Didn’t See That Coming Either
DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING EITHER
Daphne
This life is my favorite.
It’s a rare warm day in mid-October, and I’m curled up against Oliver in the hammock in his backyard.
Our backyard.
The house he bought for us is a little bigger than what he originally wanted, but the trade-off was the privacy that comes with a gated estate. We’re essentially neighbors with Bea and Simon, and we see them all the time.
Bea more often—Simon’s travel schedule this fall has been a little brutal—but both of them together as regularly as possible.
The sun is dipping low in the sky, and Feather, the timid rescue mutt that Oliver won over at the shelter after three straight weeks of visits, is snoring softly on the grass beneath us.
I’d say I helped with Feather, but mostly I watched Oliver coax her out of her shell.
He’s the best.
The absolute best.
We’ve gone camping a couple times. We’re planning a road trip to go visit his cabin in Pennsylvania before the snow sets in—we do, after all, have a lottery ticket that we have to do something with. We’re also going with Bea to see one of Griff’s games soon since he’s in the playoffs.
Oliver’s learning to cook, and he’s started doing the work himself to restore the gardens around the house—both vegetable and flower—and he’s napping a lot.
Like now.
Here in the hammock.
Which is where I found him when I got home from one of my last days at Beeslieve.
Leaving is bittersweet, so I’ve been dragging it out, working as much as I can through the days while I can be outside. I’m staying on a little into the winter too, but more so I can train the new staff on best fundraising practices.
The wind rustles above us, a slight chill in it that makes me snuggle closer to Oliver, which makes the hammock sway gently.
“I love this life,” he murmurs against my hair.
“I was just thinking that.”
It’s odd to be happy while I’m still, but I am.
Fully happy. At peace, as Oliver likes to say.
Feather whimpers a little beneath us.
“All good, girl,” Oliver says.
But all is not entirely good.
The backyard gate swings shut with a clank, and then—
“Oliver! You are on my shit list.”
I barely move as I start to smile. “Oliver.”
“Yes, my beautiful chaos fairy?” he replies.
“Did you leave a stupid tip at Bea’s burger bus today?”
“Would I do that?” I feel him smile against my hair, but it’s the giggle that fully gives him away.
“Where are you, you asshole?” Bea says. “Oh, hell. Sorry, Feather. It’s okay. I’ll quit yelling. But I’m still mad at your dad.”
I lift an arm and wave, making the hammock sway a little more. “Hey, Bea. How much did he leave?”
“Oh, good. Witnesses,” she replies.
“I attempted to talk her out of this,” Simon says, which has me perking my ears up too. I didn’t know he was back in town. This is awesome. “But I’m also rather curious to see her full temper play out.”
Bea’s face pops into view. She’s scowling, but Simon’s smiling widely behind her.
He gives us a thumbs-up behind her back.
“I saw that,” she says.
“I knew you would, darling,” he replies. “If not me, at least Daphne’s reaction to me. Though possibly she’s merely happy to see me?”
I grin back at him. “I’m definitely happy to see you. And I’d hug you, but I’ve tipped Oliver out of this hammock four times already, and I don’t want to land on our dog.”
“You don’t have to keep the money,” Oliver says to Bea. “You could redistribute it.”
“How the fuck—sorry, Feather. Sorry, girl.” She drops her voice lower as she squats out of view, likely getting a treat for the dog. “How am I supposed to redistribute fifty thousand dollars?”
“Oh, that was a good one,” I tell Oliver. “How’d you get that much into her tip jar?”
“I blackmailed Archie into procuring a few thousand-dollar bills for me.”
“High-five.” I shift to hold up a hand.
He slaps it. “Fun is my favorite.”
Bea sighs.
Simon grins.
Feather crunches on a dog treat.
“That was completely unnecessary,” Bea tells Oliver. “You should’ve tipped the taco truck.”
“Oh, I did that too.”
She should know by now.
She really should.
Her exasperated sigh echoes across the backyard.
“Consider it practice for when Griff retires,” I tell her. “You know he’s going to find ways to pay for all kinds of crazy things for you once he starts spending some of his cash.”
“Griff has ten or fifteen years, and someone got me a producer credit on that screenplay I helped him finish, so I don’t need everyone giving me money.”
“She sounds like you,” Oliver murmurs.
“We’re two peas in a pod.”
He cracks up.
Bea and I might be besties, but we are very different people.
“I have a solution,” Simon announces.
“I sneak it back into their house while they’re on their next camping trip?” Bea says.
“We jointly purchase the cheese shop and convert it into a bar with a mechanical bull.”
“Whoa, hands off the cheese shop,” Oliver says. “Build a bar at your drive-in.”
I don’t know why that makes my brain squirrel where it goes, but it does, and suddenly, Oliver and I are on the ground.
Flipped right out of the hammock.
Because I sat up too fast without thinking, because—“Oliver.”
He rolls to his side, reaches out a hand to give Feather a light ruffle on her head, and deadeyes me. “Again?”
“No, no, listen.”
He shakes his head, the smile starting at the corners of his mouth. “I can’t even be mad. You have a look, and I love those looks. Okay, Daphne. I’m listening.”
“Do you remember when your father went to prison?”
He blinks one long, slow blink while Bea stifles a laugh behind a cough.
“I think he remembers that, Daph,” she says in a strangled voice.
Simon’s clearing his throat like he too is trying not to laugh.
“I do recall that,” Oliver says patiently, his lips fighting with themselves over whether he wants to be annoyed or amused.
I twist on the ground, land my face in the side of the hammock, bat it away, and then climb to my feet.
“You told me you sold a bunch of your mother’s artwork.”
“All of her favorites. Yes. It was delightful fun.”
“Which artwork? Paintings?”
“So many paintings.”
“Who did them?”
Simon makes a noise I’ve never heard him make before.
Bea sucks in a breath too.
Oliver gives Feather one last rub on the head, and then he rises too, looking at the three of us like we’ve lost our marbles. “You want me to name all of the artists?”
“Was one of them Naomi Luckwood?”
“Oh, god, yes. That was the biggest—”
He cuts himself off and looks at Simon, eyes round, clearly connecting the dots on the last name.
“Oh, fuck,” he whispers.
“Simon.” I bounce on my toes. “Why did your parents go broke?”
“Daph, you need to stop,” Bea says. “There’s budding bromance, and then there’s the two of them leaving us for each other.”
“Someone sold a vast quantity of my mother’s paintings and made the market value of them drop significantly,” Simon says reverently.
Oliver’s going pink in the cheeks. “I didn’t—” he starts, but he cuts himself off as Simon throws himself at him.
“You beautiful bastard,” Simon says. “I could kiss you.”
And he does.
He plants a smacker right on Oliver’s cheek.
“He hates his parents,” I murmur to Oliver. I lift a hand. “High-five again. You’re a superhero to him right now.”
“Bea! Beatrice! I get to be friends with someone who helped destroy my parents,” Simon crows. He lets Oliver go and spins Bea into a hug. “This is possibly the third or fourth best day of my life.”
Oliver stares at me, then at Bea and Simon, and then back to me. “Plot twist,” he mutters, a real smile spreading across his face again. His scruffy, beautiful, wonderful face.
He slips an arm around my shoulder, probably using me as a shield so Simon won’t hug and kiss him again.
“Well worth falling out of the hammock again,” I say.
He laughs. “Can we maybe not do that again though?”
“Only if you haven’t secretly participated in some other revenge scheme I’m unaware of.”
He winces.
The man freaking winces.
And then he grins broader. “There is something I haven’t told you about what Margot asked me to do…”
I stare at him, contemplate everything that’s happened since Margot left for Colorado, and then I’m cracking up too.
“I freaking love this life,” I say as he hugs me.
He laughs against my hair. “It’s the very best.”