Chapter 54

In any case, all that is to say, I killed time as I waited for Todd to return.

Puppy love, Doug called it. But since I was far more wolf than puppy, said love was, like me, fierce. Nascent, sure, but fierce just the same.

Oddly, he called me when he was on his way back. Oddly, because he said to meet him at Doug’s.

“But Doug will be there,” I said. “And after two days, we’ll be, you know, loud.”

“Trust me,” he said, “I know. In any case, I have news, and it’ll be easier to tell the story once instead of twice.”

“News? What kind of news?”

“Wait,” he said. “Better in person.”

He clicked off before I could object. News? What, did his father have a bumper crop of barley? In truth, I didn’t even know what barley looked like, let alone what a bumper crop consisted of. Heck, why was it even called a bumper crop? I mean, the bumper is the lowliest part of the car. The bumper is the ass of the car.

But I digress.