The wife heard you were moving—like literally heard you were carrying a box up the stairs—and whipped it up. It’s still hot.”
    Sam dragged the box down to the tailgate and jumped to the ground. Then he hefted it and nodded for Deck to follow him up the stairs. “I don’t know if I have plates, but I know I’ve got two spoons.”
    After setting the box in the corner of the combination living room and everything but the bathroom, Sam turned to take the pie from Deck, but the big man had stopped in the doorway.
    “Interesting design scheme,” he said.
    Sam looked around his temporary new home. Besides an ugly, brown couch, there were two collapsible camp chairs he’d picked up at the hardware store, facing where the television would go if he had one. A folding camp table was between the chairs so he and a guest had a place to set their drinks. A couple of duffel bags and some boxes rounded out the look.
    “Easy to clean,” he said.
    “I guess I’ll stand. That couch looks like it wants to bust a spring up my ass. And those chairs, man. Best-case scenario is the chair collapsing under me so I land on my ass.”
    Sam laughed. “What the hell is the worst-case scenario?”
    “Me walking around with a chair stuck on my ass because I’m wedged in so bad even you can’t pull it off.”
    “I’ve got a bed coming tomorrow. Had to call and order it over the phone, so I hope it’s as comfortable as it looked online. And I might hit the secondhand shop today and see if they have a decent TV.”
    “You’re living large, my friend.” Deck set the pie on the counter and pulled off the lid while Sam grabbed a couple of spoons out of a box with
coffee
written on it in big, bold letters. “It’s good to have you back again.”
    “It’s good to
be
back. For a while.”
    “How the boys doing?”
    “They’re good. They miss Coach, but Mrs. McDonnell said maybe this weekend they can stop by