Chapter 3

The next day at work, Lindsay was working the cash register, but since there were no customers, mostly she was just thinking.

Since last night, she had spent way too much time brooding about her phone call with Daniel. There was something just a little bit weird in the way the phone call went. She was probably just being paranoid, but it felt almost as though Daniel would have asked her out or something had she answered his question a bit differently.

She found herself second-guessing the entire flow of the conversation, wondered if there was something she could have done another way. Did she say something wrong? Should she not have spoken to him at all, knowing that he and Kim had broken up? Was she being disloyal to Kim in any way? She couldn't quite wrap her brain around it.

She needed to get a grip. She also needed desperately to catch up on calculus. She had an exam on Monday, and had to work late tomorrow and Friday, which were usually busier, as well as all day on Saturday. She still had plenty of time to study as she had no social calendar whatsoever, but that was assuming she could actually concentrate and get some stuff done.

Since A1 was as slow as ever, Lindsay shouted towards the back, asking her dad if she could open up her calculus book. Her dad didn't usually let her do schoolwork while at the store, but he knew how slow it was today, and there were certainly worse things Lindsay could do with her down time. There's no way her dad would forgive himself if Lindsay failed calculus on account of him working her too hard. If her dad said it was all right, Lindsay planned to finish up the problem set that she hadn't quite completed last night, since she was entirely too distracted. Thankfully her teacher had offered her a day's extension.

"What, honey?" Her dad asked, beginning to walk towards her from the stockroom, where he had been taking inventory. "I didn't hear you."

"I was just-" Lindsay began, before being cut off by the little bell that rang upon a customer's arrival at the store. Lindsay called back to her dad, "hold on a sec," spun around, and found herself face-to-face (well, more like face-to-chest) with Nick Andopolis at the cash register.

She almost dropped her calculus book.

Kim was right. Nick looked good. Tall as ever, hair cut, tanned on his face and arms, which Lindsay could see even through his T-shirt looked a lot more defined than she remembered. But the best part, she thought, was his eyes- he was close enough that she could look into them for a split second- and when she did she saw a clarity that she didn't usually associate with Nick.

Lindsay would be willing to bet her whole summer's wages that he hadn't gone back to smoking pot. At least, not yet.

Lindsay involuntarily took in a little breath, and as she did she got a whiff of Nick's man-sweat that was dampening large sections of his shirt. He literally must have come straight from working out. Lindsay fought not to keep inhaling the musky scent of his body (which smelled inexplicably good) like a crazy person. She also fought not to stare, but didn't succeed. She couldn't take her eyes off of his face, and for good reason- his eyes sparkled and he broke out into a huge smile after he saw her.

"Hey, Lindsay," he said cheerfully, "Great to see you." His inflection, aside from the earnest look in his eyes, told her that he was sincere.

"Thanks, Nick, you too," Lindsay replied. "What- what are you doing here?" She knew it was too much to hope that he paid a visit to her dad's store specifically to see her.

Just then, her dad, several steps behind Lindsay in the stockroom, pushed through the door onto the sales floor. Lindsay braced herself for getting chewed out, which was completely unfair- it's not like she had invited Nick into the store. But surprisingly (or maybe not surprisingly, considering how much they had bonded while Nick was staying at her place), as soon as her dad saw Nick, he broke out into a smile as well.

"Nick," her dad said, reaching out to shake his hand, "how's it going, son? We've missed you around here. You've got a pretty big edge compared to my daughter when it comes to stocking merchandise on the top shelves," he chuckled at his own joke.

Nick's stint at A1 had been brief- right after he started seeing Sara, Nick had put in his two weeks' notice at the store. Lindsay wondered if he had ever taken another drum lesson after that. Drums didn't seem to go well with the disco-loving dance partner that Sara seemed to want him to be.

"Hi, Mr. Weir," Nick said cheerfully, taking Lindsay's dad's hand as if to shake it but pulling him close and engulfing him in a hug instead. "Great to see you, too." Nick didn't seem to mind in the least that he was sweating all over Lindsay's dad. And for just a split second, Lindsay wondered how she would feel pressed up against Nick like that. Things had changed.

After Lindsay's dad had politely pulled away, wiping at his suit as he did so, his gaze drifted over to the counter, where Nick had placed an obviously deflated basketball on its surface. "Making a return?"

Nick nodded sheepishly. "Yeah, I'm not sure how it got so deflated. I've been using it a lot, though," he hedged.

Lindsay, who in her excitement over seeing Nick had completely overlooked the countertop, was just noticing the basketball. She fought disappointment that he obviously had a reason to be here that had nothing to do with her. She didn't even do returns- her dad took care of them. A little crestfallen, she stepped aside while her father stepped towards the register and inspected the flat ball.

"Do you have your receipt for this, Nick?" her dad asked him.

Nick shook his head. "No, I got it here a couple of years ago, and I have no idea where the receipt is," he admitted, sounding embarrassed. "Is- is it still possible to return it? I would understand if it wasn't."

"Well, technically, you're supposed to have a receipt for a return," Lindsay's dad said. But he quickly winked at Nick. "But I know you said you bought it here, and I trust you." Mr. Weir smiled. "How about this: I can't give you cash back, but you can exchange it for a new one." He sauntered over to the basketball display (that Lindsay had just stocked two days before) and pulled a new ball from the wire cage. He tossed it to Nick. "Deal?"

"Oh, definitely, that was all I wanted anyway, I was just hoping to get back to the court," Nick said, giving the ball a casual inspection and a few spins and bounces before nodding approvingly. "Thanks, Mr. Weir. You're the greatest." He smiled again but made no move to leave.

Lindsay's dad looked at her, then Nick, then back to her. Lindsay could see him wrestling with the decision as to whether or not he should leave them alone. After a couple of seconds, he finally relented with an audible sigh.

"I'll be back up here in a few minutes," he said sternly to Lindsay. "And if another customer comes in, they are not to be left waiting." This was as much of a blessing as Lindsay could hope for at this point. Her dad gave her a little half-smile, told Nick it was good to see him, and turned and headed back towards the stockroom.

"That was really nice of your dad," Nick began, spinning his newly acquired basketball on his fingertip. Unlike Kim, he could balance it on his finger for what seemed like forever. It provided a good distraction, kept Lindsay from staring at him.

"Yeah, it was," Lindsay replied. She didn't know what else to say. But there was so much she wanted to.

"You look great," Nick cut in, looking at her. He had stopped spinning the ball for a moment.

There was also so much that she wanted to hear. That was right at the top of the list.

"Thanks, so do you," Lindsay said sincerely. "So, um, you said you've been playing a lot?" She nodded at the basketball in his hands.

"Yeah," Nick replied. "I'm not sure if you heard, but Sara and I broke up," he began, shrugging.

Lindsay nodded. This was starting to feel like déjà vu from last night. "Yeah, I'd heard something like that," she muttered. She tried to muster up enough fake sympathy to tell him she was sorry, but she couldn't. She wasn't sorry. She was happy that he wasn't with Sara anymore.

"Playing ball's been a good way to work out some frustration. Plus, it gives me a good reason to not smoke."

So she was right. "Nick, that's great, it really is," she said encouragingly.

Nick shrugged, "Yeah. I guess. I feel better than I did, anyway." He looked at her. "So how've you been?"

"All right, I suppose." She quickly looked around to make sure her dad wasn't in earshot. "I had an awesome time following the Dead for a couple of weeks," she clarified, "But now I'm grounded, and it sucks."

"Yeah, Kim told me. Grounded, huh? That blows," Nick said.

"Yeah," Lindsay agreed. "No phone calls. No going out. No TV. And all I do is work and study. I'm taking a college course."

"For how long?" Nick asked.

Lindsay lowered her head. "Until the end of the summer."

When she looked back up, she was amazed to see that Nick looked genuinely disappointed. "So," he began with a crooked smile, "I was going to see if you wanted to hang out sometime. But I guess since you're already grounded it will save me the rejection." He laughed like he had just cracked a hilarious joke, but Lindsay knew better, because she knew him. He was doing what Nick did a lot, saying something self-deprecating and feeling miserable about it but attempting to laugh it off.

He still really wants to hang out with me, after everything I did to him, Lindsay thought in amazement.

Before she could tell him that she could see how much he had been trying to improve himself the last several months and was completely impressed with it, that she wouldn't say no to a date with him if she could possibly help it, that she would never hurt him like that again, and that he looked and smelled sexy as hell, he had called out his goodbye and walked out of the store.