Love Me Endlessly Sneak Peek
Turn the page for sneak peek at Emery and Oliver's story.
Love Me Endlessly
Coming Fall 2025
Chapter1
Now- Emery
I stood in the kitchen adding topping off my dairy free pumpkin spice lattes with pumpkin pie seasoning. I had spent years perfecting this recipe after having my heart broken as a teenager over not being able to partake in the most popular drink of my favorite season. Story of my life, growing up with food allergies, had always been a life of feeling left out and learning to create alternatives.
The front door opened, and voices filled the living room. “Em, hurry up, they’re here.”
They?
I poked my head around and my breathe caught when I saw the man with freshly cut dark hair just long enough on top to show a slight curl and a short neatly trimmed beard standing behind my sister’s boyfriend – well not boyfriend according to her. His hands were shoved in the pockets of his jeans as he took in all the fall décor that covered the room. It looked like the fall section of Home Goods had thrown up in our living room, just the way I liked it. He wore a dark green button down open over a white t-shirt, the sleeves were bunched around the top of his wrists from his pockets. That outfit always looked better when he rolled those sleeves up. The silver chain around his neck that disappeared under the collar of his shirt was new.
“Riley, can you come help me for a second?” I said with a forced smile.
My sister placed the flowers she was holding in the vase she had prepared on the coffee table before joining me in the kitchen. Matt was always bringing her flowers, way more than necessary, so she always had a vase ready for them now-a-days. I gestured to the three lattes in paper to-go cups decorated with fall leaves. Those cups had brought me so much joy when I saw them at the store last week, but right now looking at them made my stomach burn. “I only made three,” I told her. “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.”
I sighed and started the espresso machine while I prepped another cup with my homemade pumpkin sauce. “That’s not the point.”
She twisted the bottom button of the cropped corduroy shirt I told her to wear over her navy plaid dress. “I thought it was time for us to play matchmaker for you.” The natural down turn of her lips was exaggerated by her worry and her cool brown eyes were wide. The wild curls that framed her face fell over her eyes.
Our features were nearly identical, some people thought we were twins, and I wondered if the look on my face was the same. We didn’t look as much alike now as we used to since I constantly changed my hair style, and we styled our makeup differently. We weren’t total opposites when it came to our styles, never had been, but there were enough differences. Our mannerisms on the other hand, have been and will always be identical.
I rolled my eyes, knowing she was thinking about what I had said to her during the summer while pushing her to use dating apps. I needed help, we both knew it, but I wasn’t ready yet.
I had been testing the waters, but she didn’t know that. There were a lot of things my sister didn’t know about my dating history, even if she was my best friend. The most important thing she didn’t know was that the man standing in our living room wasn’t a stranger.
The man that stood in our living room was the only man that had ever been good to me.
I poured oat milk into the milk steamer.
Riley looked into the living room and then back at me. “Just play along. If you don’t like him, that’s fine. Just be nice, okay? He’s a friend of Matt’s.”
I schooled my face into a neutral expression of flashes of memories washed over me. I had known Matt looked familiar when I had shown him to Riley on the dating app back in June, but I thought he just had one of those faces. After hearing his full name at the district meeting all the stories I'd heard about him came rushing back to me. I had been even more sure then that he would be perfect for my sister.
I just never expected Oliver's path would cross with mine again because of them.
I finished the latte with unsteady hands and then handed two to my sister, who was standing there with a guilty look on her face. I picked up the other two and made my way to where the guys stood in front of the tv stand. Matt’s friend pressed the button on the front of the musical haunted house figure. He 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?” I asked, coming up behind them.
Both men turned to face me. His friend’s eyes widened, but I gave him a quick shake of my head. His eyes dipped and fixed on the deep purple corduroy mini skirt I wore over semi-sheer black tights with a cropped light weight cream sweater that slouched off on shoulder showing off my tattoos there. I wondered if he was thinking about how much he used to like this skirt. I watched his eyes move lower and take in the new tattoos covering my legs that were just barely visible through the tights. I had been slowly covering myself in them since before we met, but in the last year I had started to run out of blank skin.
Matt was looking behind me at Riley and didn’t seem to notice the movement. “Yeah, um, Emery, this Oliver. Oliver, this is Riley’s sister Emery,” he said with a quick wave of his hand between us.
Oliver stuck out a hand ready to shake on our faux introduction but noticed my full hands. He transitioned to a small wave. “Hi, Matt’s told me a lot about you,” he said.
I rolled my eyes and then glanced at Matt. “Don’t listen to anything he says. I promise I’m not as bad as he probably told you.” I was probably worse than anything Matt had said about me, and Oliver knew it.
I started to offer a cup to him, but stopped, remembering the question I always ask every new person. My sister may be distracted, but I still couldn’t risk her noticing. “Any food allergies?” I asked him. Most people never consider checking for allergies before offering anyone food, but for me it was a given. It was a courtesy I wish more people would give me.
He paused, stunned by my question. We both knew that I knew the answer. I motioned with one of the cups over my shoulder at Matt and Riley. “Please,” I mouthed at him.
I studied his thick dark brows and deep brown eyes while I waited for his answer. Those eyes had haunted my memories for two years.
“No food allergies,” he finally responded. His voice came out steady and clear, his accent controlled the way it always was when he was trying to stay calm. The bastard was using his customer service voice on me.
I passed him a latte. “It’s dairy free. If you don’t like it, I don’t want to hear it.” He’d had this drink before; hell, he had helped me perfect it. Again, it was a statement meant more for the others in the room. I reached for my keys and a large crossbody bag hanging on the hook by the door. I normally preferred a smaller bag, one just big enough for my wallet and EpiPen case but today required a bag large enough to hold emergency snacks.
“I’m driving,” I told them all. I 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.”
Riley flicked her eyes to me for a silent check in. She knew I had to drive so I wouldn’t get car sick, or at least that’s what I always told her. I tried to avoid Oliver’s eyes. He knew the truth that I had never found the courage to tell my sister.
Matt threw an arm around Riley, “That’s fine. We could use some time in the back seat being chauffeured around.”
I made a gagging noise as I walked through the front door.
***
Oliver and I sat at the picnic table. I watched Riley and Matt walked toward the line for lunch until they were swallowed up by the crowd. He folded his hands on the tabletop. His hands were rough with calluses, scars, small cuts in various stages, and a spot that looked like a burn.
“Still not wearing gloves when you work on cars?” I asked him.
“I didn’t know it was you until you walked out of the kitchen,” he blurted out. He scrubbed a hand over his beard and then moved it to rub the back of his head. “I know Emery isn’t a common name, but he didn’t really tell me enough details to make me certain it was you. You’ve moved since before.”
I wondered if he’d had any suspicions when he saw Riley.
I reached for the small pendant on my necklace and slid it back and forth over the chain. “I didn’t know anything about this until you guys showed up.” I looked up to his eyes and searched for any sign of what he was thinking.
He drummed his hands on the table and glanced back to where Matt and Riley had wondered off to find a food truck for lunch. “So, your sister doesn’t know about me?”
I looked down at my lap as I shook my head. “She doesn’t know a lot about any of my past relationships.” His hand crept into my field of vision, and he rubbed his thumb over the back of my hand. My skin prickled at the touch. My head shot up as I narrowed my eyes at him. “Would you just go ahead and get this over with?”
“Get what over with?”
“Yell at me, tell me you hate me. Whatever it is you need to say to me.” I pulled my hand away from him, crossing my arms over my chest.
He snorted. “Em, I’m not going to yell at you.”
Of course he wasn’t going to, he never did. Even when I deserved it. Even when I was so scared I ruined everything because I was tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop.
In the sea of abuse and toxicity that had been my past, Oliver was the only bright spot. The one I didn’t deserve.
“But what I did to you was -”
“Very shitty,” he finished for me.
“I’m trying to get better,” I told him. It was too little, too late. I knew that. My therapist knew that. Hurting Oliver Franklin would always be at the top of my list of mistakes.
“Your sister makes Matt happier than I’ve ever seen him,” Oliver said pulling me from my thoughts.
“He does the same for her.”
“He told me that he thinks she’s the one.” He bounced his knee against mine. “He’s my best friend, so I imagine that we’re going to keep crossing paths.”
I shook my head. “No, I can find a way to make sure you don’t have to see me anymore.”
“Look, you hurt me, and I understand why you did it, but it still hurt. All I’m saying, is I can play nice if you can.”
Play nice, I can do that. It’s the least I can do.
He worked his jaw and rubbed the thumb of his right hand over the burn on the back of his left. There were lines on his forehead and between his eyebrows that weren’t there two years ago, the type of lines that come from carrying extra stress and worry. He had always been so serious, so focused, now he looked like the years had taken their toll.
“How are Granny and Pop?” I asked.
His hand went to the chain around his neck tucked under his shirt and then he pulled it away quickly. “I don’t want to talk about them.”
I looked back down at my hands on the table. Ollie had never shied away from talking about things when I asked, even the hard things he didn’t like talking about.
“I like your hair like this,” he said.
I looked up at him and smiled softly as I tucked the highlighted front pieces of my short shaggy bob behind my ears. I had gone through several different styles in the short time we knew each other, and a few more after. I had decided to go back to my natural ash brown last year but added highlights over the summer. I don’t think he had ever seen it this close to natural. “You always said that no matter what I did to it.”
For a moment his face softened, and his mouth lifted in a smile. It was like we had slipped back into the past. “You look beautiful no matter what.” Just like that he was the man that cheered me on every time I start scrolling through hair inspiration because I was bored and wanted a change. He was the man that handed me a pair of clippers the day that I got frustrated and said I was going to just shave it all off and told me I would look badass with a buzz cut.
Then his jaw tensed, and his brows knitted together as he cleared his throat. “You look happier now.”
I shrugged my shoulders. I was happier. In the two years since I last saw him, I had been putting in the work. I was in a place where I felt like I was starting to figure things out. After all that work, I still felt like there was a piece missing.
A piece that was now sitting next to me.
I swallowed back the “I missed you” that threatened to slip from my lips.