Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80892 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80892 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
I sat, stunned, for what felt like forever but was probably only a minute or two.
It had sucked to see Joanne hurting… but on top of that, her words had stung—had hurt, really—but I had been too shocked at the content of her outburst to even think about defending myself.
And even if I’d had the presence of mind to come up with a good defense, my brain still couldn’t reconcile how Joanne could have loved working at the shop so much.
Loved working with Henry all those years.
It hadn’t made sense to me the first time Joanne had brought up her admiration for Henry, and it didn’t make sense to me now, either.
Still at a loss for words, I pushed my chair back from the table. “I should go, Tammy. I should… apologize, or… something.”
Tammy sighed. “She’ll be okay. She’s tougher than she looks. I didn’t mean to provoke her,” she paused, her casual shrug indicating otherwise, “but sometimes that’s the only way she’ll open up. Anyway, I do hope you’ll come back over sometime. We’re really not as barbaric as it seemed tonight.”
I gave a rueful smile. Dinner had been great. What had come next… not so much. Still, Tammy and Joanne were nowhere near barbaric.
“If all of your meals taste this great, there’s no way I could refuse,” I said politely, even though it was hard to imagine Joanne wanting me back in her home after… this.
I stood up and looked through to the living room, to the door that she had stormed out of just minutes before.
“I really should be going. Thank you for everything, though.”
After a quick goodbye, I was back outside, back in my truck… I couldn’t quite bring myself to drive away, though.
Seeing Joanne upset—knowing that I had made her feel that way—had been excruciating for me.
I liked the woman. There was no denying I was attracted to Joanne.
And driving away before I had a chance to try and explain myself just felt… wrong. At the very least, I half-hoped that Joanne might come back and be willing to talk. Maybe give me a chance to tell her that selling the shop wasn’t anything personal. It was just business.
And anyway, Joanne’s job would still be secure, even after I sold the place. I’d make sure of it.
But she didn’t come back, and after a while, it became clear that I wasn’t going to get a chance to tell her any of those things. At least, not tonight. So, for the second night in a row, I drove back to my hotel room wondering what in the hell I was doing.
If the night had started out feeling like a date, it had definitely ended with the feeling that I had blown it.
I longed for the simple, regimented life I’d led for years on the field. The life that—during the game, anyway—had never held many surprises. Everything in the NFL had a place and a time, a rule and a regulation. There were names and labels and ranks and chains of command.
Joanne’s passionate, emotional blowup reminded me that the rest of the world didn’t necessarily work that way.
As I pulled up in front of the squat, two-story hotel I’d been staying at, I was tempted for a moment to turn my truck around and head right back to Atlanta. To just forget about Dad’s things and the shop and Joanne and fucking Castle Falls. Except… I wasn’t wanted there, either. I even had the medical papers to prove it.
Looked like I wasn’t wanted anywhere.
Sure, Joanne’s mother may have made me feel welcome, but I was totally out of place in Castle Falls, just like I’d predicted I would be. And as much as I hated that I’d hurt Joanne’s feelings, the things she had said at dinner only reinforced my belief that I was doing the right thing. The only thing.
I needed to push the sale through as quickly as possible so I could be done.
Done with the flower shop. Done with the rest of Dad’s things. Done with feelings I wasn’t equipped to deal with.
Just… done.
Maybe then I’d be able to find some peace. Or even, if I was lucky, a place where I could get a bit of that happiness that I’d felt for a minute that morning.
Back when Joanne had still wanted to smile at me.
Chapter Thirteen - Joanne
I didn’t know where I was going. I was just driving. I planned on driving until I either cleared my head or run out of gas, whichever came first… and since I only had a quarter of a tank and about five dollars in my pocket, I was hoping to clear my head pretty quickly.
I hadn’t meant to get so worked up. I’d spent the entire afternoon mentally preparing for the evening ahead, knowing that I’d be sitting across from Brady and with a pretty good idea that my mom wouldn’t hesitate to ask all the questions I had been avoiding.