3. Olly
THREE
OLLY
When I was rather young, maybe six, I began drawing over and again a picture of two people, always from the back: one with long red hair and dressed in an ivory-and-pink meringue of a gown, standing beside someone with darker hair wearing a flowing red cape.
I don’t know why this image stayed with me, when I had drawn hundreds if not thousands of pictures by the time I was twenty-nine and working at Rose Financial, but for some reason, these past few days my mind wouldn’t let go of this childhood image.
I thought that it was perhaps of my bio parents, her with her long red curls, him with his black hair.
Now, back then, when I was just a kid, I knew all kinds of things I shouldn’t have known at my age because it was almost impossible for people to lie to me, and it still is.
I knew right from the jump that everything from Santa Claus to superheroes was just made up, peddled to children to maintain their illusions of a safe world with a touch of magic.
The closest I got as a kid to having that kind of normal life after the accident that killed my family was when I was fifteen.
I had been placed with the Parks after a run of one shitty foster home after another.
I knew that most of the time, the people who ran the foster homes were doing their best and did give a damn, but I just never seemed to fit in with any family.
And then going through puberty as a psychic?
It was a bit much, and getting knocked up at fourteen didn’t help.
It was owing to the Parks and their belief in me that at seventeen I actually finished high school with honours with distinction, and then booked it from the coast of Nova Scotia to Ontario to attend what was arguably “The Harvard of the North,” Queen’s University in Kingston.
I left my numerous sketchpads behind with Mother and Father Park, ready to break with the past, though I did tear out a drawing I had made at around fourteen of the people in the red cape and poofy gown.
I wasn’t sure what significance, if any, this picture had, but I felt like it was important to bring with me as I started my adult life.
I pinned it on the corkboard in my freshman dorm, and it gradually got covered with other things I found interesting or cool.
I barely thought of it at all until I was taking down my things to move out, eight months later.
It went into a box of miscellaneous paperwork that I shipped home to Mother and Father Park for storage in my teenage bedroom.
I decided that one day I’d buy my first car and go on a cross-country road trip, looking for the people in the drawing.
I knew it was impossible that they were my dead parents, as I never drew the past, though I lived in a world of psychics, ghosts, and prophecy, so who was to say what was truly impossible?
Now, you might be wondering how, in a country as huge as Canada, I would locate these people, if they were indeed in the same country as myself.
I just had this idea that my psychic gift would lead me to them, somehow—yes, I had these abilities, but it’s not like I understood really how any of them worked.
Despite this urge to go looking for them, I decided when I finished Queen’s that I wanted to go to grad school with Shepard.
So a little under ten years ago, we headed east, and when I felt this intense pull to stop in Montréal, I pushed it aside and looked homeward to the coast instead.
Now, I was still doing mundane tasks for the changeover from my old role to the junior to senior records manager, still trying to accept that I was pregnant, and still wobbling back and forth on what furnishings I wanted in the new apartment, when our new hire arrived.
I was a bit late on greeting him as I was upchucking in the washroom.
Gemma Diaz held my hair and rubbed circles on my back, and I tried my best not to be bothered by her status as one of the few unalive people I knew, who was manifesting by feeding off the psychic energy I sort of shed all over the place.
Being sick finished, I rinsed my mouth well and did a quick brush of my teeth, and hurried to the conference room in black ballet flats—no more heels for me.
In fact, my whole outfit was black today.
I found it complemented my hair colour and skin tone well, and it was also my favorite colour, along with green.
I felt it before I even entered the conference room, just when I got to the hallway.
A tugging sensation, like I was being pushed and pulled right up to the conference room doors, where I seemed to be stuck until I opened the door and sort of half fell into the room, shoved forth by that unknown force.
Balance quickly regained—but dignity definitely impacted—I blew some stray hair out of my eyes, looked around, and saw him.
He stood in the conference room near the coffee station in a perfectly tailored black suit with a green tie that drew the eye right to his face.
His bright green eyes were, in a word, magnificent.
His hair was so black it was practically blue, and he had this vibe which reminded me of Shepard, a bit.
It was a bit long and tamed with some kind of product, but I bet he let it fly on the weekends.
His skin was a healthy-looking ruddy colour like he spent a lot of time outdoors, and he had a strong jawline with a fair bit of five o’clock shadow, but it added to his rugged attractiveness, rather than looking sloppy.
He was quite literally the most beautiful person I’d ever seen, but didn’t everyone feel that way when they met someone who had the potential to be their forever?
“Yeah, not like you’re getting carried away, McLeod,” my own inner voice said loudly, pushing out any others that tried to speak up.
“He probably has a partner already, or is a total dick who does things like not tip the waitress. No one is perfect.”
“Ah, here she is, our secret weapon of the Information Department,” Robert said.
I closed my slack jaw, hoped to the goddess I hadn’t actually been drooling, and made my way over, smiling, and feeling inferior in every way to this man.
I actually decided to do a light touch of his mind, and I found that not only was he not shielding, but his thoughts were also leaking out all over the place.
“Oh my god, this is my new boss? She’s gorgeous and cute and all that hair, it looks so soft, and she has so many freckles.
I wonder if she likes movies? You idiot, you can’t ask your boss on a date...
” I smiled wider and stopped listening, actively putting up a block so I didn’t hear more of those private thoughts that were not intended for me to hear.
“He wants to take you out on a date!” a voice crept in from somewhere, and I told it to shut up and reached out to shake his hand as Robert introduced us simply by name, and when our hands touched, a jolt went through my body, like I was again being given a sturdy push from behind.
I avoided tripping this time, but just barely.
I looked at this man’s face again, and at that moment, while we shook hands, I felt like I knew him to his very bones.
I saw his childhood of living all over the world with his parents, his fears about his little sister, his parents sailing into the unknown, his unbreakable spirit and strong heart despite intense loneliness.
I wanted more. I wanted every piece of him behind those gorgeous, piercing green eyes.
But to him? I was just his boss, and that placed me firmly in the off-limits category.
“I’m really looking forward to joining the team, Ms. McLeod,” he said, in a deep, rich voice with a very slight accent I couldn’t place.
I suppose it was the kind of accent one would acquire growing up all around the world.
He was looking forward to joining the team?
This was the first person other than Shepard that had truly captivated me, and I was looking forward to seeing if I drew anything about us jumping each other’s bones.
What was I thinking! This guy was my employee, and I was not about to turn this meeting into a sexual harassment lawsuit, so I used my words and simply said, “We’re all looking forward to having you, Evans,” and dropped his hand.
His hand was a bit rough, like someone who did carpentry or some other kind of physical labour and didn’t just sit in front of a computer all the time.
So much information was coming at me from him that I had to let go because if I held on, I didn’t know just how much more personal information I’d get, or if I’d even be capable of letting go.
It wasn’t just how drop-dead gorgeous I found him.
It was something in his character that leaked out and made his presence magnetic, like he was oozing charisma and integrity.
He was as near to perfect as a person could get to ticking the boxes on my list of qualities I saw myself in a relationship with, and was also utterly untouchable.
Life really likes to punch you in the boob sometimes.