Chapter 4
Noah turned off his truck in front of Katie’s house, barely remembering the drive from the hospital. Despite the chilly day, a few downstairs windows were open, which meant Katie had cranked the heater and then probably baked something, warming the house up so much that she threw herself into a hot flash, and the rest of them could freeze for all she cared.
The sounds of a full house drifted out to him: talking, the clinking of glasses and dishes, music playing in the background. Shit, he’d forgotten it was their weekly family dinner night, which, if he was in town, neither rain nor shine nor near deadly car accidents could get him out of. He really wasn’t feeling like pasting on a smile and being friendly, but if he left now, the next time he saw his mom she’d give him the look that said once again he’d let her down by not being around enough.
He knew his place in this family, and that was to be the one that everyone could count on. It was a role he knew how to play, as he’d been at it since the day Katie had been born three minutes and thirty-seven seconds after him. He was to show up, never need anything, and be perfect while he was at it.
Only, he’d been far from perfect.
Still was.
But he knew how to pretend, and was good at it. He didn’t even mind it, not really. He knew his mom counted on him to be the glue, especially after his dad had passed away a few years ago. But at the moment, all he wanted was a shower, a beer, and twelve hours horizontal with his eyes closed. He was so done in, he didn’t even care if there wasn’t a woman in the bed with him.
Just get it over with . . .
He started through the living room toward the dining room but stopped at the telltale sound of a tail thumping the floor. Holmes was on his bed near the unlit fireplace, head still down, forlorn eyes open and on Noah, who’d rescued him one day in his senior year of high school, when he’d found a very bedraggled and underfed puppy hiding beneath the school bleachers.
Holmes, who maybe should’ve been named Couch Potato, had been great for Noah’s family, low maintenance and innately lazy. Not much had changed over the years, except for his muzzle going gray with age. “Shh,”
Noah whispered, hunkering down in front of the dog before he could lift his head and howl his hello. Noah laughed softly when Holmes rolled over to expose his very round belly for rubs and cuddles, which he of course obliged.
Miraculously, no one had heard him come in, he realized when he turned toward the dining room. Little Joey was sitting in Katie’s lap and grinning at Olive seated next to him.
Grinning.
Since the accident, none of them had been able to get the kid to smile or eat much, but Olive was gently teasing him with food, saying, “A bite for me . . . annnnnd a bite for you.”
And unbelievably, Joey ate everything she fed him.
“You’re good with him,”
Katie said.
Olive gently touched her finger to the tip of Joey’s nose. “Maybe he’s good with me.”
Joey laughed and so did Olive, a sound Noah hadn’t remembered that he loved.
Then, as if she sensed him, she looked up. Their gazes collided and held. Everyone else turned to see what had Olive’s attention, and all chatter stopped for the briefest of seconds.
“Honey,”
his mom said. “Why are you out there instead of eating with us?”
“He’s probably making sure it’s a safe place,”
Katie said.
His mom frowned. “What is that supposed to mean?”
His sister waved her fork in Noah’s general direction. “Every time he comes home, you try to set him up like he can’t find a woman. Women find him, Mom. And anyway, maybe he’s still recovering from Molly, who after two years decided she hated his job and his hours and that he wasn’t family material, and he needed to change everything about himself to keep her. Thankfully, he walked away, because who needs that kind of love?”
“You know I can speak for myself,”
Noah said mildly. At work, when he talked, people listened. Sometimes he forgot that wasn’t the case at home, and never had been. “I can even form whole sentences on my own. And I’m not still recovering from Molly, that was a year ago.”
His mom ignored him, speaking directly to Katie. “Molly wasn’t The One. The One is still out there, he deserves that much.”
Noah’s left eye began to twitch. Hopefully it was a seizure and he’d get a nice, quiet ambulance ride out of here.
“Uncle Noah’s eye is doing something weird,”
Joey said.
“What, is it a crime to need my only son to be happy?”
his mom asked the room. “Why won’t he settle down? All my friends’ kids have settled down.”
“Except for the ones who have single daughters, who you keep trying to fix him up with,”
Katie said.
Olive was looking amused. Good to know she found this funny.
His mom’s laser eyes landed on him. “What happened to that cute librarian friend of Katie’s that you went out with last summer?”
“She decided to go back to her ex.”
“Okay,”
she said. “How about—”
“Mom, maybe tonight, instead of invading my privacy, we just have dinner.”
“Hey,”
she said, pointing at him with her glass. “You came out of my privacy.”
“Oh my God,”
Katie muttered. “Mom, no one wants to think about coming out of their mother’s ‘privacy.’?”
“Missy, check your attitude.”
“For complaints about my attitude, please contact the manufacturer. And do you remember when you made me play soccer? Even though I hate to run?”
“Made you? You begged me to sign you up, said it was a huge dream of yours. And I always let you both follow your dreams—unless I’d already paid the registration fee on your previous dream. Then you had to follow that one for six to eight more weeks.”
Katie rolled her eyes.
“Fine, new subject. After dinner, I need someone to help me update my phone, and also I can’t get to Netflix from my remote.”
“I can help you now,”
Noah said. “For Netflix, you hit the home button. I circled it with a red Sharpie so we didn’t have to do this every day. As for your phone, you just hit update.”
“Also, before you ask,”
Katie said without missing a beat, “the Wi-Fi password is still your phone number.”
“Don’t you two dare use that patronizing tone with me when I have questions about tech stuff. I once had to teach you both how to use a damn spoon.”
“?‘Damn’ is a bad word,”
Joey said.
His grandma smiled sweetly at him. “You’re right, love, but you should know, my children are rude idiots.”
Joey nodded wisely.
“And will you sit already?”
his mom asked Noah. “You’re giving me a neck ache standing there.”
She loaded up a plate and pushed it toward the only empty seat.
Right next to Olive.
Joey climbed out of Katie’s lap and into Olive’s, and then reached for Noah, straddling one of his legs and one of Olive’s, his short little legs pulling theirs together so their thighs were touching.
Oh good, and here Noah had thought things couldn’t get more awkward. “Sorry,”
he murmured her way.
“Pass the green beans, please?”
“You used to hate all things green.”
His mom shook her head. “That’s not right. Olive’s always loved green foods, especially my green bean casserole.”
Noah, thinking of all the times he’d watched Olive drop anything green into a napkin rather than insult his mom, laughed.
His mom looked at Olive. “You don’t?”
She grimaced and sent Noah a glare.
Katie leaned into Olive and stage-whispered, “I give you permission to run him over again.”
Noah picked up his glass, holding it strategically so that he was flipping Katie off.
“I almost never run anyone over anymore,”
Olive muttered to no one in particular.
Amy shook her head at her daughter and looked at Olive. “All those years I served you green beans, I’m so sorry.”
Olive waved that off. “My fault. I was embarrassed to tell you.”
The exchange felt oddly . . . awkward, like they were strangers. The thing was, he knew Olive and Katie had remained extremely close, and he’d assumed the same for Olive and his mom. When had they stopped being close, and why?
“Don’t forget about the ball game on Saturday,”
Katie told him.
Olive looked at Noah in surprise. “You’re playing again?”
“No.”
He didn’t realize he’d said this harshly until she flushed, making him wish he’d pregamed dinner with a glass of wine the size of his sister’s.
“He hasn’t played at all,”
Katie said. “Not since May seventh of our last year in high school, exactly one week before graduation, when on the night of our senior party, you ran him over with your Gram’s old ATV, crushing his leg, requiring three surgeries and a two-week stay in the hospital, after which he ended up working for the forestry department instead of playing D1 baseball.”
The sudden silence was so vast he could hear his own blood in his veins. Olive reached for her untouched wineglass. “I think I’ll have some alcohol now.”
Noah poured her a full glass.
Katie nudged her shoulder to Olive’s. His sister’s version of a hug. “I’m sorry. You don’t like to talk about it. I’ll put it on the list of things I’m not supposed to bring up.”
“Thank you.”
Olive then toasted Katie, clearly forgiving. In fact, she was probably the most forgiving person he’d ever met.
“The ball game I was referring to is Joey’s,”
Katie said. “Noah’s going to step in for Joe as temporary coach, starting with this week’s game. Assuming he doesn’t choke, since he hasn’t so much as said the word ‘ball’ in all these years.”
Olive took a deep drink.
Katie grimaced. “I did it again. I’m sorry. Did I mention my husband’s in a coma?”
Olive sighed and reached out to hug Katie, who held up a hand to stop her, which meant that hand ran right into Olive’s face.
Olive raised a brow at her. “Did you just smack me?”
“Actually, your face walked right into my hand.”
Katie paused, then also let out a sigh. “Fine, I smacked you. I’m sorry! You know how I feel about hugs.”
Olive took another deep drink of her wine.
His mom looked at Noah. “I always thought it was such a shame you gave baseball up altogether, when it was such an important part of your life. We thought you might find other ways to be involved with the sport. Instead, soon as you recovered, you went off to Yosemite Community College and to work for the National Park Service.”
“Oh good. We’re going to keep talking about this.”
“Yosemite,”
his mom repeated. “A million miles away.”
“Your math isn’t mathing, Mom.”
“Fine. But a three-hour drive is way too far.”
It’d felt like the right distance to him. Close enough to help out if his family needed it. Far enough that he got to miss a whole bunch of family dinners. It’d been a shock to him, having picked Yosemite out of a hat, that he’d ended up loving it and his job.
“You could’ve coached,”
his mom said.
“Yes.”
He winked at Joey. “And now I am.”
She sighed. It was a sighing pandemic in here tonight. He gave Olive a gimme gesture toward the wine bottle.
She handed it right over.
His mom was staring at him, clearly still waiting on an explanation. “Mom, baseball wasn’t an important part of my life. It was an important part of Dad’s life.”
He caught a blink-and-miss-it wince from Olive. Guilt. He hated that, because he’d never blamed her for what had happened. Not even for a single second.
Although . . . he did blame her for vanishing from their lives. Well, his, because she’d been in constant contact with Katie. Even from a different continent, she put in the time and showed up for his sister.
But with him, she hadn’t been able to get away fast enough, and that still burned. They’d seen each other here and there, like Katie’s wedding to Joe, a few of Joey’s birthday parties, his dad’s celebration of life, and she’d been perfectly polite.
And distant.
But then again, so had he. He’d not trusted himself to push for a real conversation and reveal feelings he’d long ago buried.
Mostly.
“Now’s the perfect time to give up your dangerous job and move back to Sunrise Cove,”
his mom said. “You could back up our manager at Turner Rents and Supply.”
She smiled, because she was their manager.
Years and years ago, she and his dad had taken over his grandpa’s Turner Rents & Supply. They rented out and/or fixed snow and ranching equipment. The place had been his dad’s baby. As a teenager, Noah had been under a lot of pressure to work there, and he knew his parents had expected him to take over if baseball ever failed him. Well, as it turned out, he’d failed baseball, by choice, but much to his parents’ displeasure, he hadn’t gone on to run the family business. After Olive had left, he’d taken inspiration from that and done the same, putting Sunrise Cove in his rearview.
“And if you lived here, I know we could find you the perfect woman to date,”
his mom said.
Katie snorted. “Noah doesn’t date. He fornicates.”
Olive choked on a sip of her wine.
“Katie!”
their mom gasped.
Katie patted Olive on the back. “What? I’m not wrong.”
She looked at Noah. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
He stared at her. “Seriously?”
“Need me to define ‘fornicate’ for you?”
“No, I want you to stop talking.”
“Children! We have a guest.”
Everyone looked at Olive. She sent them all a weak smile. Probably she was wishing she’d gotten a hotel room. In Rome.
“Mom, Olive’s not a guest,”
Katie said. “She’s family.”
He wondered if he’d gone gray during this thirty-year-long dinner.
“Jessica’s daughter Chloe is single now,”
his mom said. She’d pulled out her phone and was searching for something. “Katie, where’s that text you sent me about it?”
Noah looked at his sister. “This wasn’t in our family text chat.”
“You should know that every family text chat has a smaller group chat without the annoying one,”
Katie said. “And if you think your family doesn’t, I’ve got some bad news.”
He looked at his mom. “That true?”
“Very,”
his sister assured him.
“Found it!”
His mom looked up from her phone. “Jessica says Chloe’s working at the bar and grill and gets off at eight. You can meet her for a drink and get to know her.”
Jessica was his mom’s longtime best friend. Chloe had been a year behind him in school. She was sweet, quiet, and shy, and though their paths occasionally crossed, she’d never said one word to him in all the years Noah had known her.
“Chloe is nice and very normal,”
Katie said. “But Noah doesn’t like nice and very normal. He likes fun and a little wild.”
Olive choked again.
Noah patted her on the back himself this time, while sending daggers to his mom and sister. “I will pay you a thousand dollars to stop talking.”
“Each?”
Katie wanted to know. “Because I could use a thousand bucks.”
Noah drank the rest of his wine even though he hated wine. It always gave him a headache, but it didn’t matter because he already had one.
“Did you know that people with siblings have better survival skills than most?”
Katie asked Olive. “It’s because we’ve had experience in physical combat, psychological warfare, and sensing suspicious activity.”
“I’m just saying,”
his mom said to Noah. “You’re thirty now, and you might want to think about settling down, giving me more grandchildren, and Joey a cousin.”
“Ruff, ruff!”
said Joey, who on any given day spoke both human and dog.
“Or you could just adopt a dog so he could have a sibling,”
Katie said.
His mom beamed in delight. “Katie! Did you just make a joke?”
“No. It’s just that a dog’s a lot cheaper than a kid.”
She ruffled Joey’s hair. “Not that I’d trade you in, not even for all my money back. I’m pretty fond of you now that you’re potty trained.”
Joey climbed over Olive and back into his mom’s lap, wrapping his arms around her neck.
“Mmm, puppy cuddles. My favorite thing.”
Katie hugged him tight and kissed the top of his head. “I think I’ll keep you forever and ever.”
“So if I was five too, you’d hug me?”
Olive asked her.
“If you came out of my vagina, yes,”
Katie said.
“Dear God, Katie.”
Katie smiled at her mom. “Oops, sorry.”
She looked at Olive. “If you’d come out of my privacy, then yes, I’d hug you.”
Amy Turner rolled her eyes and turned to Olive. “I hear you stopped working for that UK public relations firm and started your own. How’s that going?”
“It’s early days yet.”
“It’s going great,”
Katie said. “She’s been super successful for her clients.”
Noah’s mom, never able to ask just one question when she could ask a hundred, said, “So what’s been your favorite, most successful PR campaign so far?”
Olive thought about that for a few seconds. “Maybe the one I did for a clothing designer who was scheduled to have a pop-up store in the city. Her sister’s a baker, so for the opening we created an edible dress, made entirely from chocolate.”
“I love chocolate!”
Joey said.
“Me too,”
Olive said, gently booping his nose. “The plan was to have my client smash it apart and give out pieces of it to everyone in line for the opening. Only it got unseasonably hot that day, and the dress melted before we got started. It was such a huge puddle of chocolate that it slickened the entryway, and my client slipped and fell into the chocolate.”
“Five-second rule!”
Joey yelled, making everyone smile.
“Did you get all awkward?”
Katie asked Olive. “Because you get all kinds of awkward when the attention’s on you.”
Olive got Joey to eat another bite off her plate and beamed at him. “I think your mommy’s forgetting that the only person in this room to ever be more awkward than me is her.”
She looked at Katie. “But yes. Yes, I did, thank you very much. I also ended up with chocolate all over me and I definitely licked my own arm more than once.”
Katie laughed.
His mom smiled at the sound and looked at Olive. “The day you moved in next door was a great day. Before you, Katie was so lonely.”
“I don’t like people enough to get lonely,”
Katie said, then paused, seeming to realize she’d inadvertently insulted everyone there. “Except for you guys, of course.”
“You never had friends before Olive,”
Noah’s mom said. “I was always so worried.”
Olive looked at Katie. “You used to talk about two girls you were friends with before me. They were twins too, and had just moved away. I can’t remember their names.”
“Star and Candy,”
his mom said. “They were her made-up friends.”
Olive blinked at Katie. “You lied? I didn’t know you could.”
“No,”
Katie said. “I didn’t lie. You never asked if they were real.”
“Misdirected then,”
Olive said. “Same thing.”
“Look!”
Katie pointed to the center of the table. “Cake!”
“Where?”
Olive asked, then frowned. “Hey!”
Noah looked at his mom. “You should concentrate your efforts on setting Katie up with friend dates, instead of me with date dates.”
“You think I haven’t tried? Because I have. But whenever someone was due to come over, Katie would put her coat on before answering the door, like she was just leaving.”
“I always do that,”
Katie said. “In case it’s someone I don’t want to see.”
“And if it’s someone you do want to see?”
Olive asked.
“In that extremely unlikely event, I say I just got home.”
“Brilliant,”
Olive said.
“I need to brush up on my don’t-talk-to-me face for when Joey starts kindergarten in the fall.”
“But wouldn’t it be nice to build yourself an outside support system?”
their mom asked.
Noah watched a flash of guilt cross Olive’s face, probably for not being that support system.
“No. Girls suck. Remember when you made me try gymnastics, and the girls stole my clothes out of the locker room while I was in the shower?”
Her mom’s face hardened. “The other girls in your class were all so awful.”
“Not all of them,”
Katie said. “Sami was nice.”
“Oh, you mean the one with the muddy shoes.”
Katie rolled her eyes. “Good to know you remember people based on slights they committed over a decade ago, Mom.”
“You know who never came into my house with muddy shoes? Olive.”
This was true. In some ways, Olive had been the most adult teenager Noah had ever met. To say she’d grown up rough was an understatement. She’d been an outsider in her own home. Or tent, as the case had often been. Her parents had been far more worried about getting to a Grateful Dead concert than the emotional stability and well-being of their own daughter. By the time she’d hitchhiked to Gram’s house all those years ago, it’d taken her parents two days to notice she was gone.
“A dear friend of mine works at the zoo,”
Noah’s mom said thoughtfully, looking at Olive. “They’re trying to grow their social media. I know it’s not as elegant as a clothing designer, but would you be willing to talk to her?”
Olive smiled. “Of course.”
Noah knew very little about Olive’s life now, but it was clear she’d changed a lot, learning to trust and believe in herself enough to run her own PR firm. It surprised him. Not that she was successful, because that he could one hundred percent believe—she’d always been one of the smartest people he knew—but that she ran a company that required her to step out of her lone-wolf attitude and be public, social, and good with people. Though he supposed her glossy, sophisticated look was all part of that.
Which meant . . . maybe he wasn’t the only pretender at the table.