Just Off Main Street – Blake Steele (1)

She’s wearing a fitted white tank top and loose gray sweatpants, hair scraped into a ponytail like she threw herself together at the last second, but she’s got the kind of body you expect to see in a glossy magazine—long, lean, ballerina-like. But without any shine. Just tired eyes, a deep frown, and a stiffness to her shoulders like she’s bracing for something. Like she’s used to bracing. “Joe?” Her voice is soft, burred gently by her accent. Someone told me once where she’s from, not that I remember—somewhere Eastern European or Russian, some place like that.

I wonder if that’s why and how Buddy married her. If she got a little more sleep, she’d be a stone-cold fox. As it is, there’s something about her that doesn’t quite sit right. Despite my resolve to be more helpful, I’m not really sure what to do with my noticing. Even if I want to be a better person—I’m still just me. Joe the handyman. Not a private investigator or some kind of head shrinker. “That’s me,” I say, tipping my chin. “Here to fix your shower.”

She stares at me for a beat, and for a second, I think she’s about to tell me to forget it. But then she nods and steps back, pulling the door open wider. Inside, the house is clean but sparse. Black leather three-piece set, a clock on the wall, two framed wedding photos on a mostly empty bookshelf, and a 60” TV on the opposite wall.

“Shower is broken,” she says, leading me down the hall. The bathroom is small, lean, clutter-free just like the living room. White tile, white towels, perfectly angled soap dispenser, of course. It’s starting to give me the creeps, actually, how clean and empty this house is. Besides the wedding photos, you’d think no one lived here. Petra stands in the doorway while I check out the showerhead. “Water pressure’s weak, or…?” I ask, running my fingers over the metal, checking for buildup. She exhales through her nose.

“No pressure. No hot water.” I flick the faucet on. Barely a trickle comes out. “Probably a clog,” I mutter, reaching for my toolbox. She doesn’t move, just stands there watching me, not saying anything. Most people in this town would’ve offered me a cup of coffee or a glass of water right when I came in—we ain’t a rich town, Milltown, but we’re polite, and we share what we have. That’s one thing you can say for us. And honestly, plenty of people I check in on see me as their social time, just yap yap yap the whole time I’m in their house—maybe that’s why I’m not so chatty with my acquaintances when I’m out in public.

But Petra just watches me, staring. Like she’s trying to figure something out. “Something on your mind?” I ask. For a second, she looks startled, like she didn’t expect me to ask. Or maybe didn’t realize I’d notice.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Created with Vellum OceanofPDF.com CONTENTS Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 About the Author Also by Blake Steele OceanofPDF.com B 1 rrring. Brrring. Brrring.

I wake up slowly, unsure of where the sound is coming from. It takes a few minutes of rubbing my eyes and pawing around on the side table, and two minutes, one spilled glass of water, and five swear words later, I manage to find my phone—the annoying sound that woke me up—and turn it off. Shit. It’s 8 a.m., which means I’m super late starting my rounds this morning. Why, oh why, oh why did I have that extra beer at Carly’s last night?

Okay, two extra beers? And that shot? Carly’s is the local dive bar just across the street from my apartment. I own this building—inherited it from Auntie May—on this little strip of downtown. Carly’s is catty-cornered across the street, at the corner. Our town—Milltown—has seen better days. Used to be a factory town, back when the mill was still running, but that shut down a decade ago. Now, it’s mostly small businesses scraping by, a couple of chain stores out on the highway, and a lot of folks just making do.

We’ve got a little town square where every year on the 4th of July, there’s still a parade, speeches, and sparklers, though the floats look a little sadder every year, and half the storefronts are empty. One street off the square is my stretch of town—Carly’s, my repair shop, a pharmacy, dry cleaners, a pawn shop. The usual essentials in a place like this.

A few apartment buildings, then the road leads out past neighborhoods that used to be nice, before they weren’t. There’s a state college about thirty miles away, but we’ve got a tiny satellite campus just outside of town, mostly for kids trying to get their gen- eds done on the cheap before moving on to something bigger. I never got that far.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 359a753d86676c8d
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 1,318,706 bytes (1.258 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 46
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 68.12 minutes
• Total Words: 13,625
• Total Characters: 73,392
• Average Words per Page: 296.2
• Average Characters per Page: 1595.48

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