Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Logan
From the time we’re born,
our brothers and sisters are
our collaborators and co-conspirators,
our role models and our cautionary tales.
~ Jeffrey Kluger
Rhett and I walk Gil out to his car after that awkward interaction with Olivia and Lynette.
Well, things were fine with Lynette.
It’s Olivia. Always Olivia.
“Man, you weren’t kidding,” Gil says.
“I know.”
“You don’t do yourself any favors, you know?”
“I know.”
“I’ve never seen you so tongue-tied and incapacitated as you get around her.”
“I know.”
Gil chuckles. “Are you just going to keep saying, I know ?”
“Until you say something I don’t already know, yes.” I sigh. “I honestly don’t know what to do.”
I already filled Gil in on the travesty that happened during my morning run. He astutely observed that I could have simply changed my route instead of instigating a one-on-one foot race. It never occurred to me. Something nearly debilitating happens to me whenever Olivia’s around. I lose all common sense, and my capacity for reasoning flies out the window, often taking my verbal skills with it.
“Well, if it’s any encouragement,” Gil says. “Maisy thinks there’s hope.”
“That is an encouragement.”
“She said where there’s animosity, there’s passion. And where there’s passion, the people care. So, in my wife’s unofficial junior psychologist opinion, you and Olivia care about one another.”
“I do care about her.”
“Oh, I know!” Gil chuckles, waggling his eyebrows like a junior high schooler.
“Not like that …”
Not exactly, I don’t think. I mean, how could I be attracted to Olivia? She basically hates me. And I came pretty close to hating her in high school. Not hate hate. I never wanted her to suffer. I just wanted to watch her face fall while I won. I was so immature back then. What can I say? I was a teen boy.
“You don’t find her attractive?” Gil crosses his arms over his chest and tilts his head.
“Of course I do. I’d have to be dead or blind not to notice her. She’s attractive. And unfortunately, she’s my type. Visually speaking.”
He huffs out a little noise of self-satisfaction.
“And if you close your eyes and think of her, not what she looks like … just think of her … ?”
“She’s like a burr. One of the ones that gets woven deep into your sock when you’re on a hike, leaving pinpricks and barbs behind even after you pluck it away. I can’t shake her or the effect she has on me.”
I open my eyes, not even realizing I had shut them when Gil told me to.
Gil’s wearing a grinchy smirk. “Mm-hmm. I thought so. And I knew it in high school. Under all that animosity, you’re drawn to Olivia. She’s your match. You’ve actually met your match.”
“Look,” I sigh.
Rhett plops to the ground at the end of his leash, snorting when he lands.
“I just want to make peace with her … to make up for the ways I overdid it when we were younger. That’s it. Nothing more. If I can achieve that, I’ll consider it my greatest win. You and Maisy are dreaming if you think there will ever be anything more than a ceasefire between me and Olivia. I’ll be lucky if we ever even achieve that.”
“A win, huh?” Gil smiles. “Well, I’ve never seen you lose at anything you intended to win, so let’s hope this is no exception.”
“She’s always been an exception.”
Gil claps me on the back. “I have a feeling I’m going to need a big bucket of popcorn for this. The show is about to get good.”
“Oh, yeah. Entertain yourself with my misery,” I half-joke.
“You’ll be fine,” he assures me. “Let’s have dinner one night this week. Let me check with Maisy, and I’ll get back to you with a night that works.”
Rhett jumps up and starts wheeze-snorting and wagging his rear.
“Yeah. Yeah,” Gil says to my dog. “You can come too.”
Rhett and I watch Gil drive away, and then we turn and walk inside. I secretly hope I don’t run into Olivia, but by the time I reach my apartment and haven’t seen her, I’ll admit I’m a bit disappointed.
I’m turning the lock when I look down. There on the floor is a cellophane package. It looks like a fortune cookie. Rhett sees it too. He snatches it up and holds it in his mouth.
“Drop it, Rhett,” I command my dog.
He looks up at me with those wide-set expressive eyes of his and smiles. The corners of his mouth actually tip up. But he doesn’t drop his newfound treasure.
“Drop it!” The bird in the apartment next to Olivia’s squawks from across the way. “Drop it!”
Rhett turns his head and tilts it to one side. still keeping the cookie in his mouth.
“Rhett, drop it,” I command again.
The bird echoes my words. “Drop it!” Then it adds, “Drop the cookie!”
Huh. How could that bird know Rhett has a cookie? Did I say cookie? Did his owner put a cookie in front of my door? Maybe it’s a thing. It could be a courtesy in this building where someone goes around putting cookies on doormats, the way some hotels place mints on your pillow. That would be extra.
“Rhett, drop.” I use my most commanding voice. Rhett sits and releases the now slightly crushed cookie from his mouth.
The packaging has his slobber on it, but it didn’t rip, so the cookie isn’t contaminated. I pick up the cookie wrapper with pinched fingers and hold it out in the air ahead of me as I walk into my apartment.
Once I’m inside, I set the cookie in the kitchen sink and let Rhett off his leash. He dashes over to his water bowl. I rinse the wrapper and open it out of curiosity.
I have to read the fortune twice. It’s so spot on, unlike most fortunes I’ve ever read in my life. Usually they are vague enough to apply to anyone who opens them.
Sometimes less is more when it comes to winning a woman’s heart .
“Winning her heart? I’d like to simply win a smile. A little forgiveness. Not her heart. I definitely don’t want to win her heart.”
I’m talking to myself now.
Is that a sign of mental instability?
I toss the remnants of the cookie and the wrapper into the trash, still keeping the slip of paper containing that ominous fortune in my hand.
Did Olivia put this cookie in front of my door? No. She couldn’t have known what it would say. Besides, she’s not interested in me winning her heart … or any other part of her.
Where did it come from?
I set the fortune on my counter and walk over to the front windows. The view here is great.
Less is more .
Less . How do I do less? Today I did less, and things got worse.
Olivia’s heart?
There was a time when I didn’t think Olivia Pennington had a heart.
What was I thinking? That woman is all heart.
I admire the man who could win it.
That man will definitely not be me.
There’s a knock at my door. Rhett barks and runs over. His rear wags. He barks again and runs in a circle around my legs.
My brother, Jacob, pushes past me when I open the door. He’s twenty-six but lives the life of a nineteen-year-old.
“Logaaannnn!” he roars as he walks in, surveying my apartment.
“How did you find me?” I ask.
“Ha! Good one! Mom gave me your address, of course.”
“Ah. Good.”
I couldn’t exactly tell Mom not to give my brother my new address, though the thought did occur to me. At least the front door to the building locks, and I have the only key to my actual apartment.
“How did you get up here?” I ask.
“Some guy was walking in, I just walked in behind him like I live here. Worked like a charm.”
So much for the locked front door.
“So, how’s life being back in Serendipity Springs?” Jacob asks.
He plops down on the sofa and kicks his feet up on the coffee table.
“Feet,” I say.
“Seriously, man?”
I look him in the eye.
“Okay. Okay. But, dude. This is your bachelor pad. You don’t need to keep things so neat and tidy as if you’re the next stop on a home tour.”
“I happen to like neat and tidy. That way you know where everything is, and you don’t have to spend money replacing things ahead of their time.”
Jacob shrugs. Then, as quickly as he plopped down, he stands, walks into my kitchen, opens the fridge, and sticks his head in.
“Whatcha got to eat around here?”
“Nothing interesting.”
“Right. Just protein drinks, meat, vegetables. Some fruit.” He inventories the contents of my refrigerator, shouting out his findings over his shoulder.
“Dude, you’re like a grandpa. Or a personal trainer. Where’s the fun?”
I shouldn’t answer. “I’m fun.”
Jacob removes his head from the fridge, snagging a yogurt on his way out. He surveys my apartment.
“I’m sorry, what part of your life screams fun? You work. You come home to your dog and a bunch of healthy food. You go to sleep at a decent hour. You wake and take your well-calculated run. I’m not feeling the fun factor here. You should come out with me and my friends next weekend. That’s fun. The nightlife here isn’t what it is in NYC, but there are some places. I can show you around. Maybe you’d meet a girl. You do like girls?”
“I like girls … women.”
Jacob pulls open three drawers before he locates my silverware. He opens the yogurt, leaves the plastic lid and foil inner covering on the counter, and sticks the spoon in to scoop out a big bite.
“Good yogurt,” he says around the mouthful.
“Glad you like it. So … did you just come by to eat my yogurt?”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry. No. I was just here to welcome you back to the lucky little town of Serendipity Springs. And … I have a proposition for you.”
“A proposition?”
I should have been prepared for this, but I always think my brother’s going to somehow change—eventually grow up and become self-sufficient like the rest of us.
“Yeah. I’m currently working on a big idea while I’m between jobs. I have to make a payment on my credit card. It’s due this week. I didn’t want to ask Mom and Dad again, so I was thinking you could front me some cash and we’d look at it as a sort of investment in this invention, venture thing I’ve got going.”
“Which is it? An investment, invention or a venture?”
“You could call it a loan. I’d pay you back once I’m working again.”
“What happened to the job at Olive Garden? The one I referred you to.”
“Oh, yeah. That. Well, for starters, they wanted me to work weekends. I can’t work weekends. That’s for high schoolers. Grown men don’t work weekends.”
“Plenty of grown men work weekends, Jacob. And when you’re out of work …”
I let my words fall off. He’s not going to listen. And it’s his life. I don’t need to direct him or intervene. Two months ago, I called my friend who works in corporate at Olive Garden to get the local manager to set up an interview for my brother. Jacob didn’t even take the job after I went to that trouble? Well, there’s my answer.
Jacob sticks around for another half-hour. I end up turning on a televised golf tournament just to pass the time while Jacob eats a sandwich and then helps himself to a bowl of cereal. I could tell him not to raid my kitchen, but he is my younger brother, and we haven’t seen one another in a while.
Rhett and I walk Jacob to the door to see him out.
“Seriously, Logan. You should come out with me and my friends next weekend.”
“I’ll consider it,” I say as I open the door to usher him into the hallway.
“That’s your way of declining without declining, isn’t it?” He taps his pointer finger to his temple.
“You got me. I’m not really the clubbing type,” I tell Jacob, feeling as old and stodgy as he has been implying I am.
I’m saved from his response when Olivia rounds the corner on her way to the elevator.
She’s wearing a Boston University sweatshirt and yoga pants. Her hair is pulled up in two little tufts on top of her head.
Jacob turns at the sound of Olivia’s footfalls. Rhett dashes past me and runs to Olivia, circling her and wagging like he’s seeing an old friend.
“Well, well, well,” Jacob says. “Olivia Pennington. What are you doing here?”
“I live here.”
She squats down and scrubs Rhett behind the ears. Rhett stretches his neck and kisses under Olivia’s chin while making an embarrassing number of random noises.
“Awww, Rhett,” she coos.
“You live here? On the same floor as my brother.”
“So it would seem.”
Olivia doesn’t look at me or Jacob. She simply keeps loving my dog like he’s her favorite.
I watch her, unable to tear my eyes away from the soft, gentle way she’s touching Rhett, the kindness in her eyes, the way she giggles when he plants yet another kiss on her chin.
“Okay, then,” Jacob says. “This is certainly an interesting development.”
I scowl at my brother. I can tell I’m scowling. My face feels like my forehead is trying to descend to my nose.
Jacob holds up his hands in a gesture of innocence.
“Next weekend,” he says, shooting me finger guns. “And I’ll text you the amount for that investment.”
I don’t say a word except, “See you later, Jacob.”
I’m not loaning or investing or venturing with him. He’s a grown man—who still lives with my parents. He doesn’t need handouts.
Jacob passes Olivia on his way to the elevators. “Good to see you, Pennington. I think you get more beautiful every year.”
He’s not wrong.
Olivia shakes her head like my brother’s ridiculous. But she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and looks down after he gives her the compliment.
“Come on, Rhett,” I say.
Rhett comes to my call, racing past me into my apartment.
Olivia stands up, and we stare at one another for an awkward moment before she looks away and walks toward the elevator.