Chapter 15
I sat down in the chair across from Oliver. “I lied to my sister,” I said.
Oliver blinked once. “You are turning out to be the most interesting person I know.”
“Is that a nice-guy way of saying that I’m a mess?”
“Not at all. You lied to your sister?” he asked. “Is this the sister that runs?”
“Yes, she’s my only sister. And she’s perfect. Everything she touches turns to gold, so when she asked me how my promotion went today, I told her it went great.” I sighed. “I’m going to get struck down by lightning for lying to my pregnant sister.”
“What does her being pregnant have to do with it?”
“I don’t know, it feels worse lying to pregnant people.”
He laughed, but then seemed to realize that now was not the time to laugh, so he quickly changed it to a cough. “Is this her first pregnancy?”
“No. She already has five-year-old twins. You’d think she was ten years older than me with how much she’s accomplished in her life, but no, she’s just three.” I cringed. “I sound jealous, don’t I? Maybe I am.”
“Hi! Welcome,” a peppy waitress appeared at our table. “Can I start you with something to drink?”
For a second I had forgotten where we were, what we were doing. “I’ll just have some ice water,” I said.
“Are you sure you don’t want something stronger?” Oliver asked. “This was supposed to be a celebration, after all.”
“I’ve already embarrassed myself in front of you enough, completely sober. I should stick to water.”
“Me too,” Oliver said, and the waitress left.
The menu sat on the table in front of me. I didn’t need to look at it. Since it was across the street from the office, I’d been to this restaurant a million times over the last four years. And yet my eyes scanned the food options like I needed to memorize them.
“Ugh, I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m usually so much better on dates. Funny and witty. Not that this is a date, but I feel bad that after all this time, this is the person you get to hang out with.”
“Please stop apologizing, Margot. I already know you’re funny and witty. Also… is this not a date?” he asked.
My eyes shot to his in surprise.
“Oh… it’s not,” he said. “You did use the words celebration partner . I should’ve realized you were just wanting to…” He tilted his head as if piecing together my thoughts and how I had jumped him in the car.
I had jumped him in the car, and my body wanted to again as I sat here under his intense gaze. But my thoughts were all over the place. “No, that’s not… It’s just our last date was…”
“Terrible?” he said. “Despite my epic souvenir.”
“Yes,” I said. “Exactly.”
“With your talk of resets, I thought you were giving me a do-over.”
“You want a do-over?” I asked. He had seemed like he hadn’t when I’d brought it up.
“Yes,” he said. “Very much.”
My heart raced to life and flutters twirled around my stomach. My body and brain seemed to be in two different hemispheres.
“But you just wanted…?” He looked out the window toward the car.
“No, I mean, I just wanted to hang out and maybe…”
“I think we have too much chemistry to not give ourselves a second chance at something more. I was out of practice last time.”
“You didn’t seem out of practice,” I said with a smirk.
Before he could respond, the waitress returned with our waters. “You ready to order?”
I nodded. “I’ll just have a summer salad with grilled chicken.”
“I’ll take the California burger, lots of avocado, and fries, please,” Oliver said.
When she left I picked up my water and took a drink.
The cool liquid slid down my throat. Oliver wanted a second chance.
Did I ? This date, if we were calling it that, was already going a million times better than the last one we’d had.
And considering what had happened today, I was surprised by how good it felt to be here with him. “So you still have my panties, then?”
Oliver, who had been taking a sip of water as well, must’ve sucked some down his lungs with the question, because he started coughing. When he regained control of his breathing, he shook his head with a smile.
I shrugged. “Is that a yes?”
“No comment.”
I laughed and his expression softened, like he’d been waiting for me to laugh since he’d stepped into my car.
My chest expanded, but then I remembered that aside from the red flags of our first date, which I could easily chalk up to him being out of practice or nervous, or whatever, another reason I didn’t think this would work was because we were so different.
I didn’t have a filter and he seemed to have all of them.
“Can you handle a girl who asks you about panties in the middle of a restaurant?”
“How am I doing so far?” he asked, his handsome face only slightly pink.
“You almost choked to death.”
“But I didn’t .”
I laughed again. He was right, we had a lot of chemistry. But did we have anything else? “Tell me about yourself. What was younger Oliver like?”
He smiled. He really did have a great smile. “First-date questions. I didn’t ask you any of those last time. I didn’t ask you much of anything.”
“Because of your recent breakup?”
“Yes. I had pushed myself to get on the apps. A friend told me it would be a good way to get over everything.”
“But you saw me and immediately knew it was a mistake?” I asked, remembering his first words to me, about how, despite how good the apps were, they couldn’t replicate an actual meeting.
He shook his head. “No. God, no. I saw you and my brain left me. You’re gorgeous.”
Why did he keep saying things that made me want to kiss him again? “Well, I’m glad your brain is back.”
“Only halfway.”
“Yes,” I said, leaning forward, my elbows resting on the table.
“What?”
“I want a reset. A do-over.”
He leaned forward too, the small table between us feeling even smaller now. “Let’s see… Younger Oliver,” he said, answering my question from earlier. “I grew up in Northern California, but came down here for college.”
“Where you majored in gum removal,” I teased.
“Did my techniques work? For the gum?”
“Yes, actually, a little bit of ice and a butter knife did the trick.”
“You went off script, I see.”
“I’m creative like that.” I looked down at our hands that were inches apart on the table. “What did you really major in?”
“Engineering.”
“I figured.”
“What about you?” he asked. “Where did you go to school?”
“Not UCLA. That’s where I wanted to go. I wasn’t the best student in high school, so my sister encouraged me to apply to Santa Barbara instead. In high school, I had my head in the clouds a lot, planning out how I was going to become a world-famous screenwriter.”
“What happened with that dream?”
“I guess I listened to all the people telling me I needed a backup plan, just in case,” I said.
“Because the truth of the matter is that it’s a hard market to break into.
But it worked out. I was always better at seeing the flaws and strengths in other people’s stories than in my own.
Agenting is a better…” I trailed off as it hit me that this dream might be dead too.
“The publishing world is small. I just hope my boss doesn’t trash my name. ”
“Why would he?”
Through the window I could see our building across the street, sitting there, innocent in my day’s drama, Rob inside possibly plotting my destruction.
“I don’t know,” was how I answered Oliver.
Another lie. I turned the subject back to him.
“What about you? Was software engineering always your dream?”
“From the time I was five.”
“Really?”
“No,” he said. “At five I told my mom I wanted to be Spider-Man.”
“Solid superhero choice. How is your mom?” I asked.
“My mom?” he returned.
“Years ago, in one of our early rematching chats, you told me you were worried about her. I think…” Maybe I was remembering somebody totally different.
His hands slid over mine. “Yes, I was. You remember that?”
Tingles scurried up my arms and down my back. I wished we were somewhere more private. Even just back in my car. “I do.”
“She’s doing better. She moved down here, not too far from me. It’s nice to be able to help her when she needs it. My dad left when I was fourteen and it was hard for her.”
“Have you seen him since?”
“No. Don’t want to,” he responded, then changed the subject fast. “You close with your family?”
“Very. I feel like I’m disappointing them all…” Emotion rose in my chest. I’d already displayed too much emotion in front of him today.
He squeezed my hands. “Everything will work out. You’ll make sure of that.”
“You barely know me,” I said softly. “You have no business making that statement so confidently.”
He smirked. “I think we know each other better than we realize.” There was something about his presence that calmed me, grounded me. I liked that.
The bell on the front door rang, drawing my attention as Rob stepped inside.
His large frame filled the space. His dark hair, normally neat and tidy, was disheveled.
And his bright blue eyes searched the room, landing on me with an instant expression of relief.
But then his eyes shot to my hands in Oliver’s and his hard look was back.
The hostess stepped in front of him and said something, but he shook his head and pointed at me. Then he was walking toward our table.
I pulled my hands into my lap. “Rob,” I said.
Oliver looked over his shoulder just as Rob reached our table.
“I was worried,” Rob said. “I saw your car still in the lot.” He didn’t even glance in Oliver’s direction. “I thought you’d come back so we could finish our discussion.”
“I need time to think,” I said, surprising myself. From how desperate I’d been not even an hour ago to keep my job, I thought hearing those words would bring me relief, but they only made me panic more.
“Can I just have a minute?” he asked.
Oliver stood now. He was nearly as tall as Rob, but he was broader. “You heard her. She needs time,” Oliver said.
“Who are you?” Rob asked, finally acknowledging Oliver’s existence.
I stood, not wanting this to turn into… well, anything… in the middle of a restaurant. “It’s fine,” I said to Oliver. “Give me a minute?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat, then he nodded.
I walked past Rob toward the front door without waiting to see if he’d follow. Then I stepped outside and past the outdoor tables all the way to the alleyway between the restaurant and the dry cleaner’s next door (another place I’d been to a lot).
I turned around and waited for him to join me. When he did, he looked toward the agency windows in full view across the street.
“Should we stand behind the dumpster or…” I had been kidding, but he gave a curt nod and headed that way.
This time I joined him, and when we were out of sight, he pulled me into a hug.
“I’m sorry. Forgive me. We’ll figure something out.
Something that works for both of us.” He nuzzled his face into my neck.
The air smelled like rotten food and chemicals and stung my nose.
The hug felt uncomfortable, unnatural, wrong.
“There’s nothing going on between Rebecca and me.
It’s kind of cute to see you jealous, though. ”
I took several steps back until my shoulder blades collided with the metal of the garbage bin. It startled me. An overwhelming aroma of rotting meat filled my nose. I pushed against Rob’s chest until he released me. “I’m not. No. None of this has worked for both of us. It’s only worked for you.”
At my words, he folded his arms across his chest in a defensive manner.
“You know that’s true, Rob. I’m good at my job. You made me feel like a child today who was asking for something she didn’t deserve. I deserve this.”
“I don’t think you’re ready. You haven’t been proactive about going to New York and conferences, making the in-person connections in the industry that you need to succeed at this job.”
My eyes went wide. “You think I can afford that with what you pay me? I thought you’d take me with you, that the agency would pay. You always said you’d take me with you.”
“And how would that have looked? You and I traveling together?”
“It would’ve only looked like something because it was !”
Rob’s eyes darted over my shoulder. “Keep your voice down.”
When his eyes were back on me, I screamed, “I quit!”
“Margot, wait!”
I didn’t wait. I didn’t stop. I went back inside and sat down at the table again, my breath coming in short angry bursts.
Oliver seemed… cold? His eyes were shadowed, closed off. “Are you sleeping with your boss?”