Blitz: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romantic Comedy (Blast Brothers Book 3), стр. 27
And once I'd answered this question, the answer to Chase's second question was obvious.
What did my mom want?
She wanted good news on the festival front, of course.
And now, finally, I was on the verge of delivering it.
With a happy smile, I reached toward the front door, only to have it swing open before my fingers ever touched the handle.
In the open doorway, stood not only my mom, wearing jeans and a basic white blouse, but also my dad, wearing jeans and a flannel work shirt.
Neither one of them said a word, but they didn't look happy.
My smile faded. "Is something wrong?"
My mom crossed her arms. "You tell us."
As the question lingered, my dad stared past me through the open doorway. Sounding distinctly disgruntled, he muttered, "What the hell is that?"
From the front porch, I turned to look. As I did, Chase's car finally began backing out toward the quiet country road. He wasn't even using the turnaround. Instead, he was apparently planning to back all the way out – which wasn't as easy as you'd think, considering that the driveway was longer than two city blocks.
I replied, "You mean the car? Actually, I don't know what it is."
"Well, it's not made around here, I can tell you that."
Yes. He could. And he would, given half a chance.
In his whole life, my dad had owned nothing but Fords, which made my own Chevy Malibu a bit of a fluke, at least as far as my dad was concerned.
Together, we all watched as Chase succeeded in backing his car all the way out to the road with no apparent problems. Afterward, his car roared off at a speed that was a whole lot faster than whatever he'd been going with me.
What was that about?
I was still staring after him when my dad said, "The guy drives like a maniac."
I turned to look. "How do you know it's a guy?"
"Easy," he said. "He didn't use the turnaround." When I gave him a questioning look, he added, "It's a guy thing."
Funny, I'd never thought about it until now. But he was right. My sister and I, along with my mom, we always used the turnaround. But my dad and brother? They never used it.
Huh. Maybe it was a guy thing.
As my parents moved aside to let me into the house, my mom asked, "So where's your car?"
"Eh, long story," I said. "But listen, I've got terrific news."
Chapter 25
Chase
As I sped away from the farmhouse, I used the voice-activated cell phone link to call for a background check on Mina Lipinski and her parents.
The parents were an afterthought, added only because the way it looked, Mina was living with them, the same mom and dad I'd seen in all those festival photos.
From Mina's driveway, I'd spotted both of them standing in the open doorway, eyeing my car as if its driver were up to no good.
Meaning me.
It was a real blast from the past.
It used to be, parents looked at me like that all the time. But these days, I was the guy everyone loved to see – well, everyone except for Mina's dad, who'd looked like he'd wanted to rip out my liver and feed it to his hogs.
I hadn't seen any hogs. But they had to be around somewhere, right?
I mean, the guy was a farmer.
As far as Mina herself, I still hadn't decided how much I wanted her involved in the larger campaign. Maybe a little. Maybe a lot.
Maybe none at all.
Her idea – sponsoring a bunch of small-town festivals – had been slowly growing on me. The concept was different than anything I'd ever done. Some might call it old-fashioned. I called it retro.
My next step would be getting the TV people on-board, seeing if I couldn’t spin this up to something bigger. If I played my cards right, I'd be making hay out of this for months, maybe years if the idea panned out.
Making hay. It was a funny expression – one I hadn't thought about until now. But now that I had, I was wondering why I hadn't seen any haystacks at Mina's place.
What was that about?
Weren't farms supposed to have them?
Hell if I knew.
I wasn't a country kind of guy – not because I had problems with it, but rather because town had always been where the action was.
As I drove, I took in my surroundings. The area was mostly fields – empty fields at that. Not much action around here.
I was about ten minutes away from Mina's place when I was alerted to an incoming call from my younger brother.
When I answered, Brody said with a laugh, "Alright. So, what'd you do now?"
"What do you mean?"
"You must've done something," he said. "Mason's pissed."
Mason was my older brother. Calling him pissed was like calling the sky blue. It wasn't exactly a surprise.
I asked, "Pissed about what?"
"You tell me," Brody said. "That's why I called."
"Hey, you know more than I do."
"Not much more."
"Then how do you know he's pissed?"
"Because maybe five minutes ago, I'm walking by his office, and I hear him on the phone, reading someone the riot act. I figured it was you."
I had to laugh. "Not this time."
"Huh." Brody paused as if thinking. "Then it must've been about you."
"What makes you say that?"
"I heard him say your name, and not in a friendly way."
No surprise there. Mason and I hadn't been friendly for years. Oh sure, we got along every once in a while, but mostly, we were at each other's throats.
He was only a couple of years older than I was, but you'd never know it by the way he acted, like the age difference was twenty years and not two.
He wasn't a bad guy. It's just that I didn't need a father figure. What I needed was to be left on my own to do my own thing.
Until recently, my own thing had centered