The next week, I went to Haddon Savings Bank to open the accounts for the Works.

The manager gave me a big smile and introduced me to the person who'd be looking after Harlan & Co.'s business.

It was Brett.

He sat across the desk from me in his shirt and tie, very red in the face, shuffling papers. “So,” he said. “This is awkward.”

“A little.”

He put the papers down.

“Can I say something?” he said. “Not as your bank guy. As… a guy who sat at that table and laughed at you.”

“Go ahead.”

“In high school, I was the big man. Quarterback. Homecoming king. And ten years later, I'm sitting at the same table in the same bar, telling the same stories. Nothing's happened to me. Nothing.”

He looked at his hands.

“And you walked in, in your dad's truck, and I needed you to be a failure. So I wouldn't feel like one.”

It was the most honest thing I'd ever heard Brett Dawson say.

“Brett,” I said. “You stayed. You kept your job. You coach the junior Hornets on Saturdays. Mom told me. That's not nothing. That's what holds a town together while it waits.”

He looked up, surprised.

Then he held out his hand across the desk.

“Welcome home, Wyatt,” he said. “For real this time.”