Easy (Chicago Blaze 6)

“Oh, we’re good.” I smile reassuringly.

She smiles in return. “I saw your boy the other day when I was buying flowers in that parking lot by the drugstore. Do you know he stopped just to help me load up my flowers and he even offered to stop by my home to unload them for me?”

“Well, good. Max is a good kid, and he knows you’re my favorite teacher ever.”

She reaches out to pat my arm. “You’re doing a great job, Allie. I’m proud of you.”

Tears spring to my eyes. “Thank you. That really means a lot to me.”

Mrs. Mathieson has told me many times since my parents died that she’s proud of me, but it never gets old. Sometimes all you need is a little reassurance that you’re doing a good job. I feel like my mom is somehow speaking to me through her.

“If you ever need anything, you know where to find me.” She gives me a warm look and reaches for her shopping cart. “Bye, dear.”

“Can I help you out with that cart?”

“I’ve got it, but thank you.”

“Well, I’ll just walk out with you then. I’d love to hear more about those flowers you planted.”

She fills me in on her yard as we walk out to her car, where I help her load her groceries into her trunk. I wave to her as she backs out of her parking space and I’m walking back into the store when I look up and come face to face with Erik.

Like me, he’s walking into the store. And also like me, he has no idea what to say right now.

“Hey,” he manages.

“Hi.”

He looks at the Fox Foods logo on my shirt and says, “I didn’t know you work here.”

“Yeah, I’ve been here for six years now.”

I look away, my heart hammering. Just like at the rink, I want to run. He looks so good, his dark skin shimmering with a thin sheen of sweat. He’s wearing black shorts, a gray Chicago Blaze T-shirt and a dark baseball cap turned around backward.

He always wore backward baseball caps in high school, and I always found it so sexy. But he’s not the sweet, slightly shy boy I knew back then. Now he’s a pro athlete, his body unlike any I’ve seen in person.

He clears his throat. “Allie, I…” He exhales hard and starts again. “I didn’t know you worked here and I never would’ve ambushed you if I’d known. I just ran here to pick up a few things for my aunt.”

My face heats with embarrassment as he looks at me. “No, it’s fine…I mean, this is the only grocery store in Greentree Falls, and you came here for groceries.”

“Yeah, so…how are you?”

I answer automatically. “Good. How are you?”

He shrugs. “Not bad.”

As if God knew I needed an intervention, my work radio that I wear on my hip crackles and a checker asks me to come to her register.

“Sorry, I have to…”

“Sure.” He steps aside so I can walk through the sliding doors into the store and he follows several feet behind me.

He picks up a handheld basket to put his groceries in, and I turn toward the checkout lanes, waving awkwardly.

He grins and says, “Hey Allie?”

I stop walking and turn to look at him when he says, “You look great.”

I’m not sure if I say thanks or not, because I’m too busy trying to remain upright. His compliment makes me lightheaded.

I’ll never forget the first time he spoke to me. He came up to me after school one day, all smiles and quiet confidence as he said, “Hey, you’re Allie, right? I’m Erik.”

I was immediately interested in him. Not just because of his looks—the hot new guy in Greentree Falls had drawn the attention of about every girl in the high school when he first arrived at the start of his freshman year —but because of his sincerity. He was confident without a trace of cockiness, and he never said an unkind word about anyone. Not to mention that he made me feel like an absolute queen. When we were together, Erik’s eye never wandered to other girls. He told me often that no other girl could ever compare to me in his eyes.

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.”