Easy (Chicago Blaze 6)

“See you at lunch?”

I breeze past Kelly, eager to put distance between me and this conversation. “Yep, see you then.”ThreeEasy

I clench the steering wheel of my rental car, steeling myself. I knew this wouldn’t be easy, but damn. So far, coming home is even harder than I was expecting.

The Dairy Dream has a fresh coat of bright yellow paint and the same crowded lobby where I spent a lot of my teen years. As my eyes take in the details, my heart can only remember it as the place I took Allie on our first date.

Greentree Falls is a small town, and memories of her are everywhere. I pass the park where our parents took our homecoming and prom pictures and the pizza place where we’d always pick up an extra-large pepperoni and sausage for our movie nights in her parents’ basement.

I can’t bring myself to pass the high school so I take a little detour to avoid it. Allie is in so many of my memories from three of my four years at Greentree Falls High School. I was a month into my sophomore year, hanging out with friends at a volleyball game, when a dark-haired freshman playing on the varsity team caught my eye. And from that moment on, I never looked away from Allie Douglas. Not until she forced me to four years later.

Her smile…it’s etched into my mind forever. Allie served an ace during that volleyball game and flashed the most radiant smile I’d ever seen. There was no one else in that gymnasium in that moment. Little did I know then that future events would ruin me.

I exhale hard, trying to shake off the memories. I’m here for my mom and Aunt Jo, and that’s it. When I have time, I’ll catch up with my friends from high school who still live here. I probably won’t even see Allie, so there’s no reason to get wound up about it.

Blowing out a breath, I turn up the radio in my rental. The twang of a country singer’s voice makes me turn it right back down. I wish I had my Audi Q7 up here instead of a compact rental I barely fit in.

My mom’s one of the only people in the world I’d drop everything to help. She and Aunt Jo were pretty much my only family after my parents’ divorce. My dad flew me to whatever country he was working in to visit for a week during summers when I was in high school, but he didn’t even take time off work when I was there, so I hung out alone.

When I pull up in front of Aunt Jo’s modest two-bedroom bungalow, I look over and see it’s hardly changed in the decade I’ve been gone. The lilac bushes I planted when I was in high school are overgrown and the gray paint I applied to the shutters has faded.

I’ll put a fresh coat of paint on them while I’m here. Her front porch needs to be power washed and stained, too. I’m not great at sitting around doing nothing, so anything else she wants done around the house will go on my list.

The one good thing about my dad bailing on our family when I was fourteen was that I learned to take care of all the house and yard maintenance. I did Aunt Jo’s, too. It gave me something else to focus on, which I’ll always be grateful for.

Aunt Jo’s home projects are exactly what I need to lay low and stay busy while here in Greentree Falls. I would do just about anything to not only avoid seeing Allie, but also to not think about her.

“There he is,” Mom says, opening the front door as I walk up the sidewalk. “Only took a decade and a broken ankle to get my son to come see me.”

Shaking my head, I say, “Mom, you see me in Chicago all the time. And remember our trip to London last year?”

“That’s not the same, baby.” She hobbles aside so I can get through the front door.

“Mom, you shouldn’t be up,” I tell her as she hugs me.

“I’ve made it to fifty-six years old without you telling me what to do,” she states. “Don’t think you’re gonna start now.”

“Erik!” Aunt Jo calls from a hospital bed set up in her living room. “You’re looking handsomer every time I see you.” She squints at me. “Is that a little gray in your hair?”

“Might be.” I grin and shrug. “I must be getting up there since my mom’s shuffling around like an old lady and my aunt’s bedridden.”

There’s a second of silence before they both start in on me at the same time.

“You think that’s cute, huh? Get over here and I’ll show you how well my arms still work,” Aunt Jo yells.