Free Knights of the Hill Country by Tim Tharp Page A

furniture store on the edge of town, along with one in Lowery and another one he was just getting started in Wynette. She always had the best of everything—new clothes, a horse with its own pink trailer, a brand-spanking-new Dodge Durango SUV. None of that bothered Blaine. That was just the kind of girl he was
supposed
to have, he always said. He was as sure of that as he was of how our football team was fixing to go down in history alongside old T. Roy Strong's team of thirty years ago.
    Rachel's mom poked her head out and talked to Blaine for a second or two and then shut the door. He walked off the front porch, slamming the post there with the flat of his hand on his way.
    “What's the matter?” I asked when he got in the car. “Ain't there?”
    “Naw, she's down at the furniture store. And I told her clear as day what time I was coming over here.” Blaine stuck the shifter in gear and we headed back down Ninth Street. “That girl's starting to wear me out a little. Getting a lip on her too. Tell you what, if she wasn't so good-looking, I might switch over to Misty Koonce myself.”
    “You don't mean that. You been with Rachel almost two years.”
    He grinned. “Don't worry, Hamp. I ain't gonna steal Misty from you.”
    “I ain't worried.” I looked out the side window. “Go ahead and steal her if you want to.”
    “That Misty, she's a hot one.” He let out a high whistle.
    “Fact is, I don't know how crazy Rachel's gonna be about getting Misty to come along on one of our dates, but it'll do her some good to get a little jealous for a change.”
    That's when it hit me that Blaine'd lied. “Wait a minute,” I said. “Rachel don't know about it yet? I thought you said everything was already set up.”
    “It is.” He fiddled with the radio buttons for a second, tuning in a country station. “I mean, maybe I ain't actually talked to Rachel about fixing you two up yet, but that's all right. I got that girl in my hip pocket. Besides, how's she gonna say no with you standing right there?”
    “Hey, I never even said I wanted to do this in the first place. I ain't got the first idea what I'd say to Misty Koonce on a date.”
    He took his eyes off the road to size me up. “You ain't still thinking about that Bush Girl, are you?”
    I looked away out the window again. “Her name's Sara.”
    He gave the steering wheel a little slap. “I knew it. You got a thing for her.”
    “I don't know if you'd call it a
thing.
All I know is we can set there and talk and it's just about like no time's gone by at all.”
    “So what? I hope you don't think that means you got some kind of
deep connection
or something, 'cause that's bull. Let me ask you this. How much does she know about football?”
    “Not too much.”
    “See there. If she don't understand football, she don't understand you.”
    I had to admit Blaine had a point there. She probably didn't have the least idea how football pretty much saved me when I moved to Kennisaw after my dad run off.
    “I'm just trying to do you a favor,” Blaine went on.
    “ 'Cause if you think you're gonna change her, you can forget that. You don't change them, man, they change you. Look at what happened to my brother and that train wreck he got married to.”
    “That was different,” I said. “Billy married a crystal-meth freak.”
    “That ain't the point.” Blaine was getting irritated. “The point is he changed. I don't even know where he's living now—somewheres on the north side of Tulsa, I think, but nobody knows his address. My parents don't even talk to him no more. Don't even mention his name.”
    “That's messed up,” I said. “He's still family.”
    Blaine stared a cold hole in the windshield. “No he's not.”
    He looked like he really meant it too. The family could just lop old Billy off like a rotten branch. He wasn't really such a bad guy neither, just different from the rest of the Kellers. Quit football before high school, always talked about things