“I’m here settling Anton’s estate,” I said.
“Yeah, I heard about that old man passing away. Sucks. He still got that massive house on the hill up there?”
“He does,” I said.
“Nice house. I always thought that old man was hiding a secret from everyone. No one makes that kind of money in this town. Not the kind of money he had.”
I kept my mouth shut on what I’d learned about Anton over the course of the morning and let Andy shoot his mouth off like he always did.
“But everyone’s got their secrets,” he said. “Like where the hell you’ve fucking been for the past decade or so. You got out of this town on a football scholarship and didn’t come back!”
“Can you blame me?” I asked.
“Nope. Not one damn bit. This place is a hellhole. A soul-sucking leech. But I’m glad you’re back. We should hang out since you’re back in town for a while,” he said, as he took his second beer from the waitress.
He drained it again before my eyes, then passed the bottle off to her.
This was not the Andy I remembered.
“You good?” I asked.
“Oh yeah. Just some shit at home. Michy will cool down eventually.”
“Michy?” I asked.
“The girlfriend. She followed me here after I lost my job in North Dakota. I’m still not quite sure why I asked her to come sometimes.”
“You don’t sound too fond of her.”
“She’s warm. Pretty. Doesn’t ride me too much about my music which is nice.”
“High standards.”
“Hey, no one’s perfect,” he said, as he grabbed another beer. “So, are we hanging out or not?”
I leaned back in my chair, trying to put some space between myself and his toxicity.
“I’m not here to stay,” I said. “Just dealing with the estate, then I’m out of here.”
Andy’s eyebrows shot up like a rocket before he started laughing. I sipped on my beer, watching him curiously as his laughter filled the bar. He took his feet off the table and stood up, then came around and slapped me on the back.
A little too hard for my liking.
I had a sudden flashback of the first time my father hit me.
“That takes some balls, let me tell you,” he said.
“What does?” I asked.
“Selling off that old man’s estate! You inherited it, right? And I don’t blame you. Why stick around this shithole of a town when you can take your newfound riches and go somewhere better. You got a place in mind? Need a roommate perhaps?”
“Don’t you already have a roommate?” I asked.
“Ah, she’ll be good. She can afford that place on her own. You know, where we’re living.”
The man I was looking at was a ghost of the boy I’d known in high school. But I didn’t bother correcting him on the details of my stay. He wreaked of someone that would use someone else for their money. It sounded like he was doing that with his poor girlfriend. The woman must not have any sort of self-esteem to stay with this pathetic excuse for a human being that Andy had turned into.
I’d moved beyond high school, but Andy seemed to be stuck in his immature ways.