7. Oliver
SEVEN
Oliver
Four laughing customers spilled out of Marie’s as I grabbed the door and slipped right by them. My eyes scanned the lively space. It had a long wooden table in the middle and smaller mismatched vintage tables surrounding it. The bar on one side had a neon sign above it and Bev, along with another bartender, hustled behind it, trying to catch up with drink orders.
Giles waved at me from one of the smaller tables across the bar, by the windows. I nodded in acknowledgment before striding over to him. My lips instantly curved when I saw who he was with.
“Mattie, good to see you again,” I said, throwing her a smile before turning to Frankie. “Hello, Frankie. Fancy running into you at another bar.”
Frankie looked up from her plate before giving me a flat, “Hey.”
God, I could still remember what those lips felt like pressed against mine. Theoretically, I knew that Frankie made absolutely zero fucking sense. Career motivated was practically a con when it came to what I looked for in a woman. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thinking about a repeat of that kiss.
I pulled out the seat next to hers and sat down.
“How’s your first week going so far?” Mattie asked, a mischievous gleam in her eyes as she glanced between her sister and me.
“Honestly, amazing.” I tipped my head in Giles’s direction. “I’m glad he thought of me for this gig. I couldn’t think of a place I’d rather be this winter.”
“I’m just happy you could make it on such short notice,” Giles said, leaning into Mattie and slinging an arm around her chair.
“Trust me, there was no way I was turning this down.”
“Not a lot of prior commitments and responsibilities you had to untangle yourself from?” Frankie asked in a sarcastic tone.
“Frankie, don’t be rude,” Mattie hissed, but I chuckled.
Frankie rolled her eyes. “I was just messing with him. Oliver and I go way back, right?”
My grin widened as I turned to take her in. “Way back,” I confirmed.
I didn’t even care that I was supposed to be insulted by her jabs. She was right. I went through life with a low commitment level. It wasn’t like I was unreliable. I’d held plenty of steady jobs: teaching lessons at the climbing gym, working at a wilderness sports store, and a few other things depending on the season. But one could argue that I wasn’t the most stable person around—and I was proud of that.
“How were conditions today?” Mattie asked, changing the subject .
“Pretty good,” Giles said. “The powder we got last week is packed down by this point.”
“I’m pumped to check out some of the backside,” I said, referring to the more challenging terrain.
“We can all go together. Mattie is pretty good at this point too.” Giles pointed to his wife.
Mattie held up her hands. “I don’t know about that.”
“What about you?” I asked, turning to Frankie. “When are we going to get you out there?”
She recoiled at the thought. “How about two days after never.”
Mattie laughed. “Careful. I thought that once and now I love it.”
“Didn’t you also almost get yourself killed your first year learning?” Frankie retorted.
“That wasn’t her fault,” Giles said, his jaw clenching at the mention of whatever accident must have happened.
Before I could bug Frankie more on the subject, Bev stopped by our table and put her arm on the back of my chair. I had met her when I first arrived, and we’d run into each other a few times as I was getting to the apartment and she was leaving the house. She seemed warm and welcoming from what I could tell.
“Hey, you all have everything you need?” she asked, looking down at me and patting my shoulder.
“I just sat down,” I said. “I’ll head to the bar and grab a drink.”
“Don’t bother.” She waved her hand. “I’ll have someone send over a bottle of wine and another cheese platter.”
“Thanks, Bev,” Mattie said.
“Can I steal you two for a minute?” she asked, looking at Giles and Mattie. “That new shipment of glassware came in, and I swear it’s the wrong color. I don’t want the delivery guys to leave until we can confirm it.”
“Oh, crap. They already messed it up once,” Mattie said, getting up. “I can pull up the invoice.”
Giles scooted his chair out and followed her. “We’ll be a few minutes,” he said. “Feel free to order whatever and don’t wait on us.”
Frankie sighed audibly once we were alone, which, for some reason, tickled me even more.
“Not happy with my company?” I asked.
She eyed me. “You’re fine.” She spread some cheese onto a cracker and stuck it in her mouth. Crumbs coated her lips and she daintily wiped them away with her napkin.
“Then what?” I propped an elbow on the table, letting my chin rest in my hand as I stared at her. “Afraid to be left alone with me? Better watch the wine or you might end up making out with me again.”
“I’m having a shit week.” She pointed the butter knife at me. “And that kiss was just as much you as it was me. And for your information, I’ve already had my one and only glass of wine for the night. I have a lot of stuff to do when I get back.”
“Like what?” I pressed.
“Like apply to hundreds more jobs and watch as control of my life slowly slips through my fingertips.” She frowned and stuffed another piece of cheese into her mouth.
Her dramatics made me chuckle, but when she scowled at me, I cleared my throat. “You’ll find something,” I said, hoping I sounded upbeat and optimistic.
“I appreciate the vote of confidence from the man who moved to a ski town late-season to work part time giving lessons,” she said. Again, I should be insulted, but her playful tone only begged me to exchange more barbs with her.
“Hey, you snob,” I responded, knocking her knee with mine underneath the table. “I’ll have you know, lessons are very lucrative.”
“Is that right?” she asked in mock disbelief.
My grin spread ear to ear. She was impossible. I liked the way her eyes glimmered when we were sparring like this. She seemed so uptight on the outside, yet something about her made me feel like she didn’t take herself too seriously. She was a riddle I hadn’t quite figured out.
“Tell me,” I continued. “Why was your week so bad aside from the obvious?”
She sighed, slumping her shoulders. “The obvious obviously being me losing my job.”
“Obviously.”
She smiled at that. “Well, let’s see.” She held a finger up. “To start, I haven’t found a single job listing that I’m actually interested in.”
My brow furrowed. “I thought you said you had dozens to apply to.”
“I do.”
I searched her face. The chatter in the restaurant had grown louder as the bar quickly became standing room only, but I found myself only focused on Frankie. “I don’t get it,” I finally said.
She sighed. “I need a job, Oliver. What’s there to understand? It’d be nice if it was at a company I was interested in with a job description I found compelling, but that’s not how the world works. I’ll apply to everything, and I’ll take whatever I can get.”
I winced. “That sounds absolutely brutal. I could never do that.” I couldn’t relate to anything less. I’d gone out of my way to make sure every job I’d done in my adult life had been something I was passionate about.
“Some of us don’t have a choice,” she said, her tone more defeated than it was a second ago. The teasing had been sucked away and replaced with some level of despair. Was that my doing?
“I didn’t mean to bum you out.” I stared at her, willing her to look back up at me.
“It’s not you,” she said in a tone that didn’t convince me at all. She glanced at me and then back down at the table. “Like I said, I’m just having a hard time.”
I paused, taking her in. “And being in a place as beautiful as this doesn’t help?” I pointed outside the window, where the snow glowed underneath the moonlight. It was only 5:30, but it was completely dark. I loved that about the winter—the evening sky overtaking everything so early. There was something magical about a winter night.
“It’s hard to focus on anything except what a failure I am, if I’m being honest,” she muttered, refusing to make eye contact with me.
Damn. That tugged right at my chest. Hearing her call herself a failure gutted me. We sat in silence for a moment, the clinking of silverware echoing in my ears. Something in me desperately needed to fix the hopelessness written all over her face.
“You want to know who my brother is?” I finally asked.
That seemed to take her by surprise because she looked up at me and tilted her head. “What? Why would I care who your brother is?”
“You might have heard of him. Nathan Shaw?”
She pursed her lips. “That sounds familiar…”
“He cofounded the dating app Pulse from his college dorm room. He’s worth like millions of dollars.” I started to fiddle with the napkin in front of me, folding it into tiny triangles over and over again.
It took a moment, but then her eyes bulged at the revelation. I was used to that reaction. “Holy shit. I’ve heard of him. That’s your brother?”
“Sure is.”
“Damn,” she breathed, assessing me in a whole new light. “That’s…interesting.”
I ignored the way she said interesting , as if the fact that we were somehow related was as odd as two entirely different species being connected.
“He’s always been the wildly successful one. Not saying I feel like a failure or anything but…I don’t know, I’ve definitely felt like there were times in my life when I haven’t measured up.”
That felt weird to share. I hated talking about feelings or anything deep. But seeing her crestfallen face had made me want to offer her some sort of crumb of empathy. I couldn’t sit by and make another joke while she was clearly miserable.
We both sat in the quiet for a moment before she leaned back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest. I took a sip of water just to have something to do.
“Is he hiring?” she asked.
I nearly choked on the water sliding down my throat. I coughed a few times, a small tear forming in the corner of my eye.
She laughed at my shocked face. “Kidding,” she said. “I mean, half kidding of course. I am desperate, after all.”
“Damn. You’re cutthroat,” I said. “I just shared an intimate detail about my life, and that’s all you have to say?”
A waiter interrupted us then to drop off a bottle of wine. I thanked him, but could barely take my eyes off Frankie. Her cheeks reddened as she looked out the window before sneaking a glance back at me.
When the waiter left, she said, “Sorry. I hate talking about this—about how sad my life has become. I thought I’d be celebrating a promotion right now, not starting over.” Her shoulders slumped forward, as if she was trying to close in on herself.
Hell, I hated talking about stuff like this too. Wading into deeper conversational waters was never something I led the way in. I was chilling in the shallow end all day long. I just wanted to see her smile again. It was like a challenge I had to win.
“Then let’s talk about something else,” I said.
“Like what?”
Before answering, I poured myself a glass of wine and held up the bottle as an offering to Frankie. Her gaze dropped to her empty glass, and despite her earlier insistence she’d only have one drink, she pushed it toward me. The red wine splashed into her glass. I held up mine and, to my surprise, she clinked it without argument.
“To start, we can talk about how you really can’t spend the rest of your time in Key Ridge applying to jobs. That’s the most depressing thing I’ve ever heard.”
“More depressing than an unemployed twenty-eight-year-old?” she challenged.
I leveled her with a look. “Are you kidding? An unemployed twenty-eight-year-old sounds exciting as hell.”
“Maybe to someone like you,” she mumbled, barely audible.
“I heard that. And I’m choosing not to take offense to your stuck-up little attitude. Just because I’m not working some corporate job does not make me worse off.”
It was easy to be underestimated. I didn’t have a fancy job or a college degree. Most of the time, it didn’t bother me. The life I’d built kept me surrounded by like-minded people. But I wasn’t completely immune to it. Plenty of dates had written me off the moment they learned that little detail, as if skipping college hadn’t been a deliberate choice that I made.
“Sorry.” Frankie at least had the decency to look guilty. Her life probably so heavily revolved around what someone’s job title was, or where they worked. Just as she was an enigma to me, I was likely a mystery to her.
I took a sip of wine, letting it slosh around in my glass before I leaned in closer to her, doing my best to ignore her pillowy lips. “Let me help you.”
Her eyes widened at that. “Help me with what? Landing a job? No offense, but I hardly?—”
I held up a hand. “Let me stop you right there before you lob another mildly offensive insult in my direction. I’m not talking about your employment situation.”
She set her glass down and angled her body toward mine. “Then what are you talking about?”
“I don’t know. Life. Fun. Adventure. I’ll help you let loose a little and not become this boring person who only cares about what title they’re holding.”
“I don’t only care about that,” she objected. But when I raised an eyebrow and dipped my chin, she snapped her mouth shut without further argument.
“Look, you said it yourself. You were planning to call it an early night, only to fill out more applications. I know we just met, and I know you’re going through a bit of a crisis, but that’s sad, Frankie.”
“Most would argue that’s actually the responsible thing to do,” she pointed out.
“Well, I’m not most people. And you’re telling me you can’t find time in that packed schedule of yours to have a little fun?”
She didn’t answer immediately, her eyes losing focus as if weighing her options. “I don’t even know how long I’ll be here.” The protest was weak, and I knew I almost had her.
“All the more reason to live it up while you’re here,” I said. “Soon enough, you’ll be back at a desk, plugging away at whatever it is you do. But right now, you can spare some time and actually enjoy yourself.”
She leaned back in her chair. Her eyes moved to the window, where large snowflakes now fell outside.
My body tingled with energy, waiting for her response.
Finally, she let out a sigh and said in a small voice, “Why would you want to help me ? You don’t even know me.”
It was the same point she’d made at the bar the other day. But as I stared into her eyes that seemed to hold one million thoughts, I couldn’t help but think that she was wrong. Or at the very least, that she would be wrong. Knowing her seemed inevitable. I could feel it in my bones.
“But I want to know you,” I said.
Before I had my answer, Mattie and Giles returned to the table, pulling out their seats.
“Sorry about that,” Mattie said, sitting down. “They were, in fact, the wrong glasses. Took a minute to sort it out with the delivery driver.”
“All good now?” Frankie asked, her eyes still glued to mine.
“It’s all sorted,” Giles said. “We interrupt something?”
I grinned. “Nope, just talking about how Frankie and I should hang out more, since we’re both new in town, after all.”
The way her eyes lit up made me want to tug her seat closer to mine.
Mattie let out a small laugh. “What are you planning to do? ”
“I don’t know. Snowboard? Hike? The possibilities are endless,” I said.
“Good luck with that.” Mattie pointed at me. “Frankie isn’t exactly the most athletically inclined.”
“Neither are you,” Frankie shot back.
Giles chuckled. “Mattie has come a long way.”
“I’m not unathletic,” Frankie insisted.
“Remember track and field? Sophomore year of high school.”
Frankie tossed her head back and groaned at that. “That happened over ten years ago. I was doing fine until I sprained my ankle.”
“ Allegedly .” Mattie raised her eyebrows before taking a sip of wine. “I still think you faked it so you could quit.”
“Okay, first of all, you weren’t even there when I fell, and second off—” Frankie held up another finger and launched into a prepared argument I had a feeling the two had already gone through many times in the past.
Their dynamic made me smile. I glanced over at Giles to see if he was enjoying the sibling spar as much as I was, but he ran a hand down his face. He caught my eye and gave a small shake of his head. Maybe he didn’t know what to make of the two of them. He was an only child, after all. Mattie and Frankie weren’t much like Nathan and me, but I could still recognize the intricacies of a sibling relationship when I saw one.
Nathan and I hadn’t fought much growing up, but at the same time, we also never got along. There was an unspoken rivalry there, something put in place by our parents that we never quite understood but accepted all the same. Except it wasn’t the two of us battling for the best grades or being the football star or some crap like that. We were battling lifestyles—our parents’ lifestyles to be more specific. Dad had Nathan working like a dog in school, while my mother worked on crafting me to be her upbeat sidekick. Sounded fun in theory. In reality, it fucked with all of our heads.
“Where’s the doctor’s note, then?” Mattie demanded, breaking me from my thoughts.
“Oh my God, I didn’t think I’d need to keep it for decades . How was I supposed to know my own sister would use this incident to question my integrity for the rest of our lives?” Frankie lightly smacked my shoulder with the back of her hand. “Back me up here.”
“I mean, it sounds believable from what little I’ve managed to gather so far. She does seem unathletic,” I added, jerking a finger in Frankie’s direction.
She turned to me, mouth agape. “Hey! Who asked you anyway?”
That made me chuckle. “Prove me wrong, then. Let me take you snowboarding.”
“I don’t think so.” But even as she folded her arms and glared at me, I could see the little crack I’d managed to form in her resolve.
Before I could press, Bev materialized at our table again. “Hey, Frankie,” Bev said. “Sorry to interrupt again, but before you leave, I wanted to give you this shirt for your first shift tomorrow. Jeans are fine with it.”
Frankie took the black shirt from Bev and let it unfold in front of her torso. Marie’s was spelled in a cursive font across the chest. “Thanks,” Frankie said. “I’ll see you at four.”
My eyebrows rose as Bev walked away. “You working here or something?” I asked.
“Apparently,” Mattie said with a sigh.
Frankie rolled her eyes. “Yes, I am.”
Mattie took a sip of wine, eyeing her sister warily. “Please try, and don’t make Bev’s life any harder, okay? ”
“It’s going to be fine,” Giles said. “Frankie will do a good job, and Bev is drowning back there.”
Frankie was about the last person I could see hustling behind a bar while simultaneously being polite to customers. But I would definitely be first in line to see it with my own eyes.
“See! Thank you, Giles.” She balled up the T-shirt into her lap and rested an elbow on the table. “Besides, it’s just taking orders and running food and drinks to people. How hard can it be?”