Page 46 of Love Me Boldly

It was after his early morning text that I got as soon as it came because I’d barely slept all week, when I finally texted him back.

We’ll talk when you get back.

Thank God. Finally. Seriously, Holly, we weren’t engaged. U okay? Is your week okay?

How’s work?

I should have known that’d open the floodgates, and tears blurred my vision as I texted back.

It doesn’t matter if you were. We’ll talk when you get back.

As soon as he saw, as soon as he heard, I had no doubt he’d do everything he possibly could to forget my schedule and go far out of his way to ignore me on campus for the rest of the year.

Only six more weeks to graduation. I had to make it through, and then I wouldn’t have to worry about seeing him anyway.

I turned Do Not Disturb on my phone so I wouldn’t get alerts from him and climbed out of bed. I’d planned on spending all week at the diner, working as many hours as I could to stock up on tips, but Caroline took one look at me on Sunday morning before the brunch crowd rolled in and declared me off-limits to the customers.

Apparently, I looked horrific.

Her exact words? “You look like you got stomped on by a pack of buffalo.”

I’d never seen a buffalo, but her point was clear. I was raw, broken down, and definitely beaten up.

Sleep would help, if only I could manage to do it for longer than twenty minutes at a time.

Instead, I spent the rest of the week finalizing her taxes. Then more time reorganizing her office. It was such a disaster that I worked two eight-hour shifts and still had more work to do. Then I was planning on setting up a new inventory system for her. Shehadto stop using scrap pieces of paper and backs of receipts to take stock of her refrigerator items. I was finding them balled up in all corners of her desk drawers. It was no wonder why the restaurant consistently ran low on important items like onions and tomatoes.

Caroline loved people and serving and helping cook good food and making sure people had a good time, but when it came to numbers and planning? From the looks of it, the systems hadn’t been updated since my grandparents were alive. I was hoping to make something simple so her life would be easier once I left.

At least I could do something good for someone.

I showered, cleaned my room, and washed the dishes I’d been too tired to take care of the night before. By the time I got to The Grille, I’d missed most of the breakfast rush. Business was already slowing down. We’d get some traffic during the elementary through high school spring break next month, but that always fell at a hard time of year. It was usually too warm to ski and tube, but not warm enough to enjoy a long day of hiking. Which was a bummer. A restaurant packed full of tourists could have kept me too busy to think about the conversation that would soon come.

Instead, that was all I spent my time doing once I got tucked away in Caroline’s office.

Her office door opened, and she appeared like I’d conjured her up. “You doing okay?”

“Splendid.”

She stepped into the office and closed the door behind her. “I know you probably don’twantto talk about it, but I’m guessing it involves that boy?”

“Graham. And yes.”

Caroline didn’t immediately respond, and I glanced up at her. She had her lips pushed to one side, and while she was silent, she said a hundred things with her look. She did this often, torn between being the fun aunt and wanting to be a mother figure, and since I’d gone to college, that struggle had only increased.

I sat back in my chair and pushed away from her desk. “Say it.”

“He was really cute. And he seemed smart.”

“And he’s a hockey player,” I filled in for her. “Do you know the last name Marchese?”

Her brows wrinkled. “No, not off the top of my head. Why? Should I?”

“Apparently, he was close with Sophie.”

“Sophie…” She trailed off. It didn’t take her long. A blink of her eyes, and then her shoulders drooped. “Crap. That Sophie?”

“He has another friend who doesn’t like me so much, or rather, doesn’t like that he’s with me. She freaked out last week. Mentioned Sophie being killed by a drunk driver near here and that they were engaged.”

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