Her gaze saddens. “For starters, he got hurt when he went off to college. It ruined his football career.”
“Am I supposed to feel sorry for him?”
She shakes her head. “That’s just the beginning. I won’t go into detail, but I want you to know he hasn’t had an easy life.”
Neither have I, but you don’t see me asking for pity. I have sympathy for those who deserve it. Kyler Groff is not one of them.4KylerI’m turning into a stalker, and I can’t even justify my actions. I also have no excuse for what I’m doing. Ever since I saw Maeve at the Turkey Trot and ended up in her tent, she’s on my mind. In every which way possible, even though I’ve never seen her naked. When I went home to nurse my injury, I pulled my high school yearbooks out and looked her up. At first, I had to do a double-take because there was no way in hell the woman I saw at the festival and the one in my yearbook was the same. Paramedic Maeve is beautiful and flawless with expressive features. The girl in the black and white picture is—well, for lack of a better word—plain.
After hours of looking through the pages and doing a deep dive on social media, I gave up. Maeve was going to remain an enigma until I could find a way to spend more time with her. One thought I had, I would find a reason to call her from the bank with some made-up issue with her account, but she doesn’t use my bank.
Who the hell doesn’t use my bank?
Maeve, that’s who, but her mother does, and she’s one of my best customers. Each time she comes in, she’s bright-eyed and has the best smile. Although I’m a bit salty, she never told me she had a daughter. Not that I asked, but you’d think that would be something Mrs. Jenkins shared with her favorite bank manager.
As soon as I saw Maeve at the festival with her son, I put my plan into motion. I exaggerated the limp as best I could in hopes of catching her attention. There’s no doubt my knee hurts, but hell, it always hurts. Once you have your knee sliced open and your ligaments reattached, there is no way to escape any type of pain. There are times when I’m strolling around the bank, thinking I’m cool as shit, and then bam, my knee gives out. Of course, I look around to see who notices, but none of my employees ever let me know they saw me stumble.
It was stupid of me to enter the race. I knew better, but I am tired of sitting on the sideline and letting an old college injury rule my life. Yes, I had started working out again and feel great, but running on a treadmill is different from running on the road. I knew this and ignored the warnings. And boy, am I glad I did because my injury gave me the easiest excuse to not only talk to Maeve but to continue to do so.
“Ky, over here.” I look toward the sound of my name and internally grimace. Waving me over is my best friend from high school, Jared Duffy. It’s not that I don’t like him. It’s that he’s married and has a set of twins, and I’m jealous. There used to be a time in my life when I was on the same path as Jared. My ex, Tessa, ruined that for me.
“Hey, Jared.” I give him a bro hug and then kiss his wife, Imani, on her cheek. Their twins sit in front, in their little folding chairs, not paying attention to their parents. “So, how are things?” I ask. Jared went off to college down south and stayed after graduation. It’s where he met his wife, who prefers the warm winters over the cold, bitter ones we have in Plymouth.
“Good, good,” he says. “Mom isn’t doing too well, so we’re here until after the New Year. We want to give her one last Christmas with everyone home.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I’ll stop by and say hi soon.”
“She’d like that. What’s new?”
I shake my head slowly. “Honestly, not much. I work, go to the gym, hang out at Dan’s Pub a few nights a week. Small town living at its best.” It hits me hard how mundane my life is and that running in the race yesterday was a highlight of—well, I don’t remember the last time I did something out of the ordinary. I need to pull myself from this funk or whatever it is and start living my life.
“Are you happy?” Imani asks. I used to be happy. I thought my life was going in the direction I had always imagined until Tessa ripped my heart out, stopped on it until it stopped beating, and then handed it back to me with nothing more than a “sorry.”