Chapter 8
A few days later, after dropping Joey at school, Olive took Gram out to breakfast at the diner—her new client.
“You didn’t have to take me out, honey.”
“If I wanted to see you, I did,”
Olive said on a laugh. “You’re a busy woman, running the social activities at the senior center.”
Gram beamed. “And I love it. I’ll be gone a lot this week too. Today we’re going to read to the animals at the shelter, and then tomorrow we’ll be at the preschool teaching the kids how to dance.”
She leaned in. “I’m so grateful for what you’re doing for the diner. Your idea was a stroke of genius. Phyllis is ecstatic.”
Not a stroke of genius, but rather a marriage made in heaven. Phyllis had been having trouble with her outdated menus, as well as keeping a chef, both of which were costing her repeat business. Olive had merely suggested hiring grandmas from the senior center population who had honed their cooking skills over decades feeding their own families. Each “chef”
would create a menu based off their heritage. The ones who were able-bodied enough to actually cook on-site at the diner were each assigned one night a week to run the kitchen and make their beloved family recipes. The ones not mobile enough could still get involved by allowing Phyllis’s kitchen staff to use their tried-and-true recipes.
So far, Phyllis had enough unique dinner menus to go a full month without repeating, and they were putting it all into motion starting this week. Best yet, local social media was abuzz about it. “I’m so glad it’s all working out.”
Gram pointed at Olive with her blueberry muffin in hand. “You’re too modest. Just like I know you won’t brag about your work, you also don’t brag about how great you are with Joey, or how much of a lifesaver you’ve been for Katie.”
Olive shook her head. “Joey’s a great kid, which makes it easy, but as for Katie, I haven’t been all that much of a help. She also has her mom and brother here.”
“You’re Katie’s preferred moral support, don’t you ever doubt it. Noah said that if Joe wasn’t in a coma, Katie would literally be over the moon to be spending time in person with you—”
“Noah said that? Gram, tell me you aren’t talking to Noah about me.”
“Oh, shoot, was that my phone?”
Her grandma started patting down her pockets. “I think I’ve got a call—”
“What you have is you’ve-been-caught-itis.”
“Fine. Yesterday, he came over and fixed that spot on my roof above the kitchen door where it leaks. That’s how I found out you’re doing a campaign for the zoo, at Amy’s request.”
Olive narrowed her eyes. “Noah told you that.”
“Yes, which was when I noticed he was smiling more than I’d seen in a while. I asked him if it was because of you—”
“Gram, oh my God. You didn’t.”
“Well, it’s not like you’re going to tell me what’s happening between you two. You’re always so touchy about it.”
“Because Noah is in my past. I . . . I’ve got a boyfriend.”
“Do you? Do you really?”
“Yes!”
But the lie burned her cheeks. “Fine. I don’t.”
“I knew it.”
“How?”
Olive asked. “How did you know?”
Gram shrugged. “You never glow when you talk about him—unlike when you talk about Noah.”
“That’s because he drives me crazy! The glow is sheer irritation!”
Only fifty percent of a lie . . .
“Honey, listen,”
Gram said. “I think you’re still punishing yourself for things that everyone else let go of a long time ago.”
She leaned forward and took Olive’s hands. “It’s your turn to let go.”
She didn’t have time for this today. Or maybe ever. “I have to go. I need to work.”
She rose and pointed at her grandma. “I love you, but stop talking about me to Noah.”
Realizing she’d left a loophole, she turned back. “Or anyone. Okay?”
“You’re late for work, remember? And love you too!”
Having promised Katie that she’d pick up Joey from school, Olive cut a video meeting with a client short and ran out of the house, not wanting to be late for the little guy.
But she skidded to a stop on the porch at the sight of Noah on his knees in front of Holmes’s bed. “Is he okay?”
“More okay than I’ve seen him since he lost Sassy.”
He shifted aside, letting her see for herself.
Holmes was sleeping on his bed, his long ears brushing his front paws. Under his left ear sat the still teeny, tiny Pepper, not sleeping, looking rumpled and grumpy at the rude awakening.
Olive dropped to her knees beside Noah. “Aw. Happiness looks good on him.”
Holmes opened his eyes and gave Pepper a long, wet lick up the side of her face. The rough rumbling began from deep in her throat and made Olive feel warm and fuzzy on the inside. Although, if she was being honest, some of that came from being shoulder to shoulder with Noah, who smelled so delicious she nearly licked him like Holmes had Pepper.
Noah sat back on his heels. “Katie suggested I take these guys home with me for a while when I go. Said she could use some time worrying only about Joe and Joey.”
“Makes sense. Holmes loves you best anyway.”
“I’m gone a lot.”
“Maybe you could hire a dog walker.”
“And now there’s Pepper too,” he said.
“Cats are easy.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Let me guess,”
she said. “In the same way you don’t do relationships, because you’re happy on your own island, you don’t want any pets either. It threatens your need for freedom from roots and ties. How am I doing?”
“Shockingly well actually. But don’t forget you left too.”
How could she, when he kept reminding her? “I was always leaving for college. All I actually did was leave before summer started, instead of after.”
She got to her feet. “I’ve got to go get Joey.”
Noah got to his feet too and caught her hand.
She yanked free. “I’m going to be late.”
“Not if I drive.”
“Wow. That’s so sexist.”
“It has nothing to do with you being female.”
He nudged her off the porch and opened the passenger door of his truck for her. “You drive like a turtle.”
“Excuse me, if I was a turtle I wouldn’t be able to drive. And don’t look now, but you’ve got a shadow. Well, two shadows.”
Holmes had gotten up to follow after the first love of his life—Noah, with Pepper in his wake.
“Aw, look at them,”
she said, and when he did, she snatched the keys from his hand, then climbed into the passenger seat and over the console to sit behind the wheel. She cranked the engine and met his irritated gaze. “Either get in or shut the door.”
The dumbfounded expression on his face almost erased her own irritation. Almost. Even if his “don’t forget you left too”
comment was true.
Finally, he gave a small shake of his head, like he couldn’t believe he was going to do this, and scooped up Holmes, setting him on the backseat.
“Mew!”
“Yeah, yeah, I hear you.”
He dumped Pepper in next, and she immediately snuggled into Holmes, who smiled and licked the top of her little head.
Noah got in, muttering something to himself about how and where he might’ve lost his man card.
Hiding her smug smile, Olive drove to Joey’s school. Noah went inside and Holmes sat up, whining as he walked away.
“He’s coming right back.”
Holmes didn’t relax until Noah came out, hand in hand with Joey. At the sight, the dog tipped his head back and let out a woo-woo-woo of delight before sitting down again and apologizing to a dislodged Pepper with a full face lick.
Noah opened the back door and buckled Joey into his booster seat as the kid clapped in delight at finding Holmes and Pepper.
“How was your day, kiddo?”
Noah asked as Olive drove away from the school.
“I got a smiley face from my teacher for my paper.”
He thrust the paper toward the front seat.
Noah took it and smiled wide at whatever he saw. When he caught Olive glancing over at him, he said only, “Wait.”
After Olive pulled up at Katie’s, Noah handed her the paper. The teacher had asked the kids three questions, beneath which were Joey’s answers.
Who is your hero?
My dad
Why is this person your hero?
He is brave
Is there anything your hero is afraid of?
My mom
Olive was still laughing to herself when they let Holmes and Pepper inside the house, and then drove onward to the hospital. A few minutes later, they were sitting in a hospital hallway on unbelievably hard chairs, watching in disbelief as Joey drew a map of the interior of the entire hospital, which he’d memorized from his few visits.
Katie suddenly rushed out of Joe’s room, tears pouring down her face. Olive’s heart stopped, until she realized Katie was crying and laughing at the same time.
“He squeezed my hand!”
she cried, then turned to Noah and flung herself in his arms. “He did it every time I asked him a question!”
Noah pulled back, his hands on Katie’s arms, his eyes very serious on hers. “Honey, remember the doctor told us those were just reflexive motions—”
“No, this is different, it’s real! I need you to go in there and talk to him and see if it happens for you too.”
Noah practically ran into the room.
Katie picked up Joey and hugged him tight before turning to Olive, beaming, tears still streaming. “It’s going to be okay. He’s going to be okay. The nurse paged the doctor, but I’m sure of it.”
Olive wanted that more than anything, and held her arms out for Joey. “I’ve got him. Go back in, stay as long as you want, we’ll be fine.”
Ten minutes later, the doctor came down the hall and headed straight into Joe’s room, and two minutes after that, Noah and Katie came out. Katie smiled at Joey. “Hungry?”
“Yeah!”
They headed off to the cafeteria.
Noah braced a hand on the wall, head bowed.
Olive moved close. “You okay?”
When he didn’t say anything, didn’t move a single muscle or even breathe, she put a hand on his back. At her touch, his arms snaked out and wrapped her in a crushing hug. She froze for a surprised beat, then hugged him back.
He shuddered, then lifted his head. His eyes were wet. “He’s waking up,”
he said, voice hoarse. Then he smiled. His real smile, the one she hadn’t seen since she’d been a teenager.
She sucked in a breath. “I’m so glad,”
she whispered back, feeling relief and joy, along with something else that she had no business feeling in an ICU hallway.
The next morning, Olive dressed for success and stared at herself in the mirror. It seemed weird to wear business clothes to a zoo, but this wasn’t a social visit. She’d made a promise to Amy that she’d meet with her friend, and there was no way she’d break a promise to the woman who’d given her the very first taste of unconditional acceptance.
She studied herself critically. She looked how she always did for work: professional, elegant, polished. Normally, that gave her a boost of confidence, but for some reason, being perfectly put together today didn’t feel the same. Instead of making her feel safe, it just made her feel silly.
Shaking her head at herself, she grabbed her messenger bag that held her laptop and turned to go. Her eyes landed on the closed bathroom door, and before she could stop herself, she knocked. When Noah didn’t answer, she opened the door and walked through the bathroom to peer inside his opened bedroom.
The bed was neatly made. She hadn’t seen or heard from him since they’d gotten home from the hospital last night. Maybe he’d gone out and ended up spending the night with someone. Not that it mattered. Whatever—or whomever—he was doing was absolutely none of her business.
Not even a little bit.
Rolling her eyes at herself, she headed for the kitchen seeking caffeine. She grabbed a to-go mug and was just adding a little coffee to her creamer when she heard something. Turning, she watched Noah pad barefoot into the kitchen, wearing black sleep pants and nothing else. They were low-slung enough to reveal those incredibly sexy V lines that some guys had between their hips and abs. She didn’t know what they were called, all she knew was that they caused an annoying flutter in parts south, parts that had been severely neglected this year.
And how demoralizing was it to find herself wanting him. Seemed she’d grown up, but hadn’t gotten much smarter. It reminded her of the time she’d been six and had climbed up onto the rounded top of the center post of a merry-go-round. She’d sat there watching the world go around. She hadn’t been participating in making things happen, but from where she’d sat, she’d been in the middle of everything.
She had that same feeling now. She only hoped she didn’t throw up like she had back then. She studied his profile. Sharp angles, sculpted jaw, straight nose. Eyes that, when he chose, could reveal his thoughts. He could be hard or soft. Funny or serious. He had a lot to offer someone but chose to be alone. He had his reasons, she knew. Good reasons. But it still made her ache.
Noah’s brow raised. “You might wanna . . .”
He gestured to what she was doing.
She turned back to find her cup overflowing onto the counter, dripping down the cabinets and onto the floor. “Shit. Damn. Hell.”
She grabbed the closest thing to her, a small kitchen towel, and squatted low to clean up the floor.
She heard his uneven gait come close and then those long legs came into view as he crouched beside her, his bare torso up front and personal. The view froze her—until she realized it was shaking.
The jackass was laughing as he used paper towels to wipe up her mess. Angry at her reaction to him even now, she snatched the paper towels. “I’ve got this.”
“You should pour yourself another cup,”
he said. “I think you need the caffeine.”
“You drove home like that?”
she asked, gesturing to his lack of clothing.
He tilted his head to the side. “Drove home from where?”
“Whoever you spent the night with,”
she snapped.
That annoying almost smile slid onto his face. “You think I scored last night?”
“I don’t know. I don’t care.”
That got her a full-out grin. “You sure?”
“Very!”
If he kept grinning, she wasn’t going to be held accountable for her actions.
“I fell asleep on Joey’s floor telling him bedtime stories,” he said.
Feeling incredibly stupid, not to mention like a complete shrew, she covered her face. But when she heard him chuckle, she dropped her hands and glared at him. “How is this funny, me being a perpetual idiot around you? You drive me crazy!”
“Ditto, babe.”
With a sigh, she opened her mouth—to say what, she had zero idea—but she realized he was holding his right leg out, like it hurt him to be hunkered down. “What are you doing? You’re going to hurt yourself.”
Having efficiently cleaned up the mess in a blink of an eye, he rose to standing, and if she hadn’t been staring at him, she’d have missed his grimace. “You okay?”
Not answering, he tossed the mess into the trash. Then he leaned insolently against the counter. “You still like me.”
“Well, a whole bunch less at the moment.”
He laughed.
Shaking her head, she doctored up a new coffee. “Are you going to put on a shirt or what?”
He moved into the laundry room and she heard the sound of a dryer opening and closing. Then he was back, pulling a T-shirt over his head before pouring his own cup of caffeine.
Black.
He might be sexy as hell, but he didn’t know the first thing about the small pleasures in life.
“Better?”
he asked as she sipped her breakfast.
Deciding that ignoring him was the best way to go, she pulled on a blazer over her jersey dress and slipped into a pair of boots that had seriously cut into her food budget for the next month.
“So you’re wearing the whole enchilada today,”
he said. “Not just the top half.”
His gaze slowly slid down her body and back up again. “You know, sometimes I catch glimpses of the old Oli, but other times, I don’t even recognize you.”
“Did you imagine me doing my job dressed as I used to?”
That put a small smile on his lips. “I liked how you looked back then.”
He was sending mixed signals that messed with her head and heart, and she didn’t like it. “People change,”
she said quietly. “Life happens and they grow up. Not that it matters, since as you pointed out the other night, this is a temporary situation and we’re not going there anyway.”
He didn’t take the bait, just held her gaze. “What happened to you?”
You, she wanted to say. But there was no use in looking back. It wasn’t as if she could explain anyway. As always, the only road was straight ahead. She turned to the door, stared at it, and realized she couldn’t hold her tongue after all. “You seem to like giving me crap about how different I am, but you’ve changed too.”
“Yeah? How?”
She slowly faced him again. “You used to be accepting, nonjudgmental, kind . . .”
“I think you just described a golden retriever,”
he said dryly.
She tossed up her hands. She had more important things to worry about than verbally sparring with the first man who’d broken her heart. “I’ve got to get to work.”
“The zoo.”
He met her gaze. “Kick ass, Oli. You’ll be great.”
The sincerity caught her off guard. “How do you know?”
He shrugged. “Because that London campaign you did to raise awareness for emergency preparedness week, where you gave out foam ducks printed with the city’s logo and website to every kid who completed their passport at the emergency preparedness event, was a massive hit.”
He smiled. “Oh, and when you were hired to increase attendance at a Texas rodeo, you involved local politicians, getting them to chase bulls on national TV . . .”
Still smiling, he shook his head. “The pics alone spread the word far and wide. But my favorite might’ve been when you hosted a frozen turkey curling tournament inside a new building to raise the money needed to bring the summer fair inside, keeping people safe from a historic heat wave.”
She blinked in shock.
He gave a small grimace. “I couldn’t sleep on the floor of Joey’s room, so I did some googling.”
“Thought I was the one who shall not be named.”
“Things change.”
“Do they?”
“Yes.”
He ran a hand down his face. “Having you here, it’s . . .”
She inhaled, preparing herself for a mental blow.
“Not what I expected,”
he admitted quietly. “When you left and didn’t look back—”
“We both know I looked back. That I also came back when I could.”
She paused. “One of those times being when we . . .”
His intense gaze held hers utterly captive as she shut her mouth rather than open that massive can of churning, writhing worms. “Well. There’s really no reason to go there, right?”
Nothing. He said nothing.
Right, then. She nodded, mostly to herself. He didn’t want to discuss that visit five years ago, fine. Neither did she.
There was a small muscle ticking in his jaw as he seemed to struggle with words. “I’m talking about our friendship. What we meant to each other.”
She laughed sharply, hating the sound. “Don’t do that. Don’t put this all on me. We both avoided each other, and we both did a great job of it.”
Which was all she intended to say, because no matter what they’d done to each other, she was unwilling to hurt him with what his dad had asked of her, not to mention her agreeing to it. “I’ve gotta go.”
He gestured at the door with his mug. “By all means. You certainly know how.”
Closing her eyes for a beat, she drew a deep breath and walked out.