Sandrine was taken aback by Jimmy’s behavior—and Jimmy immediately sensed this, so he eased up and pleaded, “Come on! Please stay! I haven’t even seen ya. Your girls’ll survive without ya for a minute or two.”

The last thing Sandrine wanted to do was stay with Jimmy. But he was winning her over with those hangdog eyes of his—the same ones that had won her over when she met him at the Spring Singles Service at St. Mary’s the April before last. So she forgave him his quick eruption of aggression—as inappropriate as it was—and stayed.

“So … what’s been—here—” Jimmy offered Sandrine her seat again. “So what’s been goin’ on, whatcha been up to?”

“Well…” Sandrine realized it was now or never. She needed to tell him everything so she could leave with a clear conscience and never have to deal with him again. “Um—”

But before she could say anything else, Jimmy interrupted her to make sure she knew that he was still a catch: “Did you know I took over my dad’s business?”

“Yeah, I heard that,” responded Sandrine. “That’s great,” she added, making no effort to sound enthusiastic. And then she tried to steer the conversation back to what she wanted to tell him, but couldn’t, because Jimmy was already elaborating.

“Thanks, yeah. I run it now.”

“I heard that.”

“I’m runnin’ it.”

“Heard that.”

“Runnin’ the business.” Jimmy really wanted Sandrine to be impressed with him and his new situation.

“Congratulations. Good for you,” said Sandrine, genuinely happy that Jimmy was doing so well.

“Thanks, yeah, we still do heating and cooling.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, and we’ve expanded, too. We sell and maintain and service pellet stoves now.”

“Wow,” said Sandrine, unsuccessfully feigning interest. She couldn’t have been less interested in hearing any details about Jimmy’s heating and cooling business. Because she just wanted to come clean with him and leave. But she had missed her chance. And now she’d have to listen to him yammer on about how well his business was doing before she’d be able to find another one.

“Yeah, so, like I said, business is super good. Been busy. Real busy.”

“Good.”

“I’m on call a lot. Weekends, holidays, you name it, ’cause, you know, your heat goes, people die, it’s serious.”

“Yeah.”

“I was thinkin’ about makin’ that the motto, actually, of the company: ‘If your heat goes, you could die.’ But that’s a little dark, I think, maybe.”

“Mm. Maybe.” The reasons why Sandrine couldn’t be with this guy were all coming back to her. Even though they’d never really left her. Jimmy had great intentions. But, too often, they were misguided.

“Anyway, I do a lot of house calls. Like—I just was at Mrs. Roy’s. She had a problem with her pellet stove shuttin’ off outta nowhere, so I went over and it just needed a cleaning, and I had to recalibrate it and adjust the auger, and she’s good to go now.”

“Well, that’s really good of you, Jimmy.”