22. Oliver
TWENTY-TWO
Oliver
“Come on. It’ll be fun.” I placed a glass on the top of the bar and filled it with soda water before using my other hand to grab the neck of a bottle of vodka.
“It annoys me to no end that you’re already so good at this.” Frankie glared at the ease with which I made the drink and slid it to the woman across from me.
“Don’t change the subject.” I bumped my hip against hers.
“What’s fun about sleeping on the ground?” she whined before reaching under the bar and grabbing a glass. She put it against the beer tap and cursed when it immediately filled up with too much foam. I chuckled, watching her. She still hadn’t gotten the hang of pouring a beer. She passed it to the older man sitting at the other end of the bar.
“It’s not just sleeping on the ground,” I continued. “It’s about being out in nature. Looking up at the stars. Taking in that crisp mountain air.” I took an exaggerated breath to make my point, but immediately regretted it when the sharp smell of spilled beer hit me, making my nose crinkle in disgust .
“Camping isn’t for me, okay? I’ll probably get some stupid injury or get eaten by a bear or something,” she said.
“I promise I will not let you get eaten by a bear.” I held up three fingers on my right hand, giving her the scout’s honor. “I will throw my body in front of yours if it comes to that.”
“What a gallant gesture,” she said, rolling her eyes but still smiling.
I clasped my hands together and held them up. “Please. I’m begging here. I don’t want to spend the whole weekend without my girl.”
Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly as a light blush crept across her cheeks. I knew I almost had her. After staring at me for a beat too long, she blinked rapidly a few times and turned around, pretending to get something even though no new customer had come in to order a drink.
“Fine. Don’t beg. I’ll go,” she said.
“Yes!” I cheered, raising both arms in victory.
“What are we celebrating?” Bev asked, wheeling out a keg from the back area, the door to the kitchen swinging shut behind her. I hurried over and took the keg from her and dropped it off underneath the bar.
“Finally convinced Frankie to go camping,” I said.
“Wow.” Bev lifted her eyebrows, looking impressed as I installed the fresh keg. “You’re going to be a mountain woman before you know it.”
“Not likely,” she said, folding her arms across her chest.
“Maybe you’ll end up staying forever like your sister,” Bev continued. “I’d be happy to give you more hours here now that you can actually make a decent drink. Well, almost.”
“Ha. Ha,” Frankie replied dryly. “You know I’m only here until I find a job. And I have a good feeling about my next interview.”
My jaw clenched with the way she so lightly delivered those words. Something like irritation simmered in my chest, but I swallowed it down and did my best to keep my face neutral.
I knew she wanted this job. We talked about it constantly. Hell, I even asked her practice questions last night to help her prepare for her next interview with this so-called dream job.
None of that made it any easier. Her landing this job was going from possible to probable. I could feel it.
Ever since we slept together a couple of weeks ago, we’d been even more inseparable. We spent all of our free time together. We’d even had more conversations about my family and growing up. I was trying like hell not to read too much into it, but I’d never been this close with a girl. Ever. People came in and out of my life like a revolving door—my best friend and now my brother being the main exceptions to that. It wasn’t like I intentionally didn’t sow deep seeds. I liked trying new things and meeting new people. Deep conversations made me irrationally anxious, so keeping it at surface level had been the perfect solution.
Until now. Until Frankie.
She’d burrowed her way right the fuck in, and now I wasn’t quite sure how to let her go.
I knew I needed to. She had been very clear that her career was her dream. She belonged in some big city, climbing the corporate ladder. We were nothing alike in that regard.
By some twist of fate— either incredible or vindictive—we’d been brought together. And while I wouldn’t change my time with her for anything, I was starting to resent the fact that I couldn’t have her for keeps. A committed relationship had never been something that appealed to me, but now that I knew this particular girl was out of reach, it was all I could think about .
“Hello.” My eyes readjusted from disassociation to see Frankie snapping her fingers at me. “Where’d you go?”
I removed any trace of distress from my face. “Sorry, I got distracted thinking about you next to me, naked, in a sleeping bag.”
“Oliver,” she hissed, turning to see if Bev had overheard, but she had already retreated to the other end of the bar to talk to a customer.
I shot her a wink, enjoying the pink tinge splotching her soft cheeks. Without thinking, I reached out and brushed aside the strand of hair that had fallen across her face.
She leaned into my touch, and I was sure I had the dopiest expression on my face. I would have leaned in right then and there to kiss her if my phone hadn’t gone off.
I pulled it out of my back pocket and groaned when I saw my mom’s number flashing across the screen.
Frankie winced when I held up the phone to her. “Going to get that?” she asked.
“I’ll call her back,” I muttered, stuffing the phone back into my pocket.
Frankie started stacking glasses behind the bar. I could tell she wanted to say something but was holding back.
“Say it,” I said. While I still didn’t love talking about heavier stuff, I had come to trust Frankie. I was a lot more open to talking things through with her—like feelings and shit. While I couldn’t promise I wouldn’t try and defuse the tension with the occasional joke, I’d never lose it and run away from her again. I’d at least come that far.
She looked up at me and bit her lip. “Maybe you should try talking to her. Tell her how you feel,” she whispered, both of her arms resting on the bar.
“I don’t know how I feel,” I insisted .
She lifted an eyebrow. “You can’t think of anything you’d like to say to her?”
“Not a single thing,” I said, shooting her a lazy smile that I knew she saw straight through. The topic of my mother exhausted me. I’d rather pretend like everything was fine with her than actually say anything real. That had never been our relationship.
“I really think you’ll feel better if you get it out,” Frankie said, stepping back and picking up a glass to wipe. I noticed that about her. She always loved to be doing something. If there was a random item on the table, you could bet that Frankie would pick it up to fiddle with it. When I mentioned it to her one time, she said it helped her think.
“Get what out?” I played dumb, knowing it infuriated her.
“ It. ” She waved a hand around exasperatedly. “You know.”
My grin widened. “I do know, I just love seeing the cute little lines that form between your eyebrows when you get frustrated.”
Her hand flung up to her face as she smoothed out the lines in question. “You’re going to give me early onset wrinkles.”
“And you’ll still look gorgeous,” I said, backing away toward the end of the bar. “I should probably call her back before she bombards me with texts. I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll try to manage on my own,” she joked, gesturing to the near-empty space.
As soon as I walked out into the lobby, my phone rang again. I pressed the answer button and put it to my ear. “Mom,” I said, hoping it didn’t come out overly cold.
“Why haven’t you called me back?” she demanded. “I called you three days ago. I was about to file a missing person’s report. ”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Too busy for your own mother?”
I sighed deeply, sinking into one of the chairs in the lobby and hanging my head back to stare at the wood-wrapped ceiling. “Did you need something?”
“I have to need something to call my son now?”
“Nope. Just wondering if you needed something.” I tried to keep my voice light, but everything about our interactions annoyed the shit out of me lately.
She started yammering away about a trip she had coming up. I pretended to listen.
“Did you see the post Charlie made of her and Nathan the other day? They don’t look so good. Too thin or something. Gaunt.”
I snorted. “Gaunt?”
I’d seen the post. It was one of Nathan and his wife, Charlie, at the end of a hike they’d completed, looking completely normal and healthy.
“Yes. And he never smiles. I’ll never understand him.”
The hairs on the back of my neck bristled—like they did any time she mentioned my brother. It was like she was hoping I’d want to talk shit about him with her. Like that would somehow solidify us as the closest two in the family, pushing him out again.
“They looked fine to me.”
“You really think so?”
“Yep.”
After a small pause, she continued. “When are you going to come visit?” she asked, hope tainting her voice.
Guilt trickled into my veins and replaced the frustration. I had been avoiding her. Typically, I always planned a few visits throughout the year, but I hadn’t been in over a year. The last time I had seen her was at Nathan’s wedding months ago. Things were already strained between the two of us. Well, at least they were strained on my side.
“Soon,” I said. “Listen, I’m actually working right now. I’ve got to go.”
“Oh. Okay,” she said, her voice uncharacteristically small.
“I’ll call you soon.”
I hung up. I stood up to go back to the bar before giving it a second thought and sinking back down into the chair. I pulled out my phone again and called the only other family member I still had contact with.
Nathan’s face appeared on my screen, mirroring my own features—but with a much more serious expression.
“Yo, brother. What’s up?” I asked.
“You know I hate video calls,” he grunted.
He was sitting on his couch. I could just make out the tail of Charlie’s cat splayed across the back. Never would I have thought I’d live to see the day where my no-nonsense brother was curled up with a cat. I loved every minute of it.
“And you know I love seeing your face,” I said with a smile.
“Lovely,” he deadpanned.
“Have you talked to Mom?” I asked him. “She’s driving me nuts.”
“She’s always driving you nuts lately,” he pointed out.
“She’s just…always trying to talk to me.”
Nathan sighed and squeezed his eyes shut. “Look, I don’t know what you want me to say. Your relationship with her is very different from mine.”
“And that’s exactly the problem.”
I wasn’t sure what I expected from this conversation with my brother. Poor communication skills was unfortunately a genetic trait in our family. Still, I itched to talk to him—to vent to the only person who might understand .
Nathan let out a gruff sigh and stood from his couch to pace. “I don’t want me to be the reason there’s a wedge between you two.”
“It’s not you,” I said. “It’s everything.”
“And the problem is you’ve never spoken to her about it,” Nathan said, before Charlie popped into the screen for a moment and waved at me.
“Hey, Char,” I said, before Nathan’s face returned to fill my screen.
“Me and you used to have our issues, too, before we worked them out,” he added. “And we were only able to do that because we finally actually fucking talked to each other.”
I played with a loose thread on the seat of my chair. “It feels different with her. She’s supposed to be the adult.”
“We’re all adults now,” he pointed out.
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m not saying she’s perfect, but she is our mother. And she still deigns to speak to us, which is more than I can say for our other parent.”
“I don’t know how you can be okay with her after how distant she always was with you growing up.”
“I’ve made my peace with it,” he insisted. “Don’t let your relationship be any reflection of me.”
“I guess.” I let out a huff of frustration. Leave it to Nathan to always be the logical one.
“Is there anything else? Charlie and I are about to head out to dinner.”
“Are you two coming camping next weekend?” I asked. “You’ve been skirting my invitation.”
I could see Nathan’s neck tense as he looked off camera, presumably to Charlie. “I haven’t been skirting,” he said.
“Well, you sure as hell haven’t been answering. Are you in or not? Harrison and Lila confirmed the second I asked them.”
Nathan sighed and looked off camera then back at me, seemingly at a loss for words.
“Just tell him,” I heard Charlie whisper off camera.
“It’s too early.”
“He’s family.”
I sat up, on high alert now. What were they talking about?
“What’s going on?” I demanded.
Charlie joined Nathan on screen again, practically beaming.
“We’re trying to wait to tell anyone…” Nathan started.
“We’re pregnant!” Charlie announced, flailing her arms in the air.
A laugh of disbelief escaped me as I shook my head slowly. “No freaking way!”
“Way!” Charlie exclaimed, smiling.
“Congrats. I had no idea.” I clutched a hand to my heart. “I’m going to be an uncle.”
Nathan rolled his eyes. “Way to make it about you. And we aren’t telling anyone so keep this to yourself.”
“You seriously haven’t told Lila?” I pressed.
Charlie looked guiltily from me to Nathan.
Nathan sighed. “She was with Lila when she took the test.”
I grinned. “Of course she was.”
“But no one else knows. Especially not Mom. We’re waiting to tell family until after the first trimester. But as you can imagine, Charlie has been feeling pretty sick the past few weeks so a road trip out to Key Ridge and a weekend camping isn’t exactly in the cards for us right now.”
“Got it. Totally understand. ”
“I know you can’t keep a secret to save your life,” Nathan said. “But try to be discreet about this.”
I pretended to look offended. “I’m always discreet.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Nathan said, smiling down at his wife.
I asked them a few more questions—mainly if they’d name their future offspring Oliver if it was a boy—before we said our goodbyes, and I hung up the phone.
When I set my phone down, I stared at in disbelief. Damn. My older brother was having a baby. He was starting this whole little family of his own. Nathan had always been such a loner I had never expected this from him.
While I felt elated for him, something sank in my gut. Marriage. Children. They had never been high on my priority list. I wasn’t even entirely sure that I wanted them. But as everyone I was close to moved in those directions, I couldn’t help but evaluate my own life and feel like something was missing. I loved going on adventures, seeing new things, and not having the traditional career path, but it was getting lonely.
Frankie’s face flashed across my mind. How good it felt ending most days getting to see her, talk to her, hold her. How she supported my lifestyle even though she didn’t understand it herself. I freaking loved being around her.
Maybe what was missing from my life wasn’t more adventure.
It was someone to share it with.