Sheila was bringing Brody up to date on what some of their classmates were doing when the bell tinkled to let them know someone had come into the shop. She looked at him. “You want to get this?”

“May as well,” he said, straightening up.

“Give a yell if you need help.”

“Yeah, like you won’t be standing there listening to see if I do something wrong.” He went out to greet the customer.

Woof, he thought as he saw the deeply-tanned man on the other side of the counter. About the same height as Brody, he wore his dark brown hair nearly as short on top as Brody’s, but not quite so high on the sides. He was wearing a hunter green collarless T-shirt which said Cromer Landscaping over the right pec. As he looked up, his greenish eyes bored into Brody’s. It was only then that Brody recognized him.

“Cromer!” He didn’t extend his hand.

“Cox. I heard you’d left the Marines.” His tone suggested Brody had been guilty of something like desertion. His eyes continued to bore into Brody’s. Brody looked right back at him. It became a contest to see who would break the eye contact.

There was a rumble of distant thunder, not surprising for a hot northern Ohio summer day.

“News travels fast in this little burg. So,” Brody said, “what can we do for you this morning?”

Cromer’s face softened slightly. “I want you to deliver a dozen red roses to my wife. It’s her birthday.”

“No prob. Do you want to fill out a card to enclose with them?”

“Yeah.”

Brody pointed to a rack that had a variety of cards for all occasions.

When Cromer had written on the card, he handed it back to Brody.

Brody told him the amount of the purchase plus tax and delivery fee, which he paid with a credit card.

“When would you like us to deliver them?”

“Oh, anytime today. You’ll put some fern and baby’s breath in with them, won’t you? I’d like her to get them before I get home, which may be about 6:30.”

“Yeah, the fern and baby’s breath come with. The time shouldn’t be any problem either. Wanna give me the address and phone number?”

Cromer gave him the information, saying the phone number was for his cell. “Don’t want you to call the house and spoil the surprise.”

“We’ll take care of everything.”

The other man nodded and left.

Another rumble of thunder, closer this time.

Brody noticed that on the card Cromer had written, You know I love you! -- Dave.

Somehow that struck him as strange, especially the underlining.

When he returned to the back room, Sheila said, “Well, that was tense. I could feel the hostility between you two. I hope you aren’t going to be as stiff with all the customers as you were with him. What is it with you two?”

“He graduated a couple of years before us. But I knew him because he was on the baseball team. Let’s just say we never liked each other. He was always on my case about something. I could never bat or field well enough to suit him. He thought I could have made better grades. I didn’t even fuckin’ stand up straight enough to suit him. And at the time he was a lot bigger than I was.”

“Did he bully you?”

“Physically, no. Verbally, all the time. Like I said, he just always hassled me, saying I wasn’t trying hard enough and shit.”