Chapter 23
twenty-three
REID
WHEN OLLIE TOLD us he’d be right back, I figured he was going to the restroom or maybe the bar for more food or drinks. What I didn’t expect was that he’d walk straight over to a surfer-looking guy, who greeted him with a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
Whatever Deb had been saying faded into the background as I zeroed in on their interaction.
The guy rubbed Ollie’s spine before Ollie broke off the embrace and took a step back.
But as the two continued to converse, the other guy touched Ollie’s arm and leaned back into him to whisper something in his ear.
The way the blond smiled at him and invaded his personal space made me think they’d been intimate with each other at some point.
Or maybe even now. Ollie had said he was single, but maybe that didn’t refer to hookups.
I pushed my beer away as my stomach began to churn, and when the guy’s hand slid up Ollie’s arm again, a different scene sprang to my mind—one at a bowling alley with a guy in a red shirt, staring at Ollie in a way that made me want to give them privacy, but also made my blood heat.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I noticed you were giving your friend pointers, and I thought…maybe you could help me as well?” red shirt guy said, ignoring me completely as he licked his lips and smiled at Ollie.
“Actually, I’m a little busy—” Ollie said from where he stood beside me and had been showing me the right technique for keeping my bowling ball out of the gutter.
“That’s okay. I’m a quick learner.” He gave Ollie a long once-over. “It won’t take long.”
“I don’t think—”
“You should go.” The words came out of my mouth automatically, even though that was the last thing I wanted. “It’s selfish to keep you all to myself when you could be helping someone else.”
“Reid?”
My eyes snapped up to Ollie’s from where I’d apparently been staring off into space while lost in whatever that had been. That couldn’t have been a memory. I’d never been at a bowling alley with Ollie. Had I drifted off to sleep standing up or something?
I shook my head, erasing the images from my mind. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“Everything okay?” Ollie asked, coming around the table to stand beside me. When I looked up, Deb and Mike had resumed their conversation, but I could see them peeking over to see what was going on.
Way to make a scene by daydreaming, Reid.
“Everything’s good. Maybe need to lay off the drinks and eat something,” I said, and reached for another nacho.
“Yeah, of course, let’s go ahead and order. Did you decide what you want already?”
“Hmm. What’s good?”
Ollie flipped open a menu, and we both scanned over it. “Their chicken enchiladas are amazing, but I gotta say, their fish tacos bring it home for me.”
Something flickered on the edges of my mind. “Tacos?”
“Yeah. You like tacos, right?”
“With homemade seasoning,” I murmured. A mixing bowl. Spices spread out along the counter, and Ollie pouring them one at a time as he smiled at…me?
“Well, I don’t know how homemade the seasoning is here, but it gets the job done. You’ll have to come over the next time I make some and try it out.”
My forehead creased, and I rubbed it with my thumb. “You make your own?”
“It’s the only way.”
“Right.” I knew that. How did I know that?
“So what do you think?” Ollie said. “Wanna try ’em out?”
I could hear him talking, but all my mind could seem to focus on was the image of Ollie mixing spices. Get it together before he decides to cut the night short and take you home. “Sure. Fish tacos sound great.”
And they were. Fresh and perfectly flaky with some kind of creamy sauce that had me licking my fingers. When I moaned while savoring my last bite, Ollie chuckled.
“Doesn’t look like you enjoyed those at all. I really should give better recommendations,” he said.
“Yes, terrible choice. Absolutely hated them.” I grinned and sucked a bit of sauce from my finger, and Ollie’s eyes dropped down to my mouth.
But then he quickly looked away, over to where Mike and Deb two-stepped on the dance floor.
Or at least that was what I thought they were supposed to be doing.
Mike seemed to be making up a few moves, complete with hip thrusts that had Deb laughing her ass off.
“Your friends are pretty interesting,” I said.
“That’s a nice way to put it.”
“I mean that in a good way. You’re lucky to have people who care about you the way they obviously do.”
“You think?”
“Yeah. They seem protective in that way that says they’ll kick the ass of anyone who messes with you. And they welcomed me tonight with no hesitation, not even knowing anything about me other than you invited me. Not to mention they’re hilarious.”
“Oh God. Please don’t say any of this to Mike. It’s already hard enough to get his ego through the door.”
I let out a laugh, because I had no doubt that was true, or at least half true. Mike seemed to be in on the joke. “Did you guys meet at work?”
“No, actually. We met before that.” He stopped and gripped the back of his neck as his cheeks turned pink. “I, uh, dated Deb’s cousin, so I’d met them at some dinner or…something.”
“Oh. So you could’ve been family, huh?”
“Well, they’re the closest thing I have to family, so yeah. I guess you could say I got them in the breakup.”
The closest thing to family? “You don’t have brothers or sisters? Family nearby?”
He shook his head. “I’m an only child. My parents passed away when I was seventeen, and I’ve been on my own ever since.”
Holy shit. For some reason, I wasn’t all that surprised at his words, but I was surprised at how they affected me.
An intense wave of sympathy and crushing sadness filled my chest as I realized this man beside me, who I’d thought was so sure of himself when I met him, was all alone in the world, save for Mike and Deb.
Or did he have anyone else? Aunts, uncles, cousins?
Grandparents? I got the feeling if I asked him, he’d tell me no, because wouldn’t they have taken him in when his parents passed?
And again I felt the twinge of guilt for how I’d treated my own parents over the last few weeks.
As if reading my thoughts, Ollie said, “It’s okay. I’m not a sob story, I promise.” Then he nudged me, trying to lighten the mood, but something else had popped into my brain, something that came out of nowhere but I knew to be true, though I didn’t know how.
“They died in a car accident, didn’t they? Your parents?”
Ollie’s brows shot up. “Good guess.”
But it wasn’t a guess. At least, I didn’t think it was. Shit. Had my accident caused me to become clairvoyant or something? First the bowling guy, then the taco seasoning, and now this? “Yeah,” I said, swallowing. “Lucky guess.”
As I looked over to where Mike and Deb were slow-dancing in the middle of the crowded floor, another pair of eyes nearby caught my attention.
Blond surfer guy was staring at Ollie…or maybe he was staring between the two of us, I couldn’t tell, and something about the way he looked in our direction made me want to hit him—a reaction that surprised the shit out of me, considering I wasn’t usually a violent person and I didn’t know him from Adam.
But when he didn’t look away, I finally asked Ollie who he was—not that it was any of my business.
Ollie looked over in the guy’s direction. “Who, Holland over there? He’s just someone I used to hang out with.”
Holland? What kind of a name is Holland? “Used to?”
“Yeah, I haven’t seen him in a while.”
“Why not?”
“Been busy.”
“But you used to date?”
He paused lifting his drink to his lips.
“I wouldn’t call it that,” he said, and then finished off the iced water he’d switched to just as Mike and Deb came back to the table, and that was the end of that.
I didn’t even know why I cared, but it bothered me that surfer guy had been anywhere near him.
From his actions in the car the other day to tonight, Ollie seemed like too good of a guy to attach himself to someone slimy like that.
Oh please. I wanted to roll my eyes at myself. He’s probably a perfectly decent guy. Then, like a devil was sitting on my shoulder, I thought, Yeah, a perfectly decent guy who’s been in Ollie’s pants.
I scrubbed a hand over my face. What the hell? It wasn’t like I gave a shit who anyone else dated, especially not some guy I’d just met. Emphasis on guy.
God, I was officially losing it.
And on top of that, I was suddenly hyperaware of where Ollie was at all times.
Every time he’d accidentally brush against my arm as he laughed at something Mike said, or when he’d reach across me to refill drinks, it felt like a shock of static.
I wondered if he even felt it on his end, because he didn’t jerk away like I did when it happened.
One thing that stood out to me—Ollie smiled a lot, a genuine, wide grin that lit up his face.
Sitting so close, I even noticed the small scar along the edge of his jaw, which I’d never seen before because it was mostly hidden by the scruff he kept trimmed down short, but it was there. I wondered how he’d gotten it.
“Do I have something on my face?” he asked, wiping his beard as he caught me staring.
“Uh, yeah, some sauce or something right there,” I lied, pointing to a spot on my chin, and he swept away the imaginary crumb.
“Did I get it?”
Damn, he had piercing eyes, so light green tonight that they almost glowed. They were the kind that forced you to spill all your secrets, but promised to keep them safe and hidden.
“Yeah,” I said, my voice coming out gravelly, and I cleared my throat. “Yeah, you got it.”