Chapter 4
Chapter Four
OLIVIA
“And then he just gave you a thumbs-up?” Lily said with a scrunched, confused face.
“Yes!” Olivia said in exasperation, hauling another box from her car. They carried moving boxes up the small stone front steps of Georgia’s cottage. “That’s weird, right?”
“And what did you say he looked like?” Lily said in confusion, hefting a box onto her hip as she opened the screen front door.
“He was huge and hot,” Olivia said as she walked into the cute cottage. “Like maybe he could be an asshole who would get in a bar fight, but then also he was fucking ah-dor-able with his little girl. My ovaries melted out of my body.”
Georgia’s cottage was stuffed full of keepsakes and tchotchkes. Floral couches, lamps dangling with gems, and scarves were everywhere.
The clutter was going to drive her nuts for the next four months, but all the better reason not to get too comfortable.
“He had a little girl at the bookstore. I think she knew your brother?”
“Oooooh,” Lily said slowly, setting the box on a small wooden table in the kitchen. “Did he have scary neck tattoos? And biteable biceps the size of my head? Literally?”
Olivia pointed emphatically at her. “Yes, exactly his energy. I probably want to fuck him, but also he might shake somebody down for their wallet right after.”
“That,” Lily said, unpacking the box of Olivia’s sewing supplies, “is Luca. He did some great work on the Bloom farmer’s market van. And though I am happily married”—she wiggled her finger with an enormous rock on it—“I totally get the appeal.”
Olivia unpacked her matcha powder, in its perfect container, and set it in the perfect spot on her countertop. She put her favorite mug beside it, and then put the rest of her supplies into an empty spot in the well-worn, jewel-toned cabinets in the kitchen.
“I just felt like I’d sorta been…shot in the chest when I met him.”
Lily gasped. “In a…like, good way?”
“In a scary way,” Olivia admitted.
“Oh, no.”
“In a ‘I think I just saw my future flash in front of my eyes and he made me orgasm’ way.”
Even that is an understatement. She’d read the word thunderstruck in the past, but now?
She’d lived it.
Seeing the wall of dark, brooding, tattooed man with a body that looked like it’d been carved from every one of her late-night fantasies walk toward her had been an out-of-body experience.
And when that hard-as-nails exterior turned into a pile of soft squishy mush when he saw his little girl?
Forget the EMTs—call the coroner. She’d been dead from cuteness.
Lily danced as she hopped down the steps back to the car. “Ooh, maybe you’ll stay here forever as he sexes your brains out.”
“No,” Olivia said, yanking open the creaking front passenger door to grab the last bits of her stuff from her cross-country trip. “Only here for four months, the end.”
“It’s just so nice to have you home after all this time. I’ve barely seen you for a decade and a half. I want a permanent girls’ weekend. In between the classes Georgia asked you—”
“Hoodwinked me,” Olivia corrected.
“Into teaching.” Lily grimaced.
Olivia groaned and leaned against her car.
The warmth of the September sun hit her face and contrasted with a light, crisp breeze in the air.
“I’m kind of dreading the classes. I’ve taught summer intensives for years, but those were semi-professional young dancers.
Incredibly serious, incredibly determined. ”
“Probably not a lot of fingers up their noses,” Lily said with a snort.
“Exactly,” Olivia laughed.
“Miss Olivia,” a tiny voice shouted.
Olivia turned to see the adorable little girl she’d met at the bookstore.
She’d felt a kinship with her immediately, with how completely obsessed she’d gotten with ballet in a matter of seconds. She’d asked smart questions as she waited for her dad to pick her up.
Her hot, no-wedding-ring, holy-fuck-he-could-toss-me-across-the-room fantasy, dad.
The little girl’s backpack bounced as she ran across the grass from the house next door.
“Annabelle,” a deep, growling voice called from the house next door. “Don’t run toward the road.”
He rushed out the door but stopped suddenly as he saw Olivia.
Olivia’s pulse jumped at the unexpected realization.
Oh god, they live next door.
She was going to live next door to the ravage-you-then-cuddle-you combo that apparently was the secret to her vagina.
“Hey, AB.” Lily gave her a big high five. “That is a very cool unicorn backpack.”
Luca was busy locking the door, so Olivia let her eyes linger on him. It was rare for her to experience intense initial physical attraction. She normally was attracted to men after she got to know them more, but there was just something about Luca that made her feel like a magnet, drawn to him.
The fine lines on his arms twisted around skulls and wrenches. His chest was large, and pillowy. It curved down to what looked like a gentle, soft stomach, and she actually felt herself clench at the thought of putting her head there.
She felt her arm being tugged.
“So can I?” AB asked.
She’d been completely lost ogling the man who was apparently her next door neighbor. “I’m sorry, sweetie,” she said, kneeling down to eye level with AB. “I was distracted.”
A loud snort came from Lily that Olivia was going to ignore.
“Can I show you my gifts from the crows? They gave me decapitated doll heads,” AB said with excited delight.
“...Sure,” Olivia said, completely thrown off by the dark side of this adorable little girl.
AB tugged her to a pile beside their front tree.
Luca slowly walked toward them.
“Hi,” she said softly. Am I…breathless right now? “I’m your new next-door neighbor.” Her eyes traced the thick muscles moving inside his black T-shirt.
He nodded, staring at her with bewilderment.
“See this one”—AB held a mangled Barbie head with one missing eye and a half a head of hair—“I got on my birthday because I gave the crows snacks. And then—”
“Annabelle, we’ve got to go, we’re late,” Luca said, still never taking his eyes off of Olivia.
Olivia gulped. She liked the feeling of his eyes on her, but it made her skittish—like she was near a precipice, and she didn’t know what was on the other side of it.
“I don’t want to,” AB whined.
“Come on,” Olivia said, holding out her hand. “You can tell me all about it until we get to the car.”
AB grabbed her hand and jumped as they walked across the rolling front lawn. “And sometimes I get earrings, and sparkly rocks from the crows. AP, that’s my aunt Pearl,” she clarified, “taught me how to be friends with them. When do we dance?”
“The first class starts in a few days,” Olivia said, squeezing AB’s hand.
“Thanks,” Luca said quietly to Olivia. “Hop in, AB.” He opened the car door and lifted her onto a small booster seat.
“Oh.” Olivia spied a lunch box beside the front door. “Don’t leave.” She squeezed Luca’s thick, hard forearm as he shut the car door. He stilled under her touch.
Okay, maybe that was an unnecessary grab, but come on. So fucking hot.
She dashed across the front lawn, taking the stairs two at a time, and grabbed a lunchbox.
“I think this is important, right?” she said with a smile.
Luca wiped a hand down his face and laughed. “Yes. The lunchbox is my nemesis. Thank you,” he said quietly as she handed it to him.
His cologne wrapped around her as she stood next to him. It was musky and smelled expensive, like a cashmere man cave.
Do not sniff this man’s chest right now. But something in her needed it, like he was the sole supplier of a nutrient she’d somehow forgotten to consume for thirty-three years.
Annnnd I look disgusting right now, she thought, having carried boxes in for over an hour. She pushed flyaways out of her face. “Any time, neighbor.”
Luca licked his lips. A shy smile was on his face that was in total contrast to the menacing skull peeking out of his shirt collar.
Why did the contrast of it all make her dizzy?
His lips were plush for a man. She bit her own bottom lip, thinking about what it might be like to bite his.
Ridiculous. He could have a girlfriend or partner or something.
“You moved in next door?” he said suddenly, his eyes soft. The fall breeze played with the strands of dark hair over his forehead.
“I’m borrowing the cottage from Georgia until December. She has a lover.” Olivia wiggled her eyebrows.
“Lucky Georgia,” he said with a slow smile, his eyes tracing her face.
The sentence formed in her head: Do you have one of those?
But luckily, her mouth was smart enough to stop it before it got there.
“What happens in December?” he asked.
“I audition and then move wherever they need a moderately talented ballet dancer.”
He nodded, fiddling with his keys. He started to say something but stopped himself. “I should go,” he said, gesturing with the lunch box. “Big day ahead. Buying my first pair of ballet shoes,” he added, giving her another one of those shy smiles.
Holy shit, he is so cute. “I don’t know if we carry your size,” Olivia said with a laugh.
He huffed out a laugh in return as he hopped into his SUV. The warmth from his smile radiated around her, glowed under her skin.
She waved at AB as they drove away, and it was at that moment that she noticed Lily doubled over in laughter
“What,” Olivia said accusingly, knowing exactly why she was laughing.
“I just haven’t seen you smile this big in a long time,” Lily said, giving Olivia’s arm a squeeze. “It’s nice.”
“I smile,” Olivia said defensively, playfully pushing Lily.
Lily wrapped an arm around her. “You’ve had this haunted Victorian child aura. Seems like it’s faaaaaading,” she said with a teasing tone.
“Probably just all this fresh fall air.” Olivia shrugged, laughing with Lily at the obvious lie.
“Hot as fuck fall air that is really cute with his little girl, more like,” Lily said with a wink, opening the cottage door and walking in.
But for some reason that made no sense, the world felt a little bit brighter that morning. Her circumstances hadn’t changed. She was still here to pick up the scraps of her career and braid them into something stronger.
Maybe it was because she could hang out with her best friend. Maybe it was because she’d been able to give Pop a kiss on the head as she left, knowing she’d get to see him tomorrow for dinner.
But, ridiculously, unbelievably, and so impossibly illogically, she had a feeling it had to do with the SUV at the end of the block turning out of sight.