Page 17 of Hello, Summer
He hugged her back and rubbed his graying beard against her face until she laughed and pushed him away.
Sean Kelly’s family lived two doors down from G’mama’s house. He was a year younger than Grayson, a year older than Conley. His father was a doctor and his mother was a pharmacist, but Skelly, as he’d been called since their childhood, didn’t fit in that mold.
Tall and thin, with spaghetti-like arms and legs, he was the neighborhood prankster, with an outsize personality and an underwhelming academic record in school. He’d flunked second grade—in a small-town elementary school where virtually every kid got what was charitably calleda social promotion,and had been delighted to land in Conley’s second-grade class the next year.
They’d been running mates and best friends until puberty hit Skellyupside the head at the age of thirteen and he no longer had time for skateboarding, crank-calling the cool kids, and shoplifting cigarettes and Cokes from the 7-Eleven.
Now he parked himself on the stool beside Conley’s. A self-described late bloomer, Skelly had gone off to college and surprised everyone, including himself, by graduating with honors and then going on to pharmacy school. He’d filled out some over the years, but he was still tall and lanky, with a streak of silver in his straight brown hair. His graying beard looked untamed, and he’d started wearing glasses since the last time she’d seen him. “Trish! Beer me!”
The bartender finished pouring Conley’s drink, then reached into a cooler and pulled out a longneck.
“You know this troublemaker?” the bartender asked her, setting their drinks on the bar.
“Know me? I gave this girl her first kiss.” Skelly took a long pull from his beer.
“And then I gave him his first black eye,” Conley shot back.
“But all is forgiven,” Skelly said. “Trish, meet my oldest friend on the planet, Sarah Conley Hawkins.”
Trish stuck out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Sarah.”
“Just Conley, if you don’t mind.”
“Conley here is a big-deal, award-winning reporter in Atlanta,” Skelly said, a little too loudly. “But she’s homegrown talent all the way. Her family owns theBeacon.”
“Cool,” Trish said, unimpressed.
“Hey,” called a blonde two stools down. “Are we playing or what?”
Trish reached for a deck of cards and held them up to Skelly and Conley. “You guys in?”
“In for what?” Conley asked.
“Screw your neighbor,” Trish said.
“Don’t mind if I do,” Skelly said, reaching into his hip pocket for his billfold.
Conley rolled her eyes.
“Put up or shut up,” Trish said, tapping the bar with the flat of her hand. The two patrons sitting on either side of Skelly and Conley eachtossed a dollar bill onto the counter, and the bartender shuffled the cards, then dealt one to each of the players.
Skelly tapped Conley’s forearm. “You remember how to play, right?”
“Duh,” she said, fishing bills from the pocket of her jeans and putting a single on the bar top. “Kings high, aces low.” She picked up her card. It was the eight of hearts. She placed it facedown on the bar and took a sip of her bourbon.
Skelly looked at his card. “Pass.” He handed it off to a fresh-faced preppie guy sitting the next stool over and picked up a new card from the top of the deck. The prepster peeked at his own card, hesitated, then accepted Skelly’s card, and passed his own to the blonde.
“So?” he asked, looking over at Conley. “What’s up?”
“Not much.” She shrugged. “I had some time off from work, so I decided to come home and check in with G’mama. Grayson’s kinda worried about her health. What’s up with you? How’s Danielle?”
He tilted his bottle to his lips and drained it. “Danielle moved back to Memphis eighteen months ago.”
“Oh. Sorry. I hadn’t heard. So you guys are officially split up again?”
He flashed his left hand, displaying a pale band of untanned skin. “She says it’s for good this time.”
“She always says that.”
