Chapter 24
OLIVER
“Got any threes?”
Amelia scrunches up her nose as she carefully looks at each of the cards in her hand. “Go fish.”
“Are you sure? Maybe you want to check again?” I know she’s got them. There are literally no other options. I’ve been counting the cards in the pile since we started, and since they aren’t in my hand, they must be hers.
And yes, I’m cheating at a card game with a six-year-old.
“Nope. Not here.” She shakes her head forcefully.
“Fine.” I draw a card from the stack. A six. Not useful.
“Give me your fives.”
“I don’t think that’s how you’re supposed to ask.”
“Give me your fives, puh-lease.”
That’s still not right, but I’m going to give it to her. I pull the requested cards from my hand and fork them over. I’ve already lost three games in a row, so one more feels like a good place to end the night.
“Thank you.” She lays the cards down on the table. “I win!” As soon as she jumps up and starts celebrating, Scamp runs over and barks along with her. There are suspiciously a couple of threes hanging out in the cards she put down.
Great. Everyone’s happy. Everyone but me.
The advantage of being the uncle and not the parent is that I don’t have to have a talk with her about cheating. That’s my sister’s problem.
“Okay, we’re back,” Jane calls from the door to the garage. “Amelia, come help me with the bag.”
I’m not sure whether I should be offended that she prefers the help of a child, but I’m thankful for a minute of almost quiet. Babysitting is hard work. It’s been a whole ninety minutes alone with one of the twins, and I need a glass of wine. Or three.
“Okay. Girls, why don’t you go ahead upstairs and start getting ready for bed? I’ll be up to tuck you in.”
“We want Uncle Ollie to read our story tonight,” Amelia whines.
“Yeah, Uncle Ollie,” her sister Emilie agrees.
“I’ll be up in twenty minutes.” I can’t say no to them. Hopefully, that changes before they become teenagers. Otherwise, we’re all in trouble.
While they argue over how many books I’m allowed to read tonight, I grab the bags of groceries that Jane brought in and start putting some of the items away.
It’s something to do and makes me feel productive.
I sort of just barged into her life for the week.
I don’t think she minds, especially with the free babysitting, but still.
After I left Matthias’s place on Saturday, the first thing I did was call Jane and beg her to let me stay with her for a week. She said yes, but only after I told her the whole story. Most of it she already knew or at least guessed. The rest of it didn’t come as much of a surprise.
Am I running away from my problems? Absolutely.
I couldn’t bear the thought of going back to my quiet apartment for the night.
Not when I’d had such big plans. I figured we’d end up there after he told his friends and went ahead and bet on it going swimmingly.
Which means I had cookies and beer ready to go.
Plus a surprise toy on the nightstand.
The thought of walking into my home and putting all the stuff away, only to spend the night waiting by the phone for Aaron to call, was too much. Instead, I stopped off at a mall on the way and bought a few items.
Coward? Absolutely.
I know I have to go back and take care of things. It’ll be much worse now, a pile of stale, moldy cookies sitting on the counter, but at least I’ve had a few days to think.
“So, how was she?”
“She cheats.” Hey, she can’t do anything about it if she doesn’t know.
“Yeah, they both do.” Jane goes straight for the cabinet and pulls out a couple of wine glasses. “Did you call her on it?”
“Um, no? I’m the fun uncle. It’s your job to instill values and crap in them.”
She sighs as she pushes a full glass of red wine in my direction. I start to ask what kind it is before I remember, I don’t care.
“You could help. I was like a third parent to you.”
“A third parent who bought me beer on my sixteenth birthday.” She sits down at the kitchen table, so I join her.
“And spent the night helping you puke it all back up in my bathroom. I think that taught you a lesson.”
Not a great experience for anyone.
“Yeah, not to let you give me any alcohol.”
She leans over as if she’s going to take my wine glass.
“Nope, I changed my mind.”
“So…”
“Yeah?”
“Do you want to talk about it?” She puts her elbow on the table and cradles her chin in her palm. I knew this was coming. We talked on Saturday, but since then, we’ve stayed away from the subject.
“The airport being on fire counts as a serious emergency.” I’d heard about it on the news during my drive.
I’d wanted to turn on Flour it just happened.”
“Aaron, that was almost a year ago.”
“I know.” If I could, I would crawl under the table right now. “It was supposed to be one night.”
“How’d that work out for you?” Tyler nudges my shoulder.
Fuck. It worked out to be so close to perfect. Well, that might be an overstatement. It worked out. Mostly. “We were just friends for a little while, but then things spiraled from there.” I’m not giving them details.
“How long have you been actually dating?”
I grimace at Nathan’s question. “I don’t know exactly. Three months?”
“Three months. Three months.” Nathan repeats his sentence.
“Why would you hide that from us?” Matthias asks. “You know we like Oliver.”
“I don’t… I was afraid you’d be upset.” I look up into Nathan’s eyes, expecting to see anger. Instead, all I see is compassion.
“Look, if you’d told me right after he went out with Colt, I probably would’ve been mad. But now? I like Oliver. He’s a nice guy, and I think of him as a friend. I want you both to be happy.”
“I love him,” I confess. Saying it out loud to the people I care most about in the world feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I’d be elated if I had Oliver here, too.
“So, then what’s the problem?” Tyler pulls his leg up so he can face me.
“I screwed up. We were supposed to tell you together last weekend, when we were all at Matthias’s.”
“But then the airport fire broke out,” Matthias finishes the thought for me. “Shit, that’s why Oliver was upset.”
“He was upset?” I knew he was, realistically. I talked to him on the phone and could hear his pain in the silences.
“Yeah, when he came back from talking to you. He covered it up well, but then he left early.”
“Shit. That’s when he went home. He’s been staying with his sister this week, so I haven’t been able to see him.” He’s supposed to come back tomorrow. I’m tempted to camp outside his building waiting for him to return. That’s probably bordering on stalking. It definitely isn’t giving him space.
I don’t want him—or me—to have space. If I could, I’d make sure we saw each other every day. With our schedules, it can be hard, but it’s doable if we work at it. Even if the only time we had together was on a short run, it’d still be something.
Then an idea starts to form in my mind. It’s a little rough around the edges, but it’s workable. With help.
“Guys, I need to make it up to him.” They all nod their heads enthusiastically. “I need a bit of help from all of you and your partners to make it work.”
“Whatever you need,” Matthias says. “We’re so happy for you. And Oliver.”
“Good. I’ve got a plan.”