Page 115 of Stay With Me

She sighed. “It’s a long story.” She couldn’t go into major details without sounding like it was because of her helping him out. “Do you need me to run by the restaurant or pick anything up before I get there?”

“No, no, please just come on over,” he insisted. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”

Her heart swelled just a bit. She loved when he called her that.

“It’ll be fine,” she assured him. “I’ll see you soon.”

* * *

After Nick flung the door open, he immediately pulled Samantha into a tight hug, which caused the dam of tears to break again. She squeezed her arms around his waist, buried her face into his shirt, and quietly cried for a minute or two.

Eventually, she lifted her face and forced a smile while he wiped her cheeks with his thumbs and placed a kiss on her forehead, then the tip of her nose.

“Are you okay?”

She waggled her head and lifted her shoulders. “Oh, I’m fine. The board is so stingy. They’re always looking for reasons to fire people. I’m not going to take it personally. I can find another job so I’m just glad I get to start my weekend early.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s whatever,” she dismissed, placing her hand on his back as a support as he hobbled on his boot toward the couch, then eased down into the cushions.

She gestured toward the kitchen. “Did you eat yet? I could heat up some of that chicken tikka from last night.”

“Uh … no. Unless you’re hungry.” He bounced his good leg and wrung his hands together, appearing nervous all of a sudden. “What happened? Was it budget cuts or what?”

She set her purse down on the bar. “They um, they implemented this policy on Monday. Zero tolerance for tardiness, and I happened to be late this morning for the first time in my life. Ever. I’ve never been late for anything and the sleet this morning.” She shook her head. “It was just an unfortunate series of events.”

“They couldn’t give you a warning or anything like that?”

She glanced at his hands, which were gripped together so hard his knuckles were white.

“They think management ought to know better.” She shrugged. “I don’t care. I’m over it.”

Bounce, bounce, bounce went his leg.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah!” he blurted out. “Why?”

She lifted her eyebrows. “You seem kind of tied up in knots.”

“Well.” He slapped his palms onto his thighs. “I’m glad you’re here, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

Her eyes grew wide.

He’s going to havethetalk with me.

She did her best to appear unfazed.

“Anything wrong?”

Please say no.

“No, no.” He waved his arms. “It’s not bad. Well, actually it might be bad. But it could be really great, although that kind of, uh, depends on you.”

He’s totally going to havethetalk with me.

But what ifthetalk was thebadversion ofthetalk. He said it could be bad.