2
T hree weeks later, Olivia parked her car down the street from a sprawling ranch-style house and peered at the scene beyond her windshield. There were plastic folding tables along both sides of the paved driveway and across the front yard, all covered in teetering piles of miscellaneous junk.
She smiled, already feeling anticipation flooding her veins.
There was something about a good garage sale that funneled her usual chaotic energy into a single, focused mission: to find that perfect something .
Sometimes it was a vintage dress, sometimes a killer pair of barely worn heels, sometimes a fringed lamp that matched her curtains and accent rugs.
She never knew what she was going to find, but the excitement of not knowing was half the fun.
Olivia climbed out of her car and tucked a folded wad of cash into the pocket of her jersey running shorts.
The already-fallen leaves of a nearby oak tree crunched under her sneakers as she made her way along the curb and then turned up the driveway.
The first table on her right held stacks of vinyl records, and she began to sort through them.
She didn’t own a record player, but that wasn’t the point; the point was to hunt—and hunt she would.
Half an hour later, she’d worked her way up part of the driveway and across the lawn, snagging a framed piece of stained glass along the way. She was considering the merits of a purple soap dish shaped like a hippo when she finally saw it .
An overstuffed, emerald-colored love seat.
It was perfect! —exactly the right pop of color for her neutral-heavy apartment.
She wandered purposefully through the last table displays, careful not to look too eager. Finally, she paused where the love seat waited at the mouth of the two-car garage, her head cocked to one side as if still deciding. In reality, she was already mentally rearranging her furniture.
“Hello,” said a female voice, and an older woman in denim shorts and a neon-green racerback approached. “Are you interested in the love seat?”
Olivia pursed her lips and forced herself not to answer right away. “Maybe,” she hedged, pulling out her phone. “How much are you asking?”
“One fifty even,” the woman replied. She rearranged a few items on a nearby table as she spoke. “It’s clean and in good condition; no pet hair or stains, and it’s from a nonsmoking household. One fifty is a steal.”
It was a steal, considering Olivia had seen a similar piece on sale for $499 at a local furniture store. But this was not her first rodeo. “I’m not sure it will fit in our place,” she stalled. “Do you know the dimensions? I’ll talk to my roommate.”
The woman rattled off some numbers while Olivia alerted her best friend.
Olivia: I found us a couch! It’s green. Should fit under the window. I’m gonna need a truck.
Lexie: Where are you?
Olivia: 537 Harolds Court
Lexie: I’ll get Jake. Work your magic!
Olivia nodded politely to the woman, who was still standing nearby. “Let me think about it,” she said.
“Of course! Take your time,” the woman replied, and she walked away to help an older lady with a lamp.
Olivia moved to a shelf of tiny porcelain figurines, all the while scanning the sparse crowd of shoppers.
The best person to talk to at a sale like this was the seller’s husband; he was usually anxious to get his garage back and willing to send the junk on its way with minimal fanfare.
She looked for anyone who might fit the bill.
There were several middle-aged women sorting a stack of tea towels and one young mother watching her children rummage through a bin of stuffed animals.
A younger guy was inspecting a rusty bicycle frame leaning against the side of the house, but there were no other men in sight.
She shifted from one foot to the other. If Jake Tanner wasn’t running to his pickup truck at that very moment, she’d eat her shoes! The poor boy had only been dating her best friend for two weeks, but he was already wrapped around her pinkie finger about as tightly as he could be.
Sure enough, her phone buzzed in her hand a few seconds later.
Lexie: On our way! Jake’s picking me up, and he’s bringing one of his roommates. We owe them pizza.
Olivia chuckled softly. Yep, that’s what she’d thought.
A set of door hinges squeaked to her left, and an older gentleman with a receding hairline stepped out of the house and onto the smooth garage floor.
Olivia looked along the length of the driveway and saw the woman she’d spoken to standing at the far end discussing something with the mother and her kids.
It was time to make her move.
“Excuse me, sir!” she called, lifting her hand to catch the man’s attention. “Are you selling this couch?”
The man looked around, as if surprised to find someone speaking to him, and gave her an uncertain sort of smile. “Well, my wife is. I’m not sure what she’s asking for it, honestly. It’s been in the garage for a while.”
Perfect.
“Hmm,” Olivia said, pretending to consider. “Well, I could have some friends pick it up today, if we can afford it. What do you think about... seventy-five?”
The man rubbed one hand across the scruff on his chin and looked nervously out toward the yard. “I think she wanted a bit more than that. I can go get her for you.”
“Oh, that’s okay. I don’t want to bother anybody,” Olivia answered quickly. “I saw a smaller one at another sale anyway. Thanks, though!” She waved cheerily and started to walk away, hoping with all her might that he valued the empty space in his garage more than a couch he wasn’t using anyway.
Thankfully, she was right .
“Wait!” the man called as she stepped into the sunshine, and Olivia barely kept herself from smiling. She turned back to find him half jogging out to meet her. “What about one ten?”
Olivia pulled the folded bills from her pocket and flipped through them, biting her bottom lip for good measure. “I maybe could do ninety.”
The man winced, but he looked at the money with wistfulness in his eyes. “I’ll do one hundred if you can take it today. I just want it gone.”
Sold!
But Olivia sighed deeply and counted her bills again. “Alright, but would you put this back for me?” she asked, handing over the stained glass windowpane. The man held up his hands, palms out. “You can have that, ma’am. Just take it.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, clutching it to her chest as if he’d just given her the Taj Mahal.
“Thank you, sir. I appreciate it!” She handed over her payment and mentally did a victory dance right there in the driveway—and not a moment too soon.
The rumble of an engine grew louder, and she saw a blue pickup come to a stop near the end of the driveway.
Lexie opened the front passenger’s door and jumped to the ground. “Liv! It’s beautiful!” she gushed when she reached the garage. She plopped down onto the generous cushions and wiggled happily. “I think it’s full of angel wings.”
“I know, right?” Olivia answered, sitting down beside her friend. “Now we just have to get it loaded before the lady who lives here realizes her husband practically gave it to me.”
“Oh, don’t worry. The boys will have it done in five minutes,” Lexie assured her.
Olivia absentmindedly wondered who Jake had brought with him—probably another soft-spoken cowboy type, like himself.
She thought, again, of the boy from the grocery store and wondered if he’d made it through that day alive.
She wouldn’t be surprised to find out he’d been fired.
.. or burned at the stake. His manager had certainly looked angry enough to do it, though it would be a pity if those pretty eyes went up in smoke.
She heard the boy’s deep chuckle in her mind for the thousandth time and quickly pushed the memory away.
She’d never been in the habit of chasing after boys, and she wasn’t going to start now.
Graduation was coming, her internship would start next semester, and job application websites were bookmarked on her laptop.
This was not the time to complicate her life—pretty eyes or not.
Jake backed the bed of his truck up over the curb, and she watched the taillights flash and go off.
Moments later, the rear driver’s side door popped open, and Jake’s friend slid out.
He was wearing light-wash jeans and a dark T-shirt, and a shock of jet-black hair peeked out from beneath a baseball cap.
As he came closer, she found herself looking into a familiar pair of blue-gray eyes that sparkled with humor as they met hers.
Apparently, Olivia didn’t need to complicate her own life—karma was happy to do it for her.
Pixie.
Her long hair was tied up in that messy thing girls did when they were trying not to care too much, and she wasn’t all made up the way she had been that day in the store, but even from a distance, Noah knew it was her.
He made his way up the driveway, watching her as he went, and he saw the moment recognition dawned on her face.
Judging by the look in her eyes, she was just as surprised to see him as he was to finally find her.
“You’ve got to be kidding!” she shouted, her voice exactly as he remembered it—teasing and playful with a hint of mischief underneath.
“Hey, Pixie,” he replied, and the grin he’d been holding at bay slipped out. “Looks like you’re gonna buy me dinner after all.”
The girl huffed out a laugh and rose to stand, but not before Lexie voiced the obvious question. “Do you two know each other?” she asked from her place on the couch.
“Sort of. He stole my groceries once,” her friend answered airily. She pulled the cushion she’d been sitting on from the love seat and leaned it against the brick of the house. Lexie pushed to her feet and did the same.
“I wouldn’t call it stealing ,” Noah replied.
“You ran off with a cart full of stuff I’d already paid for! That’s stealing,” Pixie countered.