Chapter 20
W here is this date again?”
“Tagliata,” I tell Patty through my speakerphone, turning my steering wheel to the right. “The Italian restaurant over by the water.”
Parking in Harbor East is a pain on a good day, even worse when it’s raining. I double-check the clock and curse when I realize I’m already five minutes late. And Aiden didn’t bother giving me Oliver’s number. All I got was a location pin, a time, and the name of the reservation. Nothing else. Not even a Good luck . Or the straight-faced emoji he seems so fond of.
I don’t know what crawled up Aiden’s ass and died this week, but he’s hardly said a word to me since he saw those text messages on the Heartstrings phone. I’ve tried to talk to him about it several times, but he’s either brushed me off, changed the subject, or ignored me completely.
So, like the mature adult I am, I’ve started ignoring him back.
When he sent me the information for the date, I didn’t even give him a thumbs-up.
So much for our mutual crush. He was right. It faded right away.
“Ooh,” Patty singsongs. “That place is fancy.”
“Get the rigatoni!” Maya bellows from somewhere in the background. When I left the two of them, they were bundled up on the couch together, only their eyes visible. Harrison Ford was paused on the television and Patty had enough chocolate in her purse to mobilize a small coalition. I’m not sure Maya will ever sleep again.
“I’ll get the rigatoni if I ever find a parking spot.” I do another lap around the block. If I have to walk from Little Italy, I’m going to look like a drowned rat by the time I get there. “Maya, is there an umbrella in this car that I don’t know about?”
“My diorama from science class is still in the trunk. The one we made for the national parks unit.”
“No way am I ruining Tiny Yosemite to keep my hair dry. Using gummy bears to make Half Dome is my crowning achievement as a parent.”
Maya snickers. “Dad still whines about it. He made me sign a contract that says I’ll never go to you for an art project again.”
“Use that hoodie you have in the back seat,” Patty interrupts, her voice carefully even.
I scowl out my windshield. “What hoodie?”
“The oversized hoodie I saw in there last week.” She pauses. “You know. The one that has Heartstrings on the front.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m hanging up the phone now.”
Patty cackles like a deranged woodland creature. “What? It’s a good suggestion. You’re just—”
“Bye, Maya. Have lots of fun tonight. I love you to pieces.” I hang up the phone before Patty can say anything else. So what if I still have Aiden’s sweatshirt in the back seat of my car from the night he wrapped it around my shoulders. So what if I have no intention of returning it. It’s comfortable and it smells good. He hasn’t asked for it back, and as far as I can tell, he has plenty of sweatshirts. He probably hasn’t even noticed it’s gone. It’s mine now.
By the time I find a parking spot, dart down the sidewalk, and skitter into the restaurant, I’m twelve minutes late and the front of my dress is dotted with rain. I look like I took a spin in a car wash without the car. I used a folded-up copy of the Baltimore Sun to shield myself the best I could, and that apparently . . . did not work.
“That’s the best work that paper has done in years,” a deep voice offers from my left. I look up and see a man leaning against the door by the entrance. Pressed navy suit. Starched white shirt beneath. Collar undone. He’s handsome . Like a coin that’s been shined to perfection or a pretty glass vase sitting up on a shelf.
A dimple flares to life in his left cheek when he offers me a hesitant smile, and I’m struck stupid.
“Lucie?” he asks.
I stand there gaping at him in my damp dress and frizzy hair with a newspaper from two weeks ago clutched in my hand. “Oliver?”
He pushes off the wall and adjusts his jacket, smoothing lines that don’t need to be smoothed. “That’s me,” he says sheepishly. “I was, uh, I was starting to think maybe you might be standing me up.”
“The rain.” I hitch my thumb over my shoulder. I can’t stop staring at his face. It’s so pretty . “My car.”
He steps closer. “The newspaper,” he adds.
I glance down at the crumpled paper in my hand. “That too.” We stare at each other in the tiny reception area of the fancy restaurant.
He clears his throat and glances over his shoulder at the rest of the dining room. “Should we—”
“Oh! Yeah. Yes. We should.” I awkwardly hand the wet newspaper to the woman standing behind the hostess stand. “Thank you for . . . taking care of that.”
She holds it between thumb and forefinger and gives me a tight smile. “Your waitress will take you to your table now.”
Oliver’s hand presses gently to the small of my back as we weave through the cozy, candlelit restaurant. The waitress deposits us at a small table in the corner and he pulls out my chair. It feels like I’m caught in a different era. I’ve never had a man pull out a chair for me before.
I tell him so as he settles into the seat across from me.
“You’ve been going out with the wrong people.” He pauses from where he’s flattening a linen napkin across his lap. “I’m also very . . . out of practice. Unfortunately my dating advice comes in the form of Gregory Peck movies.”
I laugh and my shoulders relax. It’s a nice change from the guy who berated me over breadsticks. And the guy who didn’t bother to show up. Or the guy who keeps texting the Heartstrings phone, asking for my shoe size. I don’t exactly have a stellar baseline when it comes to dating.
I think of a half smile in the dark. The sharp line of a jaw and scruff against my neck. Goose bumps pebble on my arms and I reach for the menu, holding it in front of my face.
“I’ve heard the rigatoni is good.”
“Yeah,” Oliver agrees. “I’ve been wanting to try this place out.”
We order drinks and argue about appetizers and my nerves settle when Oliver laughs so hard he snorts, some of his fancy wine ending up on his fancy shirt. He’s embarrassed about it, but it’s—it’s good, to know that I’m not alone in all this. That I’m not the only one who can be awkward or silly or slightly out of place.
He’s funny too, with his corny jokes and stories from the charter school he teaches at. He teaches history to a bunch of middle schoolers and apparently social media is the bane of his existence.
“The number of kids who suddenly believe the earth is flat is frankly alarming.”
“My middle schooler doesn’t think the earth is flat, but she does think Taylor Swift invented friendship bracelets.”
He makes a low sound of sympathy. “They know how to make you feel ancient, don’t they?”
It’s a good date—an excellent one, really—but my mind keeps drifting. Back to a tiny studio with a chair that squeaks every time I adjust my legs and a broody, temperamental host who’s been ignoring me for two days.
What’s he doing in the booth right now? Is he thinking about me? Is he happier when I’m not there? Is he counting down the days until this little dating experiment is over so he can have his show back without me interfering?
“You seem distracted,” Oliver says over two heaping plates of pasta, after I ask him to repeat himself for the third time.
My cheeks flush hot. “I’m sorry. I’m just—”
“Interested in someone else,” he finishes for me, reaching for the wine menu. “Would you like another glass of red or white?”
My stomach drops all the way to my toes. “I’m not—I mean— I don’t—” I swallow. “What?”
He smiles softly. “It’s all right, Lucie. No hard feelings.”
“I’m not interested in someone else. I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t do that.”
He places the wine menu back down. “You’ve mentioned Aiden at least six times.”
“Have I?”
He nods. “And we haven’t even ordered dessert yet.”
I’m flustered, clinging to the edge of the fancy tablecloth for dear life. “That’s—I don’t—” I force myself to take a breath and unclench my hands from around the table. I don’t know what to do with them, so I settle for folding them in my lap. “I didn’t realize I was doing that.”
Oliver’s face slips into something patiently amused as he sips his water, the light from the candle in the middle of our table flickering across his face. “You didn’t realize you were mentioning him, or you didn’t realize you have feelings for him?”
I want to crawl under this table and dig to the center of the earth. I want to scale the walls and shimmy through the air vents. “I didn’t realize I was talking about him so much,” I manage, my mouth numb, the words clumsy. “And I don’t have feelings for him.”
Oliver arches one eyebrow.
“I don’t,” I say again.
“Sure,” he responds.
“We just work together,” I say defensively. And I’m hung up on why he hasn’t spoken to me in two days. He was flirting with me in my living room on Sunday, and now he can’t even respond to my texts. Also, coincidentally, I think about him constantly.
I reach for my wineglass, discover it’s empty, then place it back. “Are we really having this conversation right now?”
Oliver shifts, his face melting into something earnest. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I just—” He rubs his thumb over his bottom lip and I barely notice. With Aiden, I’d probably notice. “Listen. I need to be honest with you.”
I eye him warily. “Okay.”
I brace myself for something horrifying. He’s a convicted murderer on the run. He doesn’t think Die Hard is a Christmas movie. He eats his chicken nuggets without sauce.
“There’s a reason I’m out of practice,” he says slowly. He’s watching me carefully, like he’s doing some bracing of his own. Air masks dropping from the ceiling. “I have feelings for someone else too. That’s how I could spot it so easily. Like recognizes like. I thought I was over it, but I’ve realized that I’m . . . not.”
We stare at each other. The waitress comes by and asks us if we want any dessert, and I tell her we’ll take two tiramisu and the gelato sampler.
“I don’t know if I should be afraid or relieved,” he says as soon as she disappears back into the kitchen. He laughs nervously. “Are you going to scalp me with the spoon?”
“I need sugar to think. Now, let me see if I have this right.” I point a finger at him. “You went out on a date with a woman knowing you had feelings for someone else?”
He looks offended. “So did you.”
“I don’t have feelings for another woman.”
“But you sure do say the name Aiden a lot,” he fires back.
I blink at him. That is a . . . fair point.
He rests his forearms on the table. “My intentions were good, I promise. I thought I needed a push to get me to move on and I heard your voice on the radio and—I don’t know. It seemed like a sign.”
A sign. Magic. The universe tugging you in a different direction. I can understand that. Isn’t that exactly what I’ve been hoping for?
“And I think,” he says again, gently, “that you are really great. You’re funny and smart and spectacularly hot.” A disbelieving puff of air bursts out of me and he laughs. “Truly. But I—I think my heart is somewhere else. And I think yours is too.”
The waitress drops off our dessert. I immediately drag the tiramisu toward me like it’s a life vest and I’m floating in the middle of the Atlantic. I didn’t realize I was being so obvious. Is that why Aiden has been so distant? Did I embarrass myself at the bar? Was I too much? I have a hazy, out-of-focus memory of my hands fisted in his shirt and my mouth tipped to his. He said we didn’t kiss, but . . . oh god, did I try? Did he say no? Before I manhandled him to my couch?
“Want to talk about it?” Oliver asks carefully from the other side of the table. I’m doing it again. I’m sitting across from Oliver and thinking about Aiden. Oliver picks up his spoon and scoops out some gelato. I watch him slip it into his mouth and feel . . . absolutely nothing. A vague appreciation for how good-looking he is, but no flips in my stomach. Nothing.
“With you?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Who else? I’ve been told I’m a good listener, and I don’t think our waitress is interested in us.”
I glance in the direction of the open kitchen at the back of the restaurant. Our waitress is interested in the cute pastry chef, her hair tied back in bright red pigtails while she holds a piping bag in her hands. Their eyes catch and hold like magnets, even across the expanse of the crowded restaurant. I’m tempted to order more dessert just so she has another excuse to go talk to her.
“I don’t know,” I say slowly. “Isn’t that against the rules?”
“What rules?” His eyebrow jumps up again. “We’ve already established this date is a bust. No offense.” He reaches across the table for his tiny pot of tiramisu. “Might as well go for broke.”
I poke around my dessert, considering. It would be nice to talk to someone. To try to untangle some of my crossed wires.
“I’m a completely unbiased sounding board. You can confide in me.” He shovels another bite into his mouth and his eyelashes flutter. “Fuck, this is good.”
“It really is.”
“Incredible. Now tell me what’s on your mind and why you think you don’t have feelings for this person you definitely have feelings for.”
I stab my tiramisu harder than I mean to. “You said you’d be unbiased.”
“Unbiased,” he agrees. “Not stupid.”
At my confused look, he rolls his eyes. “Anyone who’s listened to you guys on the radio for longer than thirty seconds can tell there’s something going on between you two, Lucie. He called me the wrong name like sixteen times.”
I think of Grayson laughing next to me at the breakfast table, the guys in the shop and their lists. Maggie in her office with her knowing looks. Jackson and his perfectly timed interruptions.
They know. All of them know.
The entire city of Baltimore has been listening to me develop an unrequited crush.
I take another bite of chocolate. “Well, this is embarrassing.”
“It’s really not. It’s lovely, actually. It’s honest in a way most things aren’t.”
“Not if he doesn’t feel the same way,” I grumble.
Oliver makes a soft sound. “He feels the same way.”
I shake my head, images from the other night flickering through my mind like a slow-motion horror movie. Begging him to dance with me in front of the jukebox. Grabbing his T-shirt and pulling hard when he tried to tuck me in on the couch. I made him stay. “I’m not so sure about that.”
“I am,” Oliver replies. “You should have heard him when he called me to set up this date. I don’t think he could have said fewer words if he tried. And before he hung up, he told me, ‘Be nice, or I’ll kick your fucking ass.’ That’s a direct quote.”
“That’s just how he is.”
“Sure.”
I tip my head to the side. “If I’ve been so obvious, why did you call in? Why did you want to go on a date with me?”
Oliver’s smile settles into something wistful. “Because I figured if anyone could knock me out of this feeling, it would be you, Lucie. You’re . . . captivating. I think the whole city is in love with you.”
I’ve heard that before. From Aiden. Before one of our shows. I thought he meant it as a joke, but maybe . . .
“I talked about how to change a tire the other night. For twenty minutes.”
“It was charming.”
I huff a breath. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Why did you want to be knocked out of your feelings? Who is this mystery girl that has you all tangled up?”
He winces. “Ah. That’s the tricky part, I guess. It’s my . . . brother’s ex.” I suck in a breath through my teeth and color brushes the tops of his cheeks. “You see the issue.”
“Oh boy.”
“More or less, yeah. I’ve been trying to move on—clearly—but I don’t think I can.”
“So, what are you going to do?”
“What can I do when I feel like this?” He lifts his hands and drops them. Picks up his tiny spoon and spins it around and around. “I didn’t choose it. I don’t particularly want it. Lord knows I could have picked one of the seventy-five million better options for me. But it is what it is. I can’t change how my heart feels. I can’t guide it somewhere else. I suppose I’m going to see it through, for better or worse.”
It sounds like there might be a whole lot of worse than better in that situation for Oliver. But I hope he finds what he’s looking for. One of the best parts of this show and the decision to put myself out there is discovering I’m not alone in my loneliness. Not by a long shot.
Affection tugs at me and I lift my tiramisu cup. I clink it with the edge of his.
“Oliver, this might be the strangest date I’ve ever been on.”
A laugh bursts out of him. “For me too.”
“But also one of the best.”
His smile is warm. “Yeah. Me too.”
AIDEN VALENTINE: I hope she has a good time.
JACKSON CLARK: You’ve said that, like, sixty-seven times tonight.
AIDEN VALENTINE: Well. I hope she’s having a good time.
JACKSON CLARK: More energy, bud. More enthusiasm.