Chapter 33

“What? You wanted a fight? You wanted high school shenanigans again?” He shook his head. “Here’s the way I figure it. We can stay in high school all our lives and battle our way through every step we take. Or we can grow up and out-maneuver them. Yeah, they know they’ve lost, but they can’t fight it this way. We win twice.”

He made sense. It was time to walk away from the petty teenage answer of knocking heads and start going at this like adults.

* * * *

Stone and I ended up having coffee one morning before the madness of the restaurant openings. He called and said he wanted to talk about how I was doing in town, I guess trying to reassure himself that he hadn’t led me wrong about buying the Star.

But I had something of my own to ask him.

We were again in the private Penny’s, upstairs away from the regular coffee drinkers. He was slouched like always on the couch, and I was in the club chair I was seriously thinking of stealing from Jimmy.

“So how do you know it’s forever?”