Breaking up with him was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
The crack in my heart breaks open just a little deeper. For all that’s happened between us, Erik doesn’t seem angry anymore. He seems over it. And while I know that’s good—for him, anyway—I’m not over it in the least.
But I can’t tell him that, given that I’m the one who broke things off between us.
“The sign says four for five dollars, but these are $1.25 each,” a customer says, holding a can of soup up as I approach the checkout lane I was called to. “That’s not even a sale. The sign must be wrong.”
“No, it’s actually something the corporate office does. I know it can be confusing.”
“Confusing?” She scoffs. “It’s ridiculous.”
“Well, that’s the price. Do you still want them?”
“What I want is an actual sale price. Your sales are all on stuff that no one even wants. The prices are too high here.”
“I don’t set the prices,” I tell her.
“You guys just rob your customers because you’re the only store in town and you think you can.”
I’m not in the mood to paste on a phony smile and offer insincere apologies to this irate customer. I’m still buzzing over the interaction with Erik and I can’t wrap my mind around why anyone would care whether soup was marked four cans for $5 or $1.25 each.
The checker working the lane, Andie, saves me, asking, “Ma’am, do you want the soup or not?”
“I guess,” the customer says, huffing.
I quickly turn and head for the manager’s office. I just need five minutes of quiet and an iced tea to mentally reset.
But as soon as I walk into the office, Kelly looks up from the desk, her eyes wide.
“That’s your ex?”
I smile weakly. “You could tell just from that interaction?”
“No, I asked Jim if he knew the guy because I thought Idris Elba’s younger brother might have come to Greentree Falls. Sweet baby Jesus, that man is attractive. And he’s an NHL player? You said he couldn’t pursue his career here, but you didn’t mention he’s a pro hockey player. For fuck’s sake, Allie, what other stuff have you left out? Any NFL quarterback exes?”
I grab a bottle of iced tea from the fridge and sit down on the worn green chair against one wall, sighing heavily.
“Just Erik.”
“Sorry,” she says sheepishly. “But seriously girl, what happened between you guys?”
“The kids happened. My parents had sole custody of them and I was a senior in high school when they died. They gave me custody of the kids in their will. And Erik was a freshman at Penn State then, on a full-ride hockey scholarship.”
Her eyes soften with realization. “That had to be a tough decision for him, though.”
“It wasn’t his decision. It was mine. He offered to quit school and move back home, but…” I look down at the frayed green thread I’m toying with on the couch. “I couldn’t let him do that.”
“Oh, Allie.”
I glance up at her and smile. “It was a long time ago. I guess things happened the way they were supposed to.”
“Have you seen him since then?”
“I saw him the other day at Hazel’s hockey practice and…just now.”
“And that’s it?” Kelly looks incredulous. “In the whole past ten years?”
“He’s never been home until now. I heard his aunt fractured her hip and his mom fractured her ankle, so he’s here to take care of them.”
“So he’s hot and he takes care of his mom?”
I take that as a rhetorical question and don’t respond. I don’t need anyone reminding me how great of a guy Erik is. Kelly approaches the conversation from a different angle.
“I heard he said you look great.”
I drop my head in my hands. “Does anyone ever have a private conversation in this place? I swear everyone knows every last little thing.”
“Did he say that, though?”
“He was just being nice.”
“You do look great.”
“Yeah, for a mom of three who hasn’t had her hair done in five months,” I say with a laugh.
“Allie—”
I stand up. “I need to get back.”
“Call me later, okay?”
I nod and leave the office, eager to walk the store aisles and be alone in my own head, even if it’s only for a few minutes.
Erik is probably still in the store, though, and one awkward encounter that sets my heart racing is enough for one day. I grab a spray bottle and a cleaning cloth and head into the women’s bathroom to wipe it down. At least I know there’s no chance I’ll run into him in here.
Seven
Easy
“You want one burger or two?” I ask Cade.
“I shouldn’t have any, but you only live once, right? Gimme two.”
I ease several quarter-pound burger patties onto the surface of Aunt Jo’s grill. It took me almost an hour to clean the grill up—I don’t think it’s been used in a while. But now that it’s clean, I’ll use it as often as I can. Grilling has always relaxed me.
Once the grill grates are full, I close the lid, grab a beer from the cooler Cade brought and sink down into a lawn chair.
“How was work?” I ask him.
“Same old, same old.” He takes a swig of his beer. “I went and checked out the new baseball diamonds this afternoon, though. Those are gonna be nice.”
“Better than the field we used to play on?”
He laughs at the memory. “That field didn’t even have bases. Just a bunch of dirt lines with holes in ‘em.”
“I’d go home covered in dirt. My mom would ask me if I’d rolled around in the dirt on purpose.”
Cade’s grin brings out small wrinkles in the corners of his eyes. “My mom used to bitch about the dirt in my baseball uniforms, but once she figured out how smelly hockey gear was, she wished I’d go back to baseball.”
“I swear I don’t even smell it anymore.”
“You have to smell it on the gloves.”
I shake my head. “Not really. Our equipment people spray them down all the time.”
“Huh. Well, you smell it at the rec center, don’t you?”
“Oh yeah. But I don’t mind it. That sweaty glove and popcorn smell brings me right back to high school.”
“A lot of good times,” Cade says softly.
“Yeah, definitely.”
“Hey, I’m sorry about you and Allie running into each other like that the other night at the parent meeting.”
I wave a hand. “Nah, don’t worry about it.”
“I completely forgot she volunteered.”
“We were bound to see each other at some point.”
“How long has it been since you saw her?”
I take a long drink of my beer. “Last time I saw her was when she dumped me and I left town.”
“Wow, you mean…? I knew you hadn’t been back home in a long time, but you hadn’t seen her since then?”
“No.”
“Damn.”
It’s silent and I take a couple more sips of my beer. I ask the question I’ve been dying to ask for a long time now.
“How is she?”
Cade arches his brows, looking surprised that I asked. “Allie? She’s…good, I think. She’s pretty busy, having three teenagers and all.”
“Jenna never came back to help?”
“Hell no. Allie does it all herself.”
I shake my head, disgusted. “Such bullshit.”
“Yeah. Those kids are damn lucky to have her, though. She’s done a great job; they’re good kids.”
“I’m not surprised.” I try to play it casual, getting up to flip the burger patties as I ask, “Is she seeing anyone?”
Cade laughs. “You’re not over her, are you?”
“Just answer the question.”
“I don’t think so. The only guys I’ve ever heard of her dating are Hunter Jackson,
that was maybe four years ago, and Larry Wright, but she broke that off a few months ago.”
“Larry Wright?” My lips part with shock.
“Yeah. He’s mellowed a lot since high school. He’s an insurance agent now.”
“No way Allie would go out with Larry Wright. He’s…no. You’re shitting me, right?”
Cade shrugs. “She only dated him for a couple months. I heard he was planning to propose to her.”
“Yeah, I bet. Because she’s beautiful and amazing and he’s…Larry.”
“Dude, she was probably lonely, you ever think of that?”
“Allie? She could have any man she wanted.”
He shakes his head. “You might think that, but a lot of guys I know won’t date a woman with three kids.”
“That’s bullshit. You’d already know she’s a great mom.” I sit back down, stunned by the news that Allie is single. “What about you? You’d date a woman with kids, wouldn’t you?”
“I would if I was single, sure. Not Allie, though, because of you.” Cade finishes his beer and gets another one. “You ever date a woman with kids?”
“I don’t really do that kind of dating,” I admit.
“Yeah, I probably wouldn’t either, if I were you. You probably get ass right and left.”
“When I was younger.”
Cade laughs heartily at that. “You’re turning thirty soon. That’s far from old. Live it up while you can, man.”
“It gets old. I’ve tried to do relationships a couple times, but…I don’t know.”
“What?”
I sigh heavily. “No one intrigues me for very long. After a few weeks, when women want to stay over and have me meet their friends and all that…I just don’t want to.”
“Because of the intimacy?”
I balk. “No, the intimacy is always fine—”
Cade cuts me off. “I don’t mean sex. Staying over and meeting friends is just a different kind of intimacy, you know?”
“Yeah, I guess it is. And I never had that with anyone but Allie.”
“Do you miss it?”
I look out at the sunset, which is painting the sky shades of orange, purple and pink. “I miss it with Allie.”
Cade doesn’t respond, and I’m glad, because it was a tough thing for me to admit. Even after all these years, I don’t want to move on and find someone new. It’s not even possible. Allie has always held a place in my heart and I can’t just “find” someone new to replace her with.
She was my first and my only, in so many ways.
“You boys planning to feed us tonight?” my mom asks, opening the sliding door.
“The burgers are cooking,” I say. “They’ll be done soon.”
“You guys need help with anything?” Cade asks her.
“I want you to move my china cabinet!” Aunt Jo calls from inside the house.
I look at my mom questioningly. “Does she really?”
“She was hoping while Cade is here, you guys could move it to the other side of the dining room for her.”
“Sure, we can do that after dinner,” I say.
“You’ll have to unload all the china from it.”
“No problem,” Cade says.
“Thanks, boys. We’ll just be waiting on dinner.”
She goes back into the house and Cade gives me an amused grin.
“Thanks for helping with the cabinet,” I say.
“No worries.”
He’s still smiling like he’s in on a joke I’m not.
“What’s so funny?” I ask him.
“It’s funny that you usually live the life of a pro athlete and now you’re catering to two hilarious old ladies and their every need.”
I finish my beer and shake my head. “Yeah, real funny, asshole. I never imagined myself helping Aunt Jo get her underwear on every morning.”
“Aren’t they going to need help for more than a month?”
I shrug. “I’ll stay as long as I can, and I’ll hire in-home-care nurses when I have to go back for the preseason.”
“Well, since you’re here anyway, maybe you should try to talk to Allie sometime.”
“About what?”
He gives me a confused look. “About…everything. Obviously you’re not over it. Maybe she’s not, either.”
“I see things differently now,” I concede. “I understand why she did what she did.”
“Well, yeah. She never would have abandoned those kids and let them enter the foster care system. That’s just not who she is. I admire her for giving up her own dreams to take care of them.”
“Me too.”
It’s true. Now that I’m not a selfish, immature kid anymore, I see how much Allie sacrificed for her nephew and nieces. She’s the best kind of person. It blows my mind that men in Greentree Falls aren’t lining up for a chance with her.
“She’s really single?” I ask.
“I haven’t seen her with anyone since Larry.”
“He probably scarred her for life.”
Cade laughs. “He always was a douche.”
I get up to take the burgers off the grill and Cade says, “You should talk to her, bro. You guys used to be best friends.”
“I saw her the other day at Fox Foods, but it was awkward. Neither one of us know what to say after all this time.”
“Figure it out,” Cade says like it’s the easiest thing in the world. “Say, ‘You’re still on my mind’ or ‘I miss you’ or ‘Great job raising three kids all by yourself.’”
I feel his last suggestion like a punch in the gut. I’ve never gotten over the guilt of staying in school at Penn State and letting Allie walk away from our relationship. A big part of me wanted to quit and come home, knowing she’d get over her anger and get back with me eventually.
But the dream of making it to the NHL was strong. My mom begged me not to quit school, tearing at my heartstrings every time we talked about it and she cried.
Allie’s the love of my life. I didn’t just figure that out when I came back to Greentree Falls and saw her—I’ve always known.
“Yeah, maybe,” I say, dismissing Cade’s idea.
I need to apologize to Allie for the way I treated her when she broke up with me. I was so distraught I lashed out at her when she was under a lot of pressure, and still mourning the loss of her parents.
But it doesn’t seem right to say anything more than that. To suggest that things could or should have been different. I didn’t fight hard enough to keep her, and that’s on me.
So I do what I always do. I paste on a fake smile to convince those around me that it’s all good. That I’m all good. Just easygoing, always content Erik Zimmerman.
No one but me gets to see the permanent ache in my heart.
Eight
Allie
As I pull my car into the garage, I breathe a sigh of relief.
Longest. Day. Ever.
When I got to work this morning, I found out the weekly shopper delivered to every mailbox in the county had a misprint in the Fox Foods ad. It was supposed to advertise all meat ten percent off, but it said one hundred percent off.
I spent the whole morning dealing with pissed off customers when I wouldn’t give them the meat for free. Our regional manager came in on her day off to help, but it was still a madhouse.
Then Hazel called from school saying she’d forgotten her sack lunch for her field trip. I couldn’t leave the store, but one of the grocery stockers came to my rescue and offered to deliver lunch for her.
Not only did I not get a lunch break, I barely even had ten seconds to get a drink from the water fountains by the bathrooms at work. People abandoned their carts full of meat products at the checkout lanes when they found out we weren’t giving them one hundred percent off. Then we had to quickly restock it.
Signs all over the meat department about the error in the ad didn’t help—most customers either didn’t read them or wanted to argue that we had to honor the price in the ad.
It’s the law, one guy told me. I actually ended up having to call the police chief to the store to explain that it’s not the law. Then another guy shoved his thumbs through a giant package of hamburger to protest the non-free meat, and I had to call the police chief again.
He just stayed at the store after that.
I grab the Fox Foods bag carrying a rotisserie chicken and mac and cheese from the deli that’s going to be dinner tonight. No way am I cooking. I just want to sit on the back porch with a glass of wine and go to bed early.
My phone dings with a text.
Max: My shoes ripped during track practice. Can you get me new ones tonight?
I groan and text back.
Me: I’ll give you my debit card and you can get them.
Max: I won’t be back from the meet until after 9 and I have practice again tomorrow right after school.
Me: Do you have an old pair of shoes you can get by with until the weekend?
Max: No, I need a size 12 now and my old ones are too small.
Awesome. Looks like I have to go to the sporting goods store in Wildwood, a bigger city thirty minutes from Greentree Falls. I text back and let him know I’ll take care of it, then walk inside the house.
I set the bag of food and my purse on the kitchen counter, but the sound of a female voice in the living room makes me stop cold.
“We’ll get it lightened and highlighted, it’ll look so good.”
Jenna. My mood goes from bad to worse as I walk around the corner and see her sitting next to Vi on the couch, smiling as she runs a hand through Vi’s hair.
“You’re not supposed to be here until this weekend,” I say.
Jenna scoffs. “Nice to see you too. I was able to come early. Why is that such a big deal?”
“She’s taking me to get my hair highlighted,” Vi says, glowing. “And we’re going to get mani-pedis tonight.”
I have to force myself not to lash out. No one has ever exasperated me like my sister. That’s why I call her Hurricane Jenna.
“Can you run to Wildwood and get Max some new track shoes?” I ask Jenna.
“Aw, I would, but we have appointments at the nail place at 6:00 p.m. and I know we’ll be at least two hours.”
Easy: A Chicago Blaze Hockey Romance Page 5
