Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 60219 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 301(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60219 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 301(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
“I’m okay,” I said. “Lots of experience. How about you? I heard you were coaching at the school for a bit.”
“Yeah,” he said, wiping the corner of his mouth. “Maybe a little longer than a bit.”
“Oh?” I asked, trying to hide the surprise. I knew about his injury, but I didn’t want to seem like I knew. It was probably silly. Everyone in town was talking about it, but I didn’t want him thinking that I still followed his career.
Even though I totally did.
“I’m sure you’ve heard about my injury, end of my career and all that,” he said.
“I did,” I said, “I’m very sorry to hear that. It must be terrible for you.”
“It was,” he said, sighing. He was trying to smile through it, but I could see the pain. I knew what smiling through pain was all about. I could always recognize it in someone else. It was in the eyes. Still, he nodded. It looked like he wanted to move forward. “So how about you? I didn’t know you were back in town. The last time we spoke, you were still in New York.”
I stammered a little, trying to hide my lack of a response by chewing dramatically on the pasta salad and holding my hand and fork up over my mouth.
Come on, Mallory, you’re an actress, I thought. Act.
“I just wasn’t getting the kind of work I wanted,” I said. “Acting in New York or LA, it’s all image based. I’m not tall or blonde enough for them, so, you know.”
“Really?” he asked.
“Oh yeah,” I lied. “It just wasn’t as fun after a while. Certainly not as easy either. I got tired of struggling to pay the bills in Brooklyn and not have a quality of life. I was working four different jobs by the end on top of auditioning and rehearsing and performing. It was too much.”
At least that part was true. I had been working four jobs and rehearsing and performing. The problem was that I loved every single second of doing it. I didn’t come home because it was hard. I came home because of Owen.
“I see,” he said, seeming somewhat disappointed.
“It wasn’t just that,” I said suddenly. “My mom got sick. She needed some extra help around the house, you know? Someone to take care of her a bit. We could either hire someone or I could come home. It was timing really.”
“Ah,” he said, and I wondered how much of that he believed. I wondered how much of it I believed.
“I came into town to help her out for a few weeks and noticed the high school was looking for a theater teacher. Miss Patterson had retired, and Mrs. Gobble wanted to stay in English, so I pulled the trigger. And here I am.”
“And here you are,” he repeated.
“Yup,” I said. “They let me take the position while I simultaneously earned my teaching certificate, so that made it easy.”
All that was also true. It was just that none of that factored into my decision to actually move back to Murdock. They were happy accidents I found and experienced once I was already back.
A bell rang in the distance, and Graham looked at his watch.
“Damn,” he said. “That’s the end of my lunch period. I took too long walking over to the diner.”
“Oh, sure,” I said. “Well, I hope your first day is going well.”
“It is,” he said. “It’s a lot better now, though.” A familiar warmth ran up my spine and filled my cheeks. I looked away to my pasta salad to avoid letting him see me blush. “Hopefully we’ll get a chance to see a lot more of each other.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I said.
He smiled, and as he walked away, I felt my stomach drop.
I was so conflicted. Of course, I wanted to see him. My feelings for him had never gone anywhere. They hadn’t changed since the kiss I’d given him as he rode to Boston on the team bus. They hadn’t changed as we missed calls from each other, spent longer periods between texting, eventually stopped speaking at all. They hadn’t changed since I made the decision that I would never tell him I’d had his baby. I wouldn’t tell anyone except Mom. No one else had to know. No one else would believe it anyway.
Now what the hell was I going to do?
How was I supposed to go through my life, moving on and being the best mother, the best version of myself that I could be if he was going to be in town and seeing him every day? How would I keep my secret? How would I raise my son so close to his father and never tell him? What was I supposed to do with him back in my life when I never thought he ever would be again?