Chapter 44
Oliver
After washing up the dishes, I wandered slowly down the hall. Dean hadn’t come out of his room, and I found myself more nervous than before. Things seemed okay with everybody else, but now I was struck by a heavy feeling in my gut that went beyond the potatoes I’d stuffed myself with.
Placing my hand on the doorknob, I drew in a deep breath.
“Knock knock,” I said as I opened it.
My stomach plummeted when I saw Dean. He was sitting on the bed, leaning against the headboard with his feet on the mattress and his legs drawn close to his chest. His head rested on his knees, and he was staring at the wall to the side.
“Hey, Broku,” I ventured cautiously. Closing the door behind me, I stuffed my hands into my pockets and took a step forward. “You look sorta droopy.”
“I’m okay.”
“That feels like a lie, but I’m not an expert. Not yet.”
Shifting his head, he perched his chin on his knees so he could look at me. It was when I saw the shimmer in his eyes that I closed the distance and climbed onto the bed. Kneeling in front of him, I wrapped my arms around his legs and pressed my forehead against his.
“I just wanted to help,” I whispered. “I’m sorry I overstepped.”
“That’s not why I’m upset. But . . . Why didn’t you tell me?”
I chewed on my lip and shrugged. “I just wanted them to be happy. And you. After she got the job, I didn’t want to claim anything from it. What mattered was the outcome, not that you knew I did it.”
He frowned at nothing in particular. “Thank you.”
“You’re not mad?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe a little, but not at you if that makes sense.”
“It does, but it doesn’t tell me why you’ve been crying.”
“I don’t want to go back to the apartment.”
My lungs felt like they froze over, keeping me from drawing breath. “You want to move out?”
“No, but . . .”
When he didn’t continue, I gripped his legs. “I told myself I wouldn’t beg for forgiveness. But now, I can’t just let you do this without, I don’t know, doing something.”
“Oli, stop—”
“Did you know poverty can create trauma pathways in the brain? Yeah, that’s a thing.
I see it in Blake, but it’s different with you.
You learned to be strong, to love your family through the hardship.
I think you loved them more because of it.
And I saw that resilience in you when you told me about your parents.
But I kept thinking about it—the way your life could’ve turned you into someone different.
Someone darker. And I thought, ‘What if I can do something about it?’”
He opened his mouth, but I shook my head. Letting out a little breath, he pursed his lips and nodded for me to continue.
“I’m being a hundred percent honest when I say that I didn’t have any reason to think we’d ever be more than friends.
Yeah, I was interested, but I wasn’t pining.
Not really. I didn’t think it would do any harm.
I mean, if she didn’t want the job, she didn’t have to take it.
If we were closer then, I wouldn’t have done it without talking to you. ”
“Please believe me, baby.” I dropped my head to rest on his knee.
“I saw a possible solution to something that had been stressing you out so much. And to be honest, I’d do it again, especially after meeting your family.
So, I won’t apologize for it. But I will ask you not to move out.
Not to give up on this.” I shifted closer to him and gripped his hands. “Not yet.”
He looked down at our hands, then back to my face. “Are you done?”
“For now. Depends what you say.”
My heart fluttered when he breathed a small laugh. “I’m not moving out of the apartment.”
“Really?” I sat straighter, studying his face to see if he could be lying.
“Of course not, baby. This doesn’t have anything to do with the job. It’s not really about you at all. Or it wouldn’t have been, but now I have to take us into consideration too.”
“So, not wanting to go back . . .” My lips pulled to the side as I processed his words. “You don’t want to leave.”
“This is home,” he whispered. “Not just this house or the city.”
“Your family. You want to be with them.”
He nodded, then hung his head. “I made a mistake leaving. I shouldn’t have even applied to out of state colleges, but I saw my brother leave when he turned eighteen, and I figured flying the nest would help me grow.
Maybe it did, but I don’t think that’s a journey meant for me.
If it makes me lame to want to stay near my family for the rest of my life, then I’m a damn square. ”
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“I don’t have any idea.”
Swallowing back my nerves, I pulled out my phone and opened up my last webpage. When I held it out, he took it with a curious expression. He scrolled through it, his eyes darting back and forth as he read.
“This is in New York,” he said, as if he didn’t understand.
“You’re intelligent, Broku. Figure it out.”
“And you’re insane.” He tossed the phone onto the mattress beside me. “You can’t make plans like that. Not after a week.”
“I have a year left in my grad degree,” I explained slowly. “I could try getting into the PhD program at Harmon, but there’s nothing holding me there. You also have a year until you finish your BA, right?”
He nodded. Taking his hands again, I smiled. He stared at my face, and with every second, his expression softened.
“If you want, you can apply for a grad program nearby,” I suggested. “Yeah, it’s early, but I think when this time rolls around next year, we’ll have a pretty damn good idea whether this is working.”
I let go of his hand so I could touch his trembling lip.
To see such a strong man reduced to something so fragile made something fierce rise in my chest. He just wanted to be with his family, and by some cosmic luck, he was factoring me into his decision.
That was enough reason for me to commit to the idea of packing my shit and moving across the country.
“A year,” he said. “You sure you’ll know by then?”
“To be honest—” I paused, trying not to sound like a maniac. “I’d consider hauling ass out here right now, but that would make me look crazy. And I’d be remiss not to admit that it would be indulging an unhealthy level of impulsivity. So, yeah. A year.”
His shoulders relaxed noticeably, like a massive weight had been taken from him.
I’d always thought that in a relationship, you carried that sort of thing for your partner, but I felt just as light as he stroked my fingers with his thumbs.
Maybe we’d just released it back into the universe, leaving both of us content and ready to fight another day.
“My dad said my mom found a little bit of luck when Dr. Matteo came into the hospital. He also thinks it’s karma.”
“Probably the latter,” I noted. “Your mom’s done a lot of good in her life.”
“Oli, baby.” He used one hand to cup my jaw, bringing me close enough to kiss, but I just waited for him to speak again. “You’re my little bit of luck.”
A grin curled my lips, borderline splitting them. “Remi calls me a lucky bastard all the time.”
“Don’t ever tell him I said this, but he sometimes knows what he’s talking about.”
“I like it better when you say it.”
He laughed, finally clearing the last of the gloom around us. “Come on. I don’t want to spend the rest of the week sequestered away in my room.”
“Yes, chef.”
His eyes burned as he watched me jump to my feet.
Before we could get carried away by the intense emotions that were quickly shifting into desire, I held my hand out to him.
There was a certain simplicity to his touch that woke something deeper than lust or even love.
It reached right through to my soul, tethering it to him after it had spent the last twenty-four years bouncing around from place to place, never truly settling.
I belonged here. With him, but also with his family, in this city that had raised him. And if we made it to that year mark, I hoped it would accept me the way they all had.