Chapter Six
Olivia
I stopped at the edge of the crosswalk and hung up my phone as Jace’s recorded voice filled my ear.
I’d decided to walk to Harrison’s from my mom’s after dropping Kaylee off since it was only a few blocks away and I needed some fresh air.
Kaylee had come down with a cold over the weekend, so we’d been couped up inside for the last two days.
The cool fall breeze contrasting the warm sun on my skin was a welcome reprieve.
Kaylee was staying with Mom until the end of my shift today and I was not looking forward to picking her up and being asked more questions about my new “relationship” with Jace.
I’d barely survived the inquisition thirty minutes ago when my mother asked who finally asked who out.
To which the only reasonable response was to say that I’d asked him, since now I was definitely going to have to do that.
Then she’d wanted to know precisely how it happened and if he was as happy about it as she thought he would be and I’d fumbled my way through a whole host of lies, making me feel like a terrible friend to Jace and a terrible daughter.
I never lied to my mom. Am I that desperate not to be asked about my love life that I just fictionalized a love life for myself with my best friend?
Yes, clearly, I am.
The walk signal changed, and I crossed the street before circling around the back of the bar. My phone buzzed with a text, and I quickly glanced at the screen.
Jace: I’m in a meeting. I can call you in ten, but if it’s an emergency call back and I’ll answer.
I slipped the phone in my back pocket without responding.
How could I not have it bad for this guy? How many people go the extra mile when deferring your call to give you a method to signal that it’s an emergency? He’s annoyingly perfect.
Jace was the most considerate person I’d ever met, and I was pretty sure that if I asked him to be my date to Mom’s bridal shower he’d say yes without batting an eye.
But I was always the one needing him, and the thought of asking him, yet again, to do something for me made my stomach sink.
I was willing to do things for him too, but he never asked.
I was pretty sure asking other people to meet his needs was hard for Jace, which made me feel worse about how often I needed him.
I took a deep breath as I side-stepped a puddle in front of the back door of Harrison’s and pulled the door open. Pretending to date Jace for one event couldn’t really be that much harder than pretending he was just my friend. In fact, it would be closer to the truth—for me, at least.
Nine minutes later, I’d just closed the locker where I put my purse in the backroom at Harrison’s and started to tie my apron around my waist when my phone rang. Jace.
“Hey,” I said. “Sorry to call in the middle of the day. I should have texted first.”
“It’s fine, Liv. I’ll always make myself available to you. What’s up? Please tell me you’re calling about the job offer.”
I propped my phone between my neck and shoulder as I tied my hair back. “Yes. I want the job. If it’s still available. Or, I want to interview for it, I guess.”
Jace chuckled. “I’m not interviewing you. I hadn’t even had a chance to post it when I told you about it. It’s available and it’s yours.”
I ran a hand over the top of my ponytail and dug in my purse for Chapstick. “Okay, well do you need me to start right away? Jackson knows I’m looking for a new job, but I want to give him adequate notice.”
“I have a temp coming in today. How long do you want to give Jackson? I’ll tell the agency that’s how long I need the temp for.”
“Three weeks?” I suggested. “That’s fair right? That way I’ll only have to suffer through Kaylee’s first week of preschool with this shift.”
“That works for me. If Jackson needs more time I’ll wait for you, Liv,” Jace said earnestly, like it wasn’t even remotely putting him out.
“Okay.” I swiped Chapstick across my lips and dropped it back in my purse. “But don’t get too attached to me. This is temporary until I find a job I want. Managing your schedule is not even remotely my dream in life.”
“But working with me all day? Come on. That’ll be fun,” he said, his voice smooth like honey. “Not to mention, I’m already attached to you.”
This will be fucking torture, but sure, we can go with fun.
“Do I have to stop wearing my nose ring?” I asked.
I didn’t wear other jewelry or have any tattoos.
The nose ring was the only thing on my body that felt like a small piece of my identity.
I assumed it was how Jace felt about the tattoos that covered his chest—the ones that I didn’t get to see enough of.
“Of course not,” he said quickly. “Why would you think that?”
“Aren’t these corporate places all buttoned-up?” I asked, already unsure of what I was doing. I liked working in the restaurant industry and now I was giving that up to work in an office building. I took a deep breath. I’m doing this for Kaylee and it’s temporary.
“We’re not buttoned-up here. I want people who work for me to be who they are and not who they think I want them to be. I love your nose ring, Liv,” he said.
“You do?” I asked before I could catch myself.
He chuckled. “Yeah, I really do. I’ll be pissed if you stop wearing it because you think you need to do that here.”
“Okay.” I glanced at my watch. “I have to go, my shift’s starting.”
“Okay. Sign the offer letter tonight and send it back to me, please. If you need any help with Kaylee’s first week of school I’m happy to rearrange my schedule and pick her up and take her out for ice cream.”
My heart melted for the thousandth time since meeting Jace.
He loved my daughter. How do you take a perfect man and make him even more perfect?
Have him fall in love with your kid! Kaylee loved him just as much.
It was another reason why our friendship, and now professional relationship, was bound to be the death of my heart.
“Thanks,” I said. “She’s pissed that I washed her favorite stuffed animal after she covered him with boogers yesterday. Now he isn’t dirty anymore, which was apparently a problem worth crying about for three minutes straight this morning.”
He chuckled. “Hey, I’m officially moved out of my apartment. Why don’t I grab a pizza and swing by your place after your shift?”
“Is the pizza for the distraught toddler or her very-tired mom?”
“Both of you. But I’ll also bring wine for when she’s in bed.”
“You’re too good to me,” I said.
“Not nearly good enough,” he said. “See you tonight.”
I said goodbye and hung up the phone, slipped it in my apron, and went to find Jackson in the kitchen. His dark, bald head was leaned over a cutting board where he was rapidly chopping onion.
He looked up and shook his head at my approach. “You took Jace’s offer, didn’t you?”
“Are you going to hate me if I say yes?” I asked, leaning on the counter.
Jackson wiped his hands on his apron and brushed the onion into a pot on the stove with a chef’s knife. “I would have been pissed if you didn’t.”
“Really?”
“Yep,” he said, turning on the burner. He faced me, his dark eyes stern. “I won’t be running this place forever, so maybe don’t forget about us, but for now, you have to do what works for you and your little girl.”
“Thanks, Jackson. Three weeks?” I asked.
“That’s fine.” He grabbed a wooden spoon and started stirring.
“I’m going to go out there before Clarence comes in to yell at me for being late,” I said.
Jackson shook his head. “I don’t need his drama today, so off you go.”
I left the kitchen, and he yelled, “Congrats” as I made my way to the bar. I took over for Clarence who kept his mouth shut for once, but whose eyes told me he knew I’d been in the back five minutes too long.
By the time my shift was over, my feet were sore, I’d spilled soup all over myself, and I was ready for a nap.
But the promise of wine and pizza with Jace motivated me to perk up.
I walked back to Mom’s to get Kaylee and stopped at Ackerson’s Wine and Coffee Bar for a pumpkin latte on the way.
Another one of the bars owned by Adrian, Ackerson’s always had a sunshiny feel compared to the dim lighting at Harrison’s and it was hands down the best local coffee in Back Bay.
I’d no more than gotten Kaylee home and in the process of taking her shoes off when a knock sounded on the door right behind where we stood in the small entrance to my apartment.
“Jace!” Kaylee exclaimed, grabbing the handle and throwing the front door open.
He smiled at me and bent down to hug her, a large pizza in one hand and a bottle of wine grasped in the other. “Hey, Peanut. How was your day?”
“Mom washed Teddy,” she said with exasperation.
“I heard,” Jace said, standing back up. “I figured some pepperoni pizza would help ease the pain of your mom’s mistakes.”
“Yeah!” Kaylee jumped up and down, grabbing the leg of Jace’s dark jeans.
“Really? Mistakes?” I grumbled as Jace hugged me.
He chuckled, his arm around my upper back feeling more comforting than usual after the long day I’d had. “Sorry, Liv.”
“Mhm.” I reluctantly released him and took the bottle of wine. “I’ll open this.”
His eyes scanned my body as he stepped back and he crinkled his nose. “You smell like cream of broccoli.”
I closed my eyes and tipped my head back with a groan. “Hence why I need the wine. It was a very long day, my feet are killing me, and I spilled an entire bowl of soup all over myself.”
“Liv,” he said, setting the pizza on the kitchen table. He pulled the wine bottle from my hands. “Go take a shower. Better yet, take a bath and relax. Kaylee and I can watch a movie.”
“I feel like you’re telling me I smell.”
Jace shook his head and grabbed my shoulders with both hands. I took a deep breath to hide the way my body relaxed into him. “I’m saying you’ve obviously had a shit day. Go do something for yourself. But yeah, you also don’t smell great.”
I swatted his shoulder. “How sad is it that as moms we think a shower is self-care?”
“Seriously, take a bath. Read a book. Go for a walk. Go have dinner alone if you want.”
Kaylee climbed onto a kitchen chair, helping herself to pizza, and I tensed at the inevitable mess created by a three-and-a-half-year-old serving herself. Jace noticed and stepped in, immediately picking up her paper plate and holding it closer to the box for her.
“How long is Frozen?” he asked Kaylee.
She shrugged, focused on the pizza as she brought it straight to her lips, bypassing the plate.
“An hour and forty-five minutes,” I said.
“Prefect. Olivia,” he said sternly, “I don’t want to see you for an hour and forty-five minutes. Kaylee and I have a movie date, right, Peanut?”
“Yeah!” she yelled, pizza spilling out of her mouth.
A bath does sound nice. Really nice. I haven’t taken a bath in…gosh, at least three and a half years.
I opened my mouth to ask if he was sure, but he held a hand up to stop me. He took a paper plate off the table, plopped two pieces of pizza on it, and held it out to me. “Bye, Liv.”
I sighed and walked down the hall to my bedroom and started a bath in the ensuite bathroom.
I found some bath salts under the sink and tossed those in, the room quickly filling with the scent of lavender.
I walked into the bedroom and grabbed my e-reader—the one that sat there and reminded me that I never had time to read anymore—off the nightstand and went back into the bathroom to strip my clothes off.
I had just gotten naked when there was a soft knock at the door and I startled.
“Hey, it’s me,” Jace’s smooth voice carried through the door. “I poured you a glass of wine. I can leave it out here or close my eyes and hand it to you if you want.”
I scoffed. “You’re too considerate for your own good.” I grabbed my towel off the rack on the wall, wrapped it around my body, and opened the door.
He stood leaning against the door frame, smiling, with a glass of white wine in his hand. His green eyes sparkled and all I really wanted was to turn this into a two-person bath. His smile was charming as hell, and it made me melt—as if his kindness alone hadn’t made me melt enough for one night.
I took the wine from him and brought the glass to my lips, taking a long sip while he remained rooted in place, staring at me as if he couldn’t take his eyes off my face for fear of where they’d roam.
“Thank you,” I said, feeling my body warm under his gaze.
Tell me you feel it, Jace. There’s something amazing here and I know you feel it too.
He blinked twice and shook his head slightly. “Enjoy,” he said before turning and walking away.
I shut the bathroom door and wondered if I was actually delusional or not.