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“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.SevenEasy“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.”
