Page 208 of The Vacation Mix-Up
“What?”
“Don’t stay away from teaching for me.”
“I’m not.” She winks. “And anyway, working with teenagers is just as awful as working with you.”
“Working with me is awful?” I gently shove her toward the store. “In that case, get back to it, slackass.”
The bell above the front door chimes, so Roni scoots off, leaving me to now worry over whether she’s sticking around for my benefit rather than hers. When Adrian was killed in action, she couldn’t bring herself to step foot in the classroom. She said her head was no longer in it, and her students deserved better. At the time, it was the right decision, but she’s a gifted educator, and if teaching is really what she loves—and if she’s ready to return to it—she shouldn’t be wasting her talent here, with me.
Grumbling, I focus on the chair, making a mental note to revisit the conversation when Krystal’s voice roots my feet to the ground.
“Still playing with wood, I see.”
I look up toward the door, to heels as high as a small dog, a black suit intended to intimidate those who oppose her, and blonde hair twisted in a ball thing at the base of her neck.
“I’m not playing,” I snap. “I’m working.”
She dismissively laughs and carefully descends the steps. “I’m kidding, Riley. Can’t you take a joke?”
I collect a sheet of sandpaper and point it at her heels. “You know those aren’t appropriate in here. It’s dangerous.”
She swishes her hand at me. “I’ll be fine.”
“Just watch your step. There are cutoffs everywhere.”
“You’re acting as if this is the first time I’ve stepped foot into your workshop.”
“I just don’t want you breaking your damn ankle.”
“Naww, he still cares.” She cocks her head to the side and pouts.
Despite her flaws and mistakes, Krystal knows how to melt ice around a frosty conversation.
“Of course, I do,” I say, finally cracking a smile. “I’ll always care. You know that.”
“As will I.”
The old, bitter Riley would’ve said something hurtful like,“Bullshit! You care for no one but yourself,”but I’m not him anymore. I’m a new and improved, happy Riley, a Riles-has-made-me-a-better-man Riley, so I bite my once hostile tongue and point to the bench near the window, to exactly what she’s here for. “They’re over there. Signed, sorta sealed, and now delivered.”
Precariously treading around the workshop, she picks up the envelope containing our divorce papers and shakes them into her hand. “Any problems? Questions?”
“No.”
“Good.” She slips them back into the envelope. “I guess it’s settled then.”
“I guess it is.”
Krystal goes to speak but stops, instead swirling her finger through a layer of sawdust coating the bench.
“Was there anything else?” I ask, hand-sanding the chair.
“No. I just…” She sighs. “For what it’s worth, I never,ever,meant to hurt you. And I know did. Horribly so. I just…. I couldn’t be the person who lost our daughter anymore. I had to become someone else. I had?—”
I set down the sandpaper. “I know.”
“And I hope that, one day, you can truly forgive me.”
“I have.”
