AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER10
SEVEN YEARS
The next day at work, I kept popping jellybeans into my mouth. Normally I stayed away from the candy, but I deserved a few extra pounds after my unforgettable week. Instead of eating my sack lunch, I walked down the street to the deli and ordered a chef salad. While staring at the glazed sugar cookies in the display, a familiar voice called out from behind.
“Alexia Knight, is that you?”
These are the curses of living in the same town you grew up in. Either your old classmates still lived there, or they eventually returned to visit family. I was always running into someone from my past and it felt weird, like you weren’t supposed to know what happened to everyone when they grew up.
I recalled some of the most turbulent times of childhood. I got in a fight at school with a girl who called me Flatass, my brother and Austin took me to prom because no guy had asked me, and a couple of my besties either slept with my boyfriends or ended up going to college and never called me again. While I’d been avoiding class reunions, they didn’t seem to be avoiding me.
I turned around and laid eyes on Josh Holden. He now worked as a manager at a gas station. I’d run into him a few times when I lived with Beckett because the station was on my way home. Usually I just paid at the pump, but a couple of times Beckett wanted me to go in and pick up some lottery tickets.
When I was fifteen, Josh had tried to get me a little more experienced with older boys than I was ready for, but chalk it up to teenage hormones. Up to that point, my version of dating was handholding and a few French kisses. I’d never had a real boyfriend or done anything sexual. Then Josh took me out on a date and couldn’t keep his hands off me.
“Haven’t seen you in a few months,” he said. “Your hair looks different.”
“So does your face. What happened?” It was bruised up and his left cheek was green.
“Uh, got jumped by some psycho,” he said, scratching the side of his nose. Josh was once a buff guy on the football team, but time had worn away all that brawn. Now he stood around five feet ten inches and had a potbelly. His reddish-blond hair was shaved close to his head, and his once golden skin was now mottled and freckled in places.
“Sorry to hear that,” I said. “Robbery at the gas station?”
“Nah. I was driving around and, I don’t know. So how you been? You still seeing that big dude with the pythons?”
By pythons, he meant Beckett’s arms.
“No, we split up.”
“That’s too bad. I just broke up with some chick I met online. Stay away from those dating services.”
“Why’s that?”
He nodded at the man behind the counter. “Ham and cheese to go. And a pickle.” Josh put his hand on the counter and scoped out a blonde who walked inside carrying a small dog under her right arm. “Most of them use pictures they took ten years and two babies ago.”
What a pig. “You don’t have kids?”
“Hell no. At least, none that I know about.”
I impatiently glared at the manager. He was putting the last toppings on the salad and I suddenly wished I had ordered my lunch to go.Please do not let Josh get the bright idea to join me.
“I love kids,” I declared in a bright voice. “Can’t wait to have a bunch of them.”
His brows popped up.
“Miss, here’s your salad.”
The man behind the counter slid my tray forward and I grabbed the ends, looking back at Josh. “Well, take care, and good luck with everything.” What else could I say? It’s not as if he was an old friend, and the conversation was just weird and a little sad.
I walked to the back of the quaint little deli and set my tray on a small wooden table beside the soda fountain machine. When the heavy legs of the chair scraped back, Josh sidled up beside me. “Can I join you? I’ve got the afternoon off and we can catch up on old times.”
Old times of him pawing me in the front seat of his dad’s Pontiac? No, thanks.
“Sorry, Josh. I have a lot on my mind and I’d rather be alone,” I said, sitting in the wooden chair.
“Maybe we can talk about it,” he suggested, leaning forward with his hand on the table, obscuring my view.
I poked my plastic fork in a boiled egg and sat back. “No offense. I really need to be by myself right now.”
