Trusting Your Heart: Clean Contemporary Romantic Comedy, Interracial Teacher BWWM Romance (Flower Shop Romance Book 4)

by Marisa Logan

  “Your problems aren't my fault,” he said, gripping the top of the car door in a white-knuckled fist. “I always tried to help you. I did. Who used to babysit Ariella for free? Who loaned you the money every time your car broke down? Heck, Donna, who used to clean up all of your beer bottles from the kitchen? Not that you ever thanked me.”

  He shook his head, a sad smile on his lips. “I know you had it rough,” he said, “but you made your own choices. And you've got to fix your own problems.”

  “You're a selfish pig, Jimmy.” I clenched my fists at my sides.

  “Yeah, I know you think that. You always have. But maybe you should stop and think about who helped who all those times over the years. When did you ever do something to help me? When did you even show me gratitude for everything I did? Yeah, sure, call me a selfish pig if it makes you feel better. But I'm not the one who screwed your life up. And I'm finally getting mine figured out, and you can't even be happy for me. You didn't call when I got married, when you found out Casey was pregnant. Nothing. You haven't said two words to me in years, and the last thing you said to me was 'You're going to get the rest of your stuff out of here and give me your key.'”

  He took off his sunglasses and tossed them into the car. I met his eyes from across the parking lot.

  “You can't come begging to me when you need something,” he said. “Maybe if you'd really been a sister to me for all these years, I'd think about helping you. But we're not family. We haven't been for a long time.”

  He got into the car. I watched him sit there for a few minutes, gripping the steering wheel. He was shaking, and I thought I saw tears welling in his eyes. His wife was trying to comfort him, but whatever she was saying didn't seem to be helping.

  Finally, red-faced and sobbing, he pulled the car out and drove off. I watched him go, not sure whether to be mad at him or at myself. Most of what he'd said was right. I hadn't supported him for years. I hadn't ever bothered to reach out and make amends. Until today, when I asked him for money.

  Maybe he was an ass for refusing to help me. But I was pretty sure I was a bigger ass for treating him so bad that he didn't feel like he could.

  Chapter 4

  I tried talking to Charlotte and Benjamin, but it was a waste of time. We hadn't seen each other since I was twelve, and there was no connection there. They made it quite clear that if I breached the trust, they would gladly keep my share of the inheritance.

  Later on, at Dad's house, I thought about talking to Amanda. She and I had a whole different set of problems, though it seemed the inheritance issue was one we were sharing. We both stood to lose nearly two hundred grand, me because I'd dropped out to raise my daughter, her because she'd decided to become a hair dresser instead of going to college.

  “I'm sure there's some way to contest the will,” Dad told me. We were sitting in his kitchen, eating meatball sandwiches. Ariella was downstairs, playing XBox. Amanda was outside, smoking a cigarette and talking to our stepmom.

  “I don't know,” I said. “It seems pretty clear-cut to me.”

  “I know inheritances can be a mess,” he said. “You remember what happened between me and your Aunt Candice.”

  “Yeah, I remember.” I wasn't clear on all of the exact details, but when Grandpa had died, Dad had been screwed out of his fair share of the inheritance. His sister had, allegedly, destroyed the most recent version of Grandpa's will, so that the one read after the funeral was an older version that favored her in the inheritance. Dad had gotten Grandpa's Cadillac, but no money.

  “Do you have a lawyer?” he asked.

  I snorted. “Right. Dad, I can barely afford to pay my rent.”

  “Well, I can put you in touch with mine. Maybe he'll take the case on pro bono.”

  “Sure, Dad. Thanks.” I picked pieces off my roll, feeling defeated. I was pretty sure no lawyer was going to be able to help me.

  “Have you thought about just going back to college?” he asked. “I mean, you'd get five years to finish. And you already have one semester under your belt. Unless those credits expired.”

  I sighed and pushed my plate away. “I don't know. I don't see how I can juggle school along with taking care of Ariella and working full time.”

  “Well, she's older now,” he said. “And she's pretty independent. It's not like when she was a baby and you had to keep an eye on her full time.”

  “True.” One of the hidden blessings to raising Ariella alone was that she'd learned at a young age to pull her own weight. I never had to worry about cleaning up after her, and she helped unload the dishwasher when it was full. She'd even started doing her own laundry, just because she'd grown tired of me never having time to keep up with it.

  “I don't know,” I said. “Maybe I could go part time. But then I wouldn't finish in time.”

  “You would if you took summer classes,” Dad suggested. “Instead of taking five classes per semester, take three. Then make up the extra courses over the summer. It could be good for you. You don't want to be a waitress the rest of your life.”

  “Yeah, I know.” I leaned my chin into my hand, thinking it over. There'd been a time when I was younger that I wanted to be a lawyer. I was pretty sure I was over that now, but I still knew I didn't want to wait tables my whole life. In truth, I'd be content with just about any decent office job. It didn't matter so much what kind of career it was. As long as it paid the bills and helped me support my kid.

  And even after taking out the costs of college, I'd have more than a hundred grand left from the inheritance. About twenty of that would go to my credit card debt, but the rest would be a nice nest egg. Maybe enough for a down payment on a house, then I could set the rest aside for Ariella's college fund.

  “Your stepmother and I could help out with Ari,” Dad said. “I work from home now, so I could keep an eye on her while you're in classes. Maybe kick her ass at some Gears.”

  “Thanks. I'll think about it.”

  ***

  I gave it some serious consideration over the next few days. When I had some time in between my work shifts and running errands, I looked up some schools in the South Jersey area. Rutgers had a pretty good reputation, though I doubted I'd be able to get in. I looked up my local community college and browsed through their programs. None of it seemed too hard, except for the fact that I hadn't been in school for nine years, and I wasn't sure how I'd do. I'd done well enough in high school, A's and B's, and maybe the occasional C when I just wasn't trying hard enough. Community college wouldn't be too hard. It would more be a matter of finding time for it without the rest of my life falling apart in the process.

  I headed into Ari's room and sat next to her on the bed. “Ari, I want to talk to you.”

  “Ugh,” she said, pausing her XBox game. “Here we go.”

  “Oh, come on. Give your mom a break. This isn't a bad talk.”

  She rolled her eyes at me. “If this is about porn, eww, I don't look at that stuff anyway.”

  “How do you even know what porn is?” I frowned at her.

  “Mom, come on. It's the internet.”

  I sighed and leaned back, banging my head against the wall. Oh, the joys of raising a millennial child.

  “Okay, no porn. Remind me to have you teach me how to install parental controls on your computer.”

  She rolled her eyes at me. “Sure, okay Mom.”

  I knew it would be a waste of time. The kid knew more about using computers than I did. But then, she'd grown up with them. I always came to her when I found a virus or something on my PC.

  “Okay, but seriously. I want to talk to you about me going to college.”

  She shrugged and unpaused her game. “Go for it.”

  I put a hand over her controller. She yanked it away. “God, Mom, you made me die!”

  “Can we talk for a minute, please?” She paused the game again, giving me an impatient look. “I'm thinking about going back to school. I need to know how you feel about that.”

&
nbsp; “It's cool with me.” She shrugged and pushed her glasses up her nose. “We get money when you graduate, right?”

  “If I can graduate, yes.”

  “Cool. So do it.”

  “You know it's going to mean more work for you.”

  She gave me a wry look. “Why? I've got my own homework.”

  “I meant around the house. I'll need your help keeping up with things around here.”

  “I already do that,” she said. “I do my laundry, and the dishes, and yesterday I cleaned the bathroom.”

  “You did?” I hadn't noticed, and I suddenly felt bad for that. “Well, I'll have to give you a raise in your allowance. Or, well, give you an allowance.”

  She grinned real big.

  “After we get the money.”

  “Oh, fu—” I shot her a sharp look and she laughed. “Fudge. That'll be forever!”

  “Well, it's the best I can do. So, are you seriously okay with this?”

  “Yeah. Can I play my game now?”

  I got up and rubbed her head, making her squeal. “Yeah, kid. Sure. Enjoy being young while you have the chance.”

  “I hate it when people say that.” She unpaused her game, a look of deep concentration on her face as she started killing whatever alien monsters she was fighting. “Old people can play games too. Grandpa does.”

  “Hey, I play games!”

  She looked at me like I'd said something stupid. “Mom, you play Wii. Wii games are for babies.”

  “I like the Wii.” I frowned, realizing I sounded like a dork. It wasn't my fault I liked Mario Kart better than all of those violent shooting games Ariella and her grandfather played.

  I headed back to my room and looked over the community college website one more time. “Well,” I said to myself, “I guess we're doing this then, aren't we?”

  I started filling out the online application, feeling a sense of dread.

  Chapter 5

  Getting myself enrolled in classes turned out to be easy enough. The community college accepted all applicants, so my past grades weren't a factor. And I didn't need to worry about financial aid or anything like that, since the trust took care of my expenses.

  When I went in to pick up my books the week before classes started, I found out a way to milk the trust for some extra stuff, even though I was only supposed to be able to use the money for school supplies.

  It turned out that the college bookstore was a full-fledged Barnes & Noble, so in addition to selling textbooks, they sold novels, coffee, and computer supplies. They also had a variety of clothing with the school's name and mascot on it. I decided as soon as I walked in that all of that counted as “school supplies,” so I started stocking up on everything I could.

  By the time I made my way to the register, I had my books for all three classes, a few novels, an excessive amount of pens, printer paper, notebooks, and office supplies, plus a bunch of sodas, bottled water, snacks, and other miscellaneous goodies. And I raided the clothing section for everything I could find, both in my size and in Ari's.

  The poor fellow behind the counter looked at my massive selection and said, “Wow. You know if you want, I can just ring up the shelves and counters and you can take the whole store with you.”

  I laughed and handed him my credit card, which I had to use to pay until I got the reimbursement from the trust. “Let's just say I want to make sure I don't forget anything.”

  “Hey, whatever works, right?” he said, flashing me a cute smile. He started ringing everything up and organizing it all into bags. When he finished he asked, “Do you need help getting this to your car? I can't imagine carrying all of this.”

  I looked around at all of the bags. It had taken be quite a few trips through the store to gather it all together, and I wasn't looking forward to hauling it all out to my car. “Yeah, actually, that would be great.”

  “Wait here a second,” he said. He went into the back, then returned with a supply cart. He helped me load everything onto it, then pushed it out the door for me while another employee took over at the register.

  “Thank you,” I said. “You saved my back a lot of hard work.”

  “Happy to help,” he said. “So, you just starting out here?”

  “Yup,” I said. “Well, I did a semester at Rowan University years ago, but my credits expired. So I'm starting fresh.”

  “Good for you,” he said. “What's your major?”

  I winced, always hesitant to answer that question, even though it was the most common question everyone asked you when you were in college. “I don't know yet, really. General education for now, and I'll figure out what I want to do once I've tried a few classes.”

  “That works.” He shrugged. “Like half of people change majors partway through college anyway. As if people can be expected to decide at eighteen what they want to do with the rest of their lives.”

  I laughed. “How did that old song go? Something about the most interesting people in their forties still don't know.”

  “I don't remember that one,” he said.

  I winced again, feeling like I'd just betrayed my age. That song had been popular sometime in the late 90s, when I was in middle school. This guy had probably still been in diapers.

  “I'm Conner, by the way,” he said when we reached my car. He offered his hand and I shook it.

  “Donna. Thanks again for your help. I really appreciate it.”

  “No problem. I'm glad to help.”

  He helped me load the bags into my trunk and my backseat. Then we stood there awkwardly while I wondered if I was supposed to tip him or something. I made my living off tips, so I tried to be generous with others.

  “Well, maybe I'll see you around campus,” he said. “And I don't know if you're into any extracurriculars, but if you like poetry, the Lyrical Alliance does readings in the rec center every Thursday.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I might just check that out.” I liked poetry. I was no good at it, but I could enjoy it.

  When I got home I had Ari help me unload everything. She was excited that I'd brought her a twelve-pack of grape soda, though she got a grumpy look on her face when I showed her the new clothes.

  “Eww, Mom. Blue and yellow?” She held up one of the shirts, frowning at it.

  “Those are the school colors. I think everything is blue and yellow.” I dug through the bags. Some were white or gray, but with a blue and yellow logo. There wasn't anything in green, and I knew that was Ari's favorite color.

  “And what's this supposed to be?” She held up a pair of sweatpants and showed me the picture on the right leg.

  “A bird, I guess. Oh! I think it's a road runner. That's the school mascot.”

  “Lame.” She tossed the sweatpants aside and headed for her room.

  “Well, deal with it,” I said, tossing an armful of clothes at her. They burst against her back and rained down to the floor. She laughed and squealed, waving her arms to ward off any further attacks.

  “Everything's going to be college-themed for awhile,” I said. “This stuff was basically free. So you'd better start loving blue and yellow real quick.”

  She rolled her eyes at me, but she gathered up her new clothes and took them to her room. I made a phone call to the lawyer about submitting the receipt for the trust. I was able to scan the receipt and email him a copy, and after I gave him my bank account information, he set up a direct deposit to reimburse me for the purchases. And luckily, he didn't say anything about the extra purchases.

  “So,” I said into the phone, “can I buy whatever I need to from the campus, and that's okay?” I hated having to jump through hoops to get access to my own inheritance. But I'd do what I had to do. It would be a few years before I could expect to graduate and access the whole trust.

  “Anything within reason,” he said. “Legally, I have final say, as keeper of the trust. But I don't see any reason to be a hardass about it. Just don't send me a receipt with something really frivolous on it, like a wi
descreen TV, and I think it'll be fine.”

  “What about food?” I asked. “Like, from the school cafeteria.”

  “Of course that will be fine,” he said. “Your grandmother's will specified that the funds could be used for room and board. Even if you're not living on campus, any food purchased would certainly still qualify.”

  “Excellent,” I said. “Thank you.”

  I hung up the phone and grinned. The campus had a few different eateries, with everything from salads to pizza to cheesesteaks. Plus there was a little convenience store that sold packaged goods. I wouldn't be able to substitute that for going to the grocery store, but I was determined to eat on campus whenever I could, and bring home as much as I could from the campus stores.

  “Hey Ari, get dressed,” I said, calling into my daughter's room. “We're going out for pizza.”

  “Really?” She stuck her head out the door. “Awesome.”

  She didn't complain when she found out the pizza place was on the college grounds. To a nine year old, pizza was pizza.

  Chapter 6

  By the time my first day of classes came, I was actually pretty excited about this whole thing. I'd managed to get all of my classes scheduled on Monday and Wednesday, and I'd made arrangements with my boss to have off from work those days.

  I got dressed early the Wednesday of my first class, feeling a bit weird that I was starting my week in the middle. But thanks to the Labor Day three day weekend, there had been no classes on Monday.

  I shoved my books, notebooks, and other supplies in my brand new backpack, which, like everything else, had the school's logo featured prominently on the back. When Ari pulled on her backpack, I grinned at her and said, “Hey, it's like we're twins.”

  She rolled her eyes at me. “Mom, come on.”

  “You're supposed to be supporting me. I'm nervous about my first day.”