Page 18 of Keep My Heart (The Haydon Falls #1)

‘Lyndsay, that’s awesome!’ I say, pulling into the hardware store parking lot. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘It just didn’t come up. We haven’t seen each other in 15 years. There’s a lot to catch up on.’

‘I mean, why didn’t you tell me when you got the degree? I would’ve sent a card, a gift. Hell, I might’ve even flown out for your graduation.’

She laughs. ‘Nick, you’re making too much of this. It wasn’t a big deal.’

‘Are you kidding?’ I take off my seatbelt and turn to her. ‘This is huge! I was your math tutor and you ended up getting a degree in accounting. I would’ve liked to have been informed of my student’s achievements.’

She laughs again. ‘You’re right. I apologize. I should’ve sent you a note, letting you know. But you couldn’t have gone to the graduation. I wasn’t even there. Chris made us go to a convention that weekend in Vegas.’

‘Instead of your graduation? What the hell?’ I say, hearing the anger in my voice.

I want to kill that asshole for doing that.

Lyndsay always struggled in school, especially math, so for her to get a degree in accounting is a huge accomplishment, and then her loser husband doesn’t let her attend the graduation? That’s fucking wrong.

‘It’s fine,’ she says. ‘I didn’t need to go. I mean, I kind of wanted to, but Chris really wanted to go to this convention and they were on the same weekend so it just wasn’t possible to do both.’ She takes off her seatbelt. ‘Anyway, should we go in?’

She’s out of the car before I can ask her how this even happened, why she picked bookkeeping over some other job. How does a person who hates math end up getting a degree in it?

We go inside the hardware store. I go straight to the section I need, knowing exactly where it is because of all the hours I spent here with my dad growing up.

The store hasn’t changed, and probably never will.

There’s comfort in that, which I like. I didn’t use to feel that way.

When I left here, I craved change. I was sick of living in this small town and nothing ever changing, but now I appreciate it.

‘Helping out your mom while you’re home?’ Hal asks as he checks me out at the register .

‘Not this time,’ I say, handing him some cash. ‘I’m helping Mrs. Davis with her dishwasher. Lyndsay and I went out for breakfast to catch up and when I took her home, her mom mentioned the dishwasher wasn’t working.’

Hal looks over at Lyndsay as he hands me my change and receipt.

‘Sorry to hear about you and Chris.’ The old man leans toward her over the register, squinting his eyes and scowling.

‘Between you and me, I never liked that kid. He was a troublemaker. Of course, nobody ever believed me since the boy was winning us games, but him and his friends didn’t come in here buying all that spray paint to be fixing up old patio furniture. I can tell you that.’

‘We should get going,’ I say, knowing Lyndsay doesn’t want to stand here and listen to Hal talk about her ex.

But I like that Hal didn’t stick up for Chris.

He’s one of the few people in town who didn’t like him, or at least admitted to it.

I think a lot of people didn’t like him, but as Hal said, people were willing to overlook his flaws as long as he kept winning us football games.

‘It was nice seeing you,’ Lyndsay says, waving at Hal as we leave.

‘You kids have fun!’ he calls out as we walk to the door.

‘It’s true,’ Lyndsay says as we head to the car.

‘What he said about Chris? He’d get bored and vandalize stuff.

’ Lyndsay stops and points to the back of the brick building next to Hal’s.

‘You can still see the spray paint. It’s faint, but it’s there.

He did it because Mr. Kramer gave him a C in English.

His wife owned the bakery that used to be there. ’

‘The penis with the blue balls?’ I say, remembering the spray-painted wall. ‘That was Chris’ work?’

‘Yes. He told me about it later. He thought it was hilarious. I thought it was mean. ’

‘He put it on the front door too. Kramer’s wife had to shut the place down for a day to clean it.’

‘I can’t believe he did that. Mr. Kramer was just doing his job.

Chris got the grade he earned, but because he thought he deserved an A, he goes and vandalizes a building.

’ She sighs as we continue to the car. ‘I shouldn’t keep talking about him.

I promised I wouldn’t talk about him at all this week. ’

‘I think it’s kind of inevitable.’ I toss the sack in the trunk and walk over to Lyndsay. ‘Just because the papers are signed and a judge made it official doesn’t mean you stop thinking about it.’

‘I know, but I shouldn’t be talking about it, or about him, especially to you.’

‘Why me?’

‘Because I know how much you didn’t like him.’ She smiles. ‘And because we’re supposed to be on a date. I’m supposed to be learning how to do this, and I’m pretty sure talking about your ex is a bad idea on a date.’

‘It is, but I’m just your fake date. I’m also your friend, and if you want to talk to me, I’m here, even if it’s about .?.?. him.’ I take a breath, trying to remain calm, but the more I hear about Chris, the more I want to strangle him. I’m still furious that he made Lyndsay miss her graduation.

‘Did you even get dinner? A cake? Anything?’

She tilts her head. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘When you graduated. Did he get you anything? Take you anywhere to celebrate?’

‘No, we didn’t have time. We drove to the convention and were there for almost a week.’

‘Then we’re celebrating now. No, tomorrow night. I’m taking you someplace nice. And I’m getting you a cake. How could he not even get you a cake? What the fuck? It’s not that hard. Just drive to a damn grocery store and pick one up. ’

She laughs. ‘Nick, why are you getting so upset about this?’

I hold her shoulders and lean down to her. ‘Because you did something amazing and it wasn’t even acknowledged. When did this happen? When did you graduate?’

‘Five years ago. But Nick, really, we don’t need to do anything. It was a long time ago.’

Letting her go, I lean back against the car, folding my arms over my chest. ‘Why accounting? Why’d you choose that over something else?’

She shrugs. ‘It seemed like something that could get me a job. And the hours would be during the day so I could still teach yoga at night and on the weekends.’

‘That’s it? That’s the only reason you chose it?’

She looks down. ‘It might’ve also been because of you.’

‘Me? Why me?’

Her eyes go back to mine. ‘You made me feel smart. You made me believe I could do more than I thought I could. I knew accounting would be hard, but I remembered what you used to say about taking things one step at a time. Like when we’d be working out a problem.

You’d break it down into steps and tell me to just try to get to the next step, and then the next.

Eventually, I’d get to the end of the problem and realize I’d done it. I’d solved the problem.’

‘And then you’d jump up and down and scare your mom,’ I say, laughing. ‘She thought you’d seen a mouse the way you were jumping around like that.’

‘I was just so happy that I’d done it. I’d done something I didn’t think was possible.

I thought about that when I was trying to decide what to go to school for.

I thought about how good it felt to do something I didn’t think I could do, how happy I felt when I actually did it.

So I picked accounting. I decided to just take one class to start to see if I could do it.

When I passed the class, I decided to take another.

And two years later, I’d done it. I got my degree. ’

I step up to her. ‘I’m so damn proud of you, Lyndsay. I can’t even tell you how fucking proud I am.’

‘It just shows what a good teacher you were.’

‘It wasn’t me. I helped you get through high school algebra. College is a whole different level. That was all you. You did whatever it took to get through those classes and graduate. Do you get what a huge accomplishment that is?’

‘What about you? You got through college, then law school, and now you work at some fancy law firm in New York. That’s more of an accomplishment than me getting my associate degree.’

‘Would you stop comparing us and focus on what you’ve done? How far you’ve come? When I started tutoring you, you were flunking math, and now you have an accounting degree and work as a bookkeeper. That’s a huge accomplishment.’

‘I guess it is,’ she says, smiling a little. ‘I never really thought of it that way. I was just trying to get through school so I could get a job and pay the rent. Chris never said much about me going back to school so I guess it just didn’t seem like that big of a deal.’

‘Well, it is, and we’re going to celebrate tomorrow.’

‘With cake?’ She smiles. ‘Or was that a joke?’

‘I don’t joke about cake. Is chocolate still your favorite?’

‘You remembered.’ She looks into my eyes. ‘How do you remember so much?’

‘I’ve got a good memory.’

I really don’t, but I remember almost everything about Lyndsay. All those times we talked during her tutoring sessions, I listened to her every word, and whatever she told me stuck around, even all these years later.

For the past 15 years, I haven’t been able to get Lyndsay out of my head. I tried to, especially after I found out she got married, but then I’d hear a song that reminded me of her or see something that made me think of her, and there’d she be again, consuming my thoughts.

Maybe that’s why I’m still single. I was too hung up on this fantasy of being with Lyndsay that I couldn’t see myself being with someone else. If that’s true, I need to end this fake dating thing. Being with her is just going to make me think of her even more when I get back to New York.

But I don’t want to stop seeing her. And I don’t want to fake date her. I want to date her for real.