Page 39 of Break My Heart (The Haydon Falls #2)
‘Don’t pretend you don’t know. You made those posts online about Gina’s brewery. You’ve been doing it for weeks so nobody would go there. Why the fuck would you do that?’
‘To keep my damn job. I moved here and got an apartment all for this job. If I lose it, what am I supposed to do? I got eight months left on my lease and there’s not a lot of jobs in this town.’
‘Why would you lose your job? I’m not closing.’
‘You could’ve if she stayed in business. No offense, but she’s got better beer than you. Customers were talking about it the week she opened, how her beer was better than yours. She was taking all our business. I didn’t want us closing down so I did what I had to for us to stay open.’
‘That’s not your fucking job.’ I point to the door. ‘Get out! You’re fired!’
‘For what? Helping you? That’s bullshit!’
‘Get out or I call the cops. I mean it, Wade. Get out!’
‘This is fucking bullshit,’ he says, shaking his head as he leaves the stockroom. I follow him back to the office where he has his coat.
‘Give me your keys,’ I say.
He throws them at me, then grabs his coat and storms out of the office. I follow him to the back door and lock it behind him.
I can’t believe he did that to Gina. I was hoping it was some kind of mistake, but he admitted he did it. He acted like he was doing me a favor. I clearly didn’t know the guy as well as I thought I did.
Nick calls as I’m walking back to my office.
‘Hey, I just fired Wade.’
‘Why? What happened?’
‘He was the one posting all that shit about G’s.’
‘Seriously? I never would’ve guessed it was him.’
‘Me either. I still can’t believe it.’
‘Was that why you took off after the competition?’
‘No, I was trying to catch Gina before she left. I wanted to congratulate her.’
‘Does she know it was Wade posting all that shit?’
‘No, and I don’t think I should tell her. The asshole used my computer. Gina’s not going to believe I wasn’t involved if those posts were written from my own damn computer.’
‘She might believe you if you believed her about not still being with her ex.’
‘Nick, I know you think Gina’s it for me, and maybe she is, but it’s too late. She’s leaving.’
‘It’s never too late. Look at Lyndsay and me. I never thought I’d see her again after high school. And when I did, I never in a million years thought she’d go out with me. And now look at us. We’re engaged.’
‘It’s different with Gina and me. We don’t have the history Lyndsay and you have. Going to camp together isn’t the same as growing up together.’
‘Just tell her how you feel. Tell her you don’t want her to go. If she still decides to leave, then fine, but at least you won’t spend the rest of your life wondering what might’ve happened if you’d tried to get her to stay.’
‘I don’t have the best track record of getting women to stay.’
‘Kendall leaving had nothing to do with you. That was her needing to get out of this town and do something different. It’s the same thing I did.
I left because I was convinced there was something better out there that I was missing.
It isn’t the same for Gina. She’s not running from Haydon Falls.
She’s leaving because she doesn’t think she has any other options. ’
‘She doesn’t. If G’s closes, there’s no reason for her to stay.’
‘You’re a reason. So are Mom and Dad, Callie, Lyndsay, Jason, Brody. You ever watch Gina when she’s around our family? How happy she looks?’
‘It’s because she didn’t really have a family growing up. She’s kind of adopted ours.’
‘Which she’ll lose if she leaves. Despite whatever she told you, she doesn’t want to go, but she doesn’t think you want her to stay. And if she doesn’t have you, then you’re right, there’s no reason for her to stick around.’
Someone knocks on the back door. ‘Sawyer? You in there?’
‘I need to go,’ I tell Nick. ‘Someone’s at the door.’
‘Okay. Talk to ya later.’
As I’m walking to the door, the person knocks on it again. ‘Sawyer!’
Opening the door, I see Matt standing there. ‘What’s going on?’
He comes inside. ‘Someone trashed G’s. I just drove by there as the cops arrived.’
‘What do you mean they trashed it?’
‘The windows are broken. The tables and chairs are tossed all over the parking lot, all busted up. There’s spray paint all over the building. ’
‘Fuck.’ I race to my office to grab my keys.
Matt races after me. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Go over there. I need to help her. I need to do something.’
‘I thought you two weren’t together anymore.’
‘We’re not, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about her.’ I race back to the door with Matt following beside me. ‘This shouldn’t be happening. We don’t do shit like this in Haydon Falls.’
‘I thought the same thing,’ Matt says as we go out to the parking lot. ‘Maybe it was someone from another town.’
‘I know exactly who it was,’ I say through gritted teeth as I imagine Wade smashing in the windows. How did he have time to do it? He left here a few minutes ago and G’s is on the outskirts of town.
‘You want me to go with you?’ Matt asks.
‘No, I can handle it. Thanks for letting me know.’ I stop at my car.
‘You know she was putting it up for sale, right?’
I look over at him. ‘She said she was thinking about it.’
‘She talked to me about it last week. She offered me the listing and asked me to give her an estimate of what she could get for the place.’
‘But she didn’t sign anything yet, right? To sell it?’
‘No, but I’m guessing she will now. Why would she stay? G’s wasn’t making any money and now someone destroys the place? They wrote “get out bitch” on the front of her building. Not the kind of welcome you want when you move to a new town. I don’t blame her for wanting to go.’
She shouldn’t go. She should stay here. Nick is right.
She doesn’t want to leave. She loves it here.
She used to tell me that all the time. She loves the historic buildings, the quaint downtown, the beautiful scenery, the orchard, my family.
The only thing she doesn’t love here is me, because I was a jerk who didn’t believe her.
‘I’ll see you later, Matt.’ I get in my car and drive to G’s. The cops are there, along with Gina’s truck.
‘I’m gonna kill you, Wade,’ I mutter as I step over all the debris in the parking lot. Broken glass, broken tables, broken chairs. Gina spent all the money she had on this place and now it’s destroyed.
Before this happened, I thought I might be able to convince her to stay. But now, with G’s destroyed, she’ll want to go. And I don’t think I’ll be able to change her mind.