Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 3

Jerk can go suck a lemon if he had a problem with me standing out front of my own father's hardware store. I didn't have to take his abuse.
    Girding my loins, I watched JJ step up onto the curb and look over at me. He had no sunglasses on, but I did, which gave me a tactical advantage as he walked toward the door of the shop. The Neanderthal looked similar to the him from five years ago. Same dark brown hair that had a bit of curl to it when he let it grow long, which seemed a little shaggy now, but not shabbily so. He had filled out into his man's body, plus some. Apparently his beginning weight-lifting in high school P.E. had become a full-time hobby by looking at his thick arms and shoulders. I knew how thick his arms and shoulders were because they were barely encased in the tight t-shirt he wore. That was new. He had always worn baggy clothes in school. So seeing him poured into those tight jeans was a little unsettling.
    He looked good, the bastard.
    I stood my ground, tensed and ready for a snotty word out of his mouth. I didn't even step back from the doorway. He'd have to pass just inches by me and I was ready for him. Just let him say something to me. I really wished I had been wearing something better than my own pair of loose jeans and sweatshirt with "Wild about Tofu" written across it. But who knew I'd be having a long overdue showdown with Beelzebub.
    "Hey," he said.
    "What's that supposed to mean?" I snapped.
    John came to a stop, his hand on the door and only a foot away from me. I forced myself not to back up. As a kid, the Jerk may have been fast with his fists, but as adults, I could be faster with the cops and a lawyer. Let him try anything!
    "Hey, as in 'hey,'" he said. His eyebrows were up and he looked at me as if I was a curious bug. Then he smiled. "You know, a greeting."
    What the hell was this? A new way to attack? When did JJ the Jack Ass figure out his mouth could smile? I glared at him behind my sunglasses, trying to discern his form of offence. I shifted my weight, cocking a hip out and folded my arms.
    "I didn't know you could be pleasant," I sniped.
    His eyes narrowed just a hair as he looked at me closer. My shoulders tensed a bit more, ready to dodge.
    He nodded once and said, "Nate. It's been a few years."
    Bastard! He had thrown me for a loop without a single punch. When had he learned my name, let alone learned to associate it with my face? I wasn't sure what to do with this clever attack. So, I said, "Yeah." I admit that it wasn't my best comeback.
    He further stunned me when he asked, "Are you all done with college?"
    I faltered and muttered, "Yeah, I graduated last week."
    His smile got a little wider. "Congratulations." He looked into the store through the glass door. "I have to get a few tools back to my boss before he puts my ass in a sling, but we should get together soon and catch up. I'd like to know how you've been." He nodded again, as if tipping a hat to me, and stepped into the shop.
    The door clicked closed and I looked around for the hidden cameras, waiting a few moments for the TV host to pop out and tell me that the school bully I was used to had secretly been switched. But none of that happened and I realized that I was going to be standing there when he came back out. Awkward. So I decided in that moment that I needed a coffee. I beat cheeks to the café kitty-corner to my dad's shop. Settling at a table near the window, I watched my foe come back out of the shop with a couple of boxes, hop back up into his truck and leave. But he did seem to look over at where I had been standing. Maybe he had gotten slower with age and had just figured out something cutting to say to me just then. Ha! Now he'd just have to have it stuck in his craw and fester, thinking only of me and what he could have said and done.
    I decided not to think about how I was doing exactly that. After he drove off, I finished my coffee, exchanged pleasantries with the waitress who had been serving me pancakes since I was two, and then strolled back to the hardware store.
    My dad had owned the shop since I was about seven, when the old owner retired and offered to sell it to his best employee. My parents had done a great job of modernizing it without changing it outwardly. People in my home town didn't take to change very easily, which is why I had got out of it as soon as I could.
    The bell jingled above my head as I opened the door and my dad looked up from the counter. "Where'd you go? I