26. Chapter 26
Chapter 26
Riley
I tugged the bottom of the berry-colored plaid shirt dress Emery had forced me into a little lower and twisted in front of the mirror. The outfit was cute, I couldn’t argue with her there. The dress hit me mid-thigh, just short enough for the bottom of my tattoo to peek out as I moved. She had paired it with semi-sheer black tights, a cropped corduroy shirt, and dark brown Chelsea boots. The corduroy shirt would most likely end up tied around my waist by mid-morning due to the heat. She had braided my hair into a crown around my head. I looked more like an Instagram post about fall outfits, and less like I was going to an apple festival in the mountains.
I heard a car door close in our driveway and rushed to meet Matt at the door. His eyes moved over me slowly, his smile disappearing and eyes darkening the longer he looked at me. The paper around the bouquet of sunflowers he held crunched as his fist tightened around it and I couldn’t stop myself from focusing on the way his forearm and hand flexed. My breath caught as my eyes moved up his arm and I noticed he wore the same outfit he wore on our first date with a lightweight black bomber jacket over top, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. He wore his glasses again, his eyes crinkled behind them as he smiled at me.
How was it possible that this man could be more gorgeous every time I saw him?
“I should go change,” I said with another tug at the bottom of the dress.
Matt shook his head and took one of my hands in his to spin me around for a full look at my outfit. “Please don’t.” The way he looked at me told me this would be another dress Emery would not be getting back.
I glanced over his shoulder at the friend he brought with him. He was slightly shorter than me with short wavy dark hair that looked freshly cut, a short beard, and a stocky frame. He wore an army green button down open over a white T-shirt and dark wash jeans. “You must be Oliver,” I said to him. He nodded and smiled softly at me. I knew this wasn’t really a date, that we didn’t expect Oliver and Emery to hit it off even though I still secretly hoped they would. Seeing Oliver in person now told me that it was pointless to hope. He was so practically the opposite of her type.
Matt’s fingers rubbed over the hem of the dress and pulled my attention back to him. The way his hand brushed over my thigh made it hard to breathe. “Em, hurry up, they’re here!” I yelled over my shoulder toward the kitchen.
Matt pulled his attention away from my dress and placed the bouquet of sunflowers in my hand, folding my fingers around it like he needed an excuse to touch me. His hand moved up my arm and over my shoulders until he cupped the back of my head while his other hand lifted my chin pulling me in for a kiss. “Hi,” he said against my lips before our mouths joined.
“Riley, can you come help me for a second?” I jumped and turned around to see Emery in the doorway of the kitchen. Her jaw clenched, and her eyes fixed on Oliver. She forced a smile when her eyes flicked to mine.
I placed the flowers in the vase I had prepared on the coffee table, something I had started doing any time Matt was coming over without even thinking, before joining her in the kitchen.
She gestured to the three dairy free pumpkin spice lattes in paper to go cups decorated with fall leaves on the counter. “I only made three,” she told me. “You didn’t tell me that someone else was coming with us.”
“Oh yeah, I thought we could make this a double date. I know you probably get tired of third wheeling with us all the time. Just make another one.”
She sighed as she started the espresso machine. “That’s not the point.” She reached for a cup and worked quickly adding ingredients to it.
I twisted the bottom of the cropped shirt and focused on the cup instead of Emery’s face. “I thought it was time for us to play matchmaker for you.”
She rolled her eyes and focused harder on the latte she was making.
I looked into the living room to check on the guys. Oliver looked around at all of Emery’s décor. Matt’s focus was on the kitchen doorway. He smiled when he caught me looking. I looked back at Emery. “Just play along. If you don’t like him, that’s fine. Just be nice, okay? He’s Matt’s best friend.”
She finished the latte and then handed two to me, picking up the other two and making her way to where the guys stood in front of the tv stand. I followed behind her. Oliver pressed the button on the front of the musical haunted house figure and jumped back in surprise as lights flashed and it started to play creepy music overlayed with monster noises.
Matt shook his head at him, “I told you not to touch anything.”
“Matt, aren’t you going to introduce us?” Emery asked, coming up behind them.
Both men turned to face us. Oliver’s eyes widened when he saw Emery. Matt didn’t notice. His eyes were fixed on where I stood behind Emery. “Yeah, um, Emery, this Oliver. Oliver, this is Riley’s sister Emery,” he said with a quick wave of his hand between them. He moved around Emery to reach me, and I wasn’t sure if he wanted out of firing range or if he just needed to get his hands back on me. It was probably both.
Oliver stuck out a hand like he was going for a handshake but transitioned to a small wave when he noticed her full hands. “Hi, Matt’s told me a lot about you,” he said.
“Don’t listen to anything he says. I promise I’m not as bad as he probably told you.” She held one of the lattes out to him. “Any food allergies?” she asked. She always asked people that the first time she offered them any food. She said it always bothered her that no one ever considered if the person they were giving food to might have food allergies and be too scared of speaking up.
“You are going to drive me crazy in this dress,” Matt whispered in my ear.
“There’s still time for me to change,” I whispered back.
“Don’t you dare.” He traced my lips with his thumb making my heart race. “I’m regretting our rules right now.”
I swallowed hard and flicked my eyes to his lips. “Rules can change.”
He shook his head and took a cup from me. The unspoken words between us weighed heavy in my chest. All I had to do was tell him what he meant to me, what I really wanted.
“I’m driving,” Emery announced. She pointed at Matt before adding, “I’m not going to be in a wreck on my favorite day of the year because you’re too busy eye fucking my sister.”
I met Emery’s eyes, checking to see if she was okay. She always demanded to be the one driving. She hadn’t always been that way. Two years ago, she told me she hated being a passenger because she would get car sick if she wasn’t the one driving. She would never tell me why it was something that she hadn’t mentioned sooner.
Matt threw an arm around me. “That’s fine. We could use some time in the back seat being chauffeured around.”
Emery made a gagging noise as she walked out the door.
***
“They have pumpkins,” Matt said, pointing to a stand further down the field from where we were. “We should get some to carve.”
“I don’t know if Emery is going to leave any room in the wagon for that.” Emery added another apple to the plastic bag in her hand. There was already one in the wagon Oliver pulled for her. The wagon also carried various jellies, preserves, and cider.
“What is she going to do with all of that?”
I laughed. “We’re going to be test subjects to a lot of new recipes for a little while.”
Matt licked his lips. “I can’t complain about that. Everything she has forced us to eat so far has been amazing.” He pulled me against his side and planted a kiss against the side of my head. “You’re a good cook too, sweetheart.”
“She’s the better cook, you don’t have to humor me.” Emery had been helping our mom in the kitchen since she could stand on her own. My mom said it started out to help Emery work through the food anxiety she had developed soon after switching to solid foods and having multiple anaphylactic episodes. My parents learned about her milk allergy when she was a newborn but introducing solids led to the discovery of several other food allergies. She was always more likely to eat something if she had helped with preparing it, even at that young of an age. I would help sometimes but never had the same passion for food that Emery did. She had outgrown the majority of her allergies, but milk, tomatoes, and avocado were all still severe and required her to carry an EpiPen.
Emery paid the vendor and added the second bag of apples to the wagon. Oliver followed behind her as she joined us. “I want to check out those pumpkins,” she said. She continued on to the stand with pumpkins that Matt had pointed out to me without waiting for a response from us.
“Is she mad at us?” Matt asked me. Emery had been short with us since leaving the house. While we were getting ready, she hadn’t shut up about all the recipes she had planned and how excited she was for the festival. After meeting Oliver, she switched to only communicating when necessary. I had noticed the two of them exchanging tense looks when they thought Matt and I weren’t watching. Oliver had still barely spoken.
“Probably.” I tugged his hand. “Let’s go get pumpkins. Then I want to get some pictures with those.” I pointed to the photobooth of painted scarecrows with the faces cut out.
***
“I need a break,” Emery said, taking a seat at the only empty picnic table. She took the handle of the wagon from Oliver, his hand flinching away as their fingers brushed. If Emery noticed she didn’t show it, pulling the wagon in front of her and digging through it.
“Anyone ready for lunch?” Matt asked.
I glanced at Emery to gauge her reaction. There were several food trucks here but eating anywhere she couldn’t vet beforehand always stressed her out. I didn’t know if she had been able to do any research on them beforehand. “Do you want to try to eat here or were you planning to eat somewhere in town?” I asked her when she didn’t look up at Matt’s question.
She looked over at the food trucks barely visible through the crowd. She chewed her lip and reached for her phone. “Last year the crowds in town were so bad we were stuck waiting for hours,” she said.
“We can take the risk here, if you want.”
She chewed on her lip more, eyes flicking between the trucks. I could see the wheels turning as she decided if it was worth trying to get accurate allergen information from the vendors.
“You could do a hamburger, right? I’m sure we could get them to show us their ingredients,” Matt offered.
She gave a cautious nod.
“But the tomatoes. How big of a cross contamination risk would that be?” Oliver asked.
Matt, Emery, and I all snapped our attention him. “I, um, mentioned it while we were looking at preserves,” Emery tripped over her words as she dropped her eyes to the wagon.
My eyes caught Matt’s. “I don’t believe her,” I tried to tell him with my eyes. He shrugged but his eyes widened, and I saw a flash of panic.
“Shit,” he mouthed silently.
“Let’s go get in line and see what we can do. If I can’t get a straight answer, we can go somewhere else.” I pulled Matt with me leaving Emery and Oliver alone at the table.
“She’s lying about something,” I told Matt once we were far enough away.
“Riley, I think I messed up,” Matt said over me. I lifted a brow at him. “I’ve been so focused on you I didn’t even register how they were acting toward each other.”
I came to a stop and crossed my arms while I waited for him to explain. “I thought she was just taking out her anger with us on him but then he said the thing about tomatoes, and it clicked. Oliver has an ex that he never told me her name. On our way over I was telling him about Emery, and he sort of flinched when I said her name.”
“You think it was her?”
“Maybe. It was a couple years ago, so I never met her or anything. He wouldn’t even show me pictures of her. All I know is that she broke his heart. He’s still pretty messed up over it.”
I looked back to the table, trying to catch a glimpse through the moving crowd. I could see Oliver rubbing a hand over his beard. Emery fidgeted with her necklace. Both wore tense expressions.
“Emery’s relationship history is rough, but she won’t talk to me about it. Three years ago, she and her fiancé broke up.” Emery’s ex-fiancé was the only one of her exes I had ever met. Mostly only at family gatherings. He never interacted much with us, but I had never liked the way Emery was around him. Her whole personality changed. “It wasn’t Oliver,” I added to clarify for Matt.
“You think they met after?”
I nodded, still watching them through the crowd. “She wasn’t herself around that time.”
Matt moved forward with the line, pulling me behind him. “I’ll ask him about it later.”
I kept my eyes on them as we moved with the line. There was a split second where Emery’s face lit up as Oliver tucked her hair behind her ear. I squeezed Matt’s hand, trying to direct his attention to them. The moment didn’t last long enough for him to see. Matt turned me forward gently and tucked me into his side.
“Everything is going to be okay,” he said to me.
“I know. I just want my sister to be as happy as I am.” I buried my face against Matt’s shoulder hiding the blush that covered my face.
His hand stroked my jaw but didn’t force me to look at him. “You make me happy too, sweetheart.”
The line in front of us moved quickly and I took a few deep breaths to prepare myself for the interaction. The woman at the window was patient as I told her about Emery’s allergies and asked questions. She showed me the package for the burger buns so I could check the ingredients myself. As I looked over it, she shared that her son had food allergies, so she understood the struggle. She let us come around to the door of the truck so we could watch them prepare our food and advised that the lettuce came pre-shredded so it would be safe for Emery to have lettuce and pickles, but she would need to skip the onions since they were prepped at the same time as the tomatoes. They opened a fresh bag of lettuce and jar of pickles in front of us so there would be zero risk of cross contamination. I couldn’t believe how thorough they were and made a mental note to find their social media pages so I could leave a review.
My mood deflated when we made it back to Oliver and Emery. They sat so far apart I wasn’t sure how they were both on the bench seat, the tension so thick it felt like walking into a wall.
“You kids having fun?” Matt asked in a forced old man voice and pulled his glasses down to sit at the edge of his nose, right when I lifted my apple cider slushie to take a sip. The freezing liquid shot out of my nose and dribbled down my face. It wasn’t that funny, but the air was so tense at the table I couldn’t help myself. I was too shocked to react, my sinuses burning and making my eyes water. “Oh my god, sweetheart, I’m so sorry.” He grabbed a wad of napkins and dabbed at my face.
I laughed and took the napkins from his hand to clean myself up. I looked at Emery to see her holding back a laugh for the first time since the guys showed up. “I’m glad you think this is funny,” I said.
She looked down at her burger and started pulling it apart to check for any visible cross contamination. Matt filled her in on our experience at the truck. I caught Oliver sneaking glances at her as he listened.
“Hey, Matt, I forgot to grab mayo packets. Could you go get me one?” I flicked my eyes to Oliver and back to Matt.
“Yeah, sure. Oliver, you should come with me. There, uh, was something over there I wanted to show you.”
Oliver’s brows pulled together clearly seeing through whatever Matt and I were trying to do. Matt stood and waited for Oliver to follow him.
“Spill,” I said to Emery once the guys were out of earshot.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re not as sneaky as you think you are.”
“Admit you’re in love with Matt and I’ll tell you how I know Oliver.” She crossed her arms in front of her and raised her eyebrow as a challenge.
I smirked and picked at my fries. “That’s all I needed for now.”
“He’s not my type, you know that. He’s too short.” She narrowed her eyes, the corners of her mouth twitching like they always did when she lied.
I shrugged and chewed a fry. “Okay.”
“And he’s too nice,” she added. That was an interesting observation. He had been so reserved over the course of the morning I wasn’t sure how she could say he was too nice. I expected her to say he was too grumpy. Then again him being grumpy would make him her type. He did have a patient air around him, and from what Matt had told me he was a nice person. At least, he was nice to the people close to him. Matt had also shared that he hadn’t been himself recently and warned me he might not make the best impression today.
I struggled to keep my face straight and shoveled in a couple more fries. “Fascinating. Tell me more.”
“He doesn’t have any tattoos.”
I snorted. “That’s an interesting thing to know considering he’s in jeans and a long sleeve shirt. He could be just as covered as you are.”
Emery’s mouth moved as she tried to speak but no words came out. Matt and Oliver returned before she could gather herself. Matt gave me a low thumbs up as he walked toward us.
“Oliver, Matt’s told me that you might have some embarrassing stories to share about him,” I prodded. I knew all about how much of a nerd Matt had been growing up, about how much he had been bullied. He’d shared a few stories, even shown me a few photos of his awkward years. Every time we talked about it he said the stories would be better if I heard them from Oliver.
“Tell her about the trombone one.” Matt tapped a finger against the bridge of his own nose in the same spot where it looked like Oliver’s had been broken.
Oliver chuckled. “I don’t know, man, do you really want me to tell her about that? Shouldn’t I be telling her stories to make you look cool?”
Matt put on his best serious look, his mouth twitching and shoulders shaking as he held back a laugh. “You know as well as anyone there is no making me look cool.”
“That ship has already sailed,” I added.
Matt clutched his chest. “Ouch,” he groaned. “Here I was thinking you liked me.”
I patted his head. “It’s okay, we all know I like you because you’re a giant dork.”