Page 22 of Out of the Storm

“Ugh, Gary!” Dawn sighed. “Come on! I only put one in there!”

Gary’s stomach seized. “Remind me what it looked like again?”

“It wasgreen! From the 1920s.”

“Emeralds?”

“Ha-ha, very funny. Look, I know it’s only costume jewelry, but it was Nana’s.”

Shit. Shit. Shit.

“Of course!” Not. “Come by before the show to pick it up. I’ll have it ready for you.” Nope. “See ya, sis.”

“Okay, but—”

Flustered, Gary hung up, smacking the phone onto the base. Well, this was... unfortunate. Really, really unfortunate. Not-spotting-the-iceberg-in-time unfortunate. God, Dawn might really start to hate him because of this.

“Fuuuck,” Gary said, leaning his back against the wall. He raked a hand through his hair. “So, Jeff, how interested are you in radio equipment? I may be spending these last two hours ’til showtime writing my will.”

“Not, uh, that interested,” Jeff said slowly. “I could take some records off your hands, though. Do you have Bing Crosby?”

Gary smiled as he glanced up at Jeff, the request easing some of his panic. “Sadly, no. People only sell the worst of their records in yard sales. Unless someone passes.” Gary’s eyes found the phone. Nope. Right back to panicking. “Speaking of which, I suppose the folks of Niles will be forced to purchase their own terrible records back from me soon enough. Either that or toss them in the—” Oh! Right! Gary snapped his fingers. “Aha! The landfill!”

“The landfill?”

“I’ll search the landfill! Any chance I can catch a ride there?”

“Isn’t that illegal?”

“Probably. But, look, you won’t be implicated in my criminal wrongdoing, I promise. Drop me off a block or two away.”

“I’m not—” Jeff let out a huff and rolled his eyes. “I’m not afraid of being caught. I just wanted to make sure you knew it was illegal.”

“Doesn’t matter. I think my choices are prison or six feet under on this one.” Gary pressed his palms together. “Please?”

“Don’t you have a car?”

“No, and there’s only”—Gary checked the clock—“one hour and fifty-six minutes until I have to be on the air. I’d call Mel, but I think she’s with Ken and she’d probably—no,definitely—she’ddefinitelykill me if I interrupted their couple time.”

Jeff let out a sound in between a scoff and a laugh as he leaned back against the kitchen counter.

“Sounds like a lot of people want to kill you,” Jeff teased.

And wow, something about that had Gary holding back another of those cheek-splitting smiles. It was almost like they were... maybe becoming friends? But there wasn’t time to dwell on that right now.

“Yeah, and I really can’t blame them either,” Gary said. “So, what do you think? Could I have a ride from the very sweet, very thoughtful Jeff Russo?”

Jeff pursed his lips, seemingly thinking it over. He then sighed and set his mug on the counter. “Yeah, I can take you,” he said, starting over toward where Gary stood near the front door. “Come on.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

While following Jeff outside, Gary had to fight the urge to pull him in for a hug. God, he was so thankful. Even though the chance of finding the necklace was slim, he had to try, and hey, if it turned out that hewaseventually arrested for trespassing, that might even make Dawn more likely to forgive him. Hopefully.

“Geez, Jeff, you have no idea how helpful this is,” Gary said, trailing behind as they walked to the car. “I could hug you right now.”

There was a short pause, and Gary couldn’t help but feel alittlebit hopeful.

But then Jeff said, “Uh, I’d rather you not.”

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