CHAPTER6
Gillian could tellby the look on Nick’s face that he didn’t want to talk. She shouldn’t have asked him to share what was happening in his life. The last thing she needed to do was get caught up in his problems. She had enough of her own. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to tell me. I shouldn’t have asked.”
He smiled. “You were pretty good in there.”
“I was, wasn’t I?”
“How do you know so much about remodeling?”
“As I said, I moved a lot.” Silence filled the truck, and she could tell he wanted to know more. Looks like neither of them was ready to share.
“So, did you mean what you said back there? Are you planning to stay?”
She nodded. “I am. At least for a little while. Tell me about your business?” That should be neutral ground.
After a moment he started talking. “As you know, I didn’t get into college.”
“I remember.” She often wondered if things would have worked out differently if he’d gone with her.
“I went to a community college, enrolled in a few trade courses, started working for a contractor, and discovered I was good at it.”
“I’m not surprised. You always loved building things.”
“I still do. I made a lot of money for a young kid, so I quit school. Worse, I fell in with the wrong crowd, partied a lot. Didn’t think about my future. Didn’t think I needed to.”
She could relate. Sometimes life just had a way of happening. “Until you did?”
“I started coming to work hungover, missing days, making too many mistakes, and lost my job.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. It was the wake-up lesson I needed.”
“So then what happened?”
“I moved in with a friend in Asheville and went back to school.”
“Good for you.”
“It really was. She was a great person, a great friend. Got me thinking about more than the next party.”
“She?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t like that.” Sadness filled his face. “We didn’t feel that way about one another. We were best friends.”
“What happened?” she asked, she could tell whatever it was, it wasn’t good.
“One night we were celebrating my graduation. We had too much to drink and talked about giving what we had between us a shot.”
Her eyebrows raised.
“She was coming off a bad breakup, and I’d had a string of meaningless one-night stands. We both thought, why not try something different? We were best friends. I knew her better than she knew herself, and she knew me just as well. We were good for each other. We had one night together, and it was enough for us to realize what we had already known.”
“No chemistry?”
“None,” he smiled, “but we were still best friends, and we made a pact to keep it that way. And we did. No awkward moments, no looking back. But then Shelley found out she was pregnant.”
“Oh, no,” Gillian grimaced. “What happened?”