Page 14 of The Reason I Married Him
Together, we move around, getting drinks for everyone and making sure Mac is situated with food. When everything is set, the grown-ups take a seat and start digging in.
“Getting ready for the school year?” Hayes asks Ryland. Ryland is a math teacher at the local high school, where he’s also the varsity baseball coach. Last season, their team took second in the league, and he wasn’t happy about it. He blamed himself because he hadn’t found a balance yet between his responsibilities of being a math teacher, the head varsity baseball coach, and taking care of Mac. I think he’ll get the hang of it soon, though.
Right now, Mac still goes to “school”—more like day care for half the day—during the summer, but with the new school year approaching, she’ll be going to preschool, which I know will help Ryland out a lot more.
“I mean, not much to prepare,” he says.
“Are you telling me you don’t decorate your classroom?” Hayes asks.
Ryland raises a brow. “Does it look like I’m the type of guy who decorates a classroom? I slept on a couch for months. Pretty sure I’m not about to put up bulletin boards in my classroom.”
I felt bad when he was sleeping on the couch, but he refused to sleep in Cassidy’s room. That was until Hattie thoughtfully cleared it out and redecorated for him.
“Maybe you should,” Hattie says. “Might make math more fun.”
“I don’t need decorations in my classroom to make math fun. Math is fun on its own.”
“To whom?” Hattie asks with a comical look of disgust on her face.
“People,” Ryland replies, knowing none of us at this table find math fun besides him.
“Well, if you need anything for the classroom, let me know,” Hayes says. “I can grab you anything you need.”
“Oooo,” I say while I sprinkle cotija cheese on my corn. “Maybe we should go into his classroom and give it a makeover.”
“No,” Ryland says. “My students will think I’ve lost my mind. They like the jail-like feel of it.”
“Pretty sure they don’t,” Hattie says while Mac dances her fingers over the table, pretending they’re spiders.
“Look, the spiders are eating the plate,” Mac says, laughing to herself.
“No spiders at the table, Mac,” Ryland says. “We talked about this.”
She drops her hands to her lap as her shoulders droop. Poor girl . . . the spiders just wanted to eat her plate.
“Um, some weird news for you. Do you know who came into The Almond Store today?” Hattie says. I could sense some reluctance in Hattie’s voice.
“Who?” Ryland asks.
“Amanda.”
My head lifts from where I’m biting into my corn. “Amanda . . . as in . . .”
Hattie nods. “Amanda Berteaux.”
“What isshedoing here?” My skin crawls from the mention of her name.
Amanda was my closest friend growing up. We had some of the best times together until she moved away, and we lost touch. I figured that was what happened when you grew up. Until I started hearing that she was talking shit behind my back, using the same rhetoric as Matt—I was stuck in a small town and going nowhere. When Cassidy was dying, I never heard from her, and when I was left with a farm and a store to take care of, as wellas help my brother with a four-year-old, I didn’t receive one message, one note. It solidified the notion in my head that she wasn’t the friend I thought she was.
But that doesn’t stop the spiral in my head from happening. Because why is she here?
“She actually moved back to town,” Hattie says.
“What?” I drop my corn on my plate and pick up my napkin. “Why would she move back here? She hates small towns.”
Hattie winces. “The only reason I’m going to tell you this is because I don’t want you to be caught off guard, just in case you run into them.”
“Them?” I ask. “Who’s them?”
