The Friend Zone(43)

“Oh yeah.” I took off the lid and ran a finger on the black scratch surface. “There are tons of different sounds they make. The kee kee run, the spit and drum, yelps, purrs, cackles, clucks. You have to practice or you won’t get any birds out there.”

Sloan grinned at Brandon. “Well, he does keep my cooking blog pretty busy. I guess I’ll have to just put up with him.”

Brandon picked up her hand and kissed it, and both Kristen and I smiled.

Kristen turned to me. “Do you know how to use it?” Her question was a white flag. She was making an effort to talk to me.

Brandon picked up his beer and tipped it at me. “Josh is actually great at that. That’s why he always bags a bird.”

He was wingmanning me for Kristen. I just hoped she found dead turkeys sexy.

Kristen smiled at me. A genuine smile. “Have you hunted all your life?”

“Yup.” I put the lid on the pot call and handed it back to Brandon.

Kristen poked at her salad. Then she looked back up at me, her eyes innocent. “Is it true that ‘vegetarian’ is a Native American word for ‘bad hunter’?”

Brandon laughed so suddenly he choked. I smiled at her, happy to see her coming back to her old self.

“You know, I still don’t have a car,” Sloan said over her pasta after Brandon stopped laughing. “You two broke my Corolla.”

Kristen snorted. “Really? You’re going to put this on us? The hamster probably died.”

“What hamster?” Sloan looked confused.

Kristen skewered a crouton. “The one running in the wheel under the hood.”

Brandon and I laughed, and Sloan pressed her lips into a line, trying to look angry, but she couldn’t keep a straight face.

“How can you let her drive that thing?” I shook my head at Brandon.

“I told her, I don’t know how many times, that I’ll buy her a new car,” Brandon said, still chuckling.

Sloan shrugged. “I don’t want a new car. That was the car I learned to drive in. I had my first kiss in that car.”

Brandon gave her a mock serious look. “Well, then it definitely has to go.”

Sloan smiled at him and leaned over and kissed him fleetingly on the lips. I watched my best friend look at her for a moment after she went back to her food. He really loved her.

I remembered the first time he started talking about her, three years ago. We were sitting in a duck blind in South Dakota, and he went on for hours about this woman he’d been seeing. I’d never seen him so into someone. I made a mental note to talk about that during my best-man speech.

“Hey, didn’t you two meet on a call?” I asked, trying to recall the story he’d told me. “At a hospital or something?”

Sloan smiled sweetly at Brandon. “Yeah. I only gave him my number because he was in uniform.”

I grinned. “Can’t say no to a man in uniform, huh?”

I twirled my fork around my pasta. It was incredible. Some kind of venison Bolognese. Sloan was a great cook. Kristen and I really should eat here more often.

“No, I can,” she said. “It’s just I figured they wouldn’t let a felon or registered sex offender into the fire department.”

Brandon chuckled. “I was pulling the rig up to the emergency room entrance when I saw her coming out. Back when we had an ambulance at the station.”

Now I remembered the story. The rest of the details positioned themselves. Sloan’s roommate was in the ER, and she’d been there with her. That had to have been Kristen, then. “Wasn’t it you in the ER?” I asked, looking at Kristen.

Kristen was the last person to go to the ER for nothing. In fact, she was one of those patients you could never get to go to the hospital when they actually needed to. Stubborn to a fault. Mom called it strong-woman syndrome.

Most of my sisters had the affliction.

Kristen didn’t look up from her plate. “I passed out at a pep rally.”

My brow furrowed. “Why?”

“I was anemic.” She said it without emotion, but I noticed the way Sloan watched her as she told the story.

Anemic. Bleeding. Were her periods that bad?

“When is your car going to be fixed?” Kristen asked, changing the subject.

“It’s ready now,” Sloan said. “I just need someone to drive me to go get it. Brandon can’t. He’s helping his sister move tomorrow.”

“Well, I can bring it to you,” I offered. “Kristen, why don’t I drive home with you tonight? I’ll leave my truck here, and I can stay the night at your place. After I’m done with tomorrow’s orders, I’ll pick up Sloan’s car and drive it back.”

It was like the whole room held their breath waiting for her answer.

“Sure,” Kristen said, shrugging.

Forks went back to clinking on plates.

I was sure I’d be forced into the guest room, but I’d banked on her practicality and won. She knew I’d be there tomorrow morning early anyway. We had a ton of orders. And why deny Sloan her car? I’d spent the night there plenty of times already, this wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. I clearly knew her well enough to anticipate her thought processes.

So why, then, had it been such a surprise to me how upset she was about Tyler?