2. Olivia
CHAPTER 2
Olivia
L eaving the spa parking lot, I pull out onto Main Street and bypass the turn for Kourtney’s neighborhood. This evening, I’m not going straight home after work, like I have since moving in with her over the weekend. Not that her house feels like home. With most of my clothes still in my suitcases and sleeping on a blow-up mattress every night, I very much still feel like a guest, despite her attempts to make me feel welcome. Or as welcome as she could make me feel before she left in the middle of the week for another contract job, this one in Los Angeles.
As I roll to a stop at another red light, I feel like one of the old timers in town who are constantly complaining about traffic and all of the changes that have taken place over the years.
When I lived here years ago, there was one single stoplight in the center of town. Now, there are dozens. Plus, there are so many new stores and fast-food places along the long stretch of road that takes you from my little town, into the next one, and then the next, before eventually meeting downtown Nashville.
There is even a Starbucks, which I never thought I’d see here. Not after the uproar that happened when I was in high school when they wanted to build a Sonic Drive-In, which they were sure would kill the small-town feel and put all of the mom-and-pop restaurants out of business. But that’s how it is in small towns—everyone is so afraid of change, afraid that if things aren’t like they’ve always been, whatever toxicity is happening in big cities will spread and contaminate the residents.
Glancing at my dash when my phone starts to ring, I see it’s one of my very best friends from Chicago and hit the button on my steering wheel.
“Hey, you,” I answer, smiling despite the person behind me honking like I should just ram the truck in front of me to get them to move.
“It sounds like you’re home, please tell me you’re back in Chicago.” Rebecca’s voice bounces around the interior of my car, making me laugh.
“Sorry, I’m just on my way to my parents’ house and stuck in traffic. What are you up to?”
“I just got off work, so I’m heading home to get ready to meet Clark for dinner.”
“You’re having dinner with Clark?” There is no hiding the surprise in my voice. Then again, Clark is her ex, who she broke up with two months ago when he asked her to move in with him instead of asking her to marry him, which was what she thought was happening.
“It’s just dinner.”
“So you’re still not going to admit that you miss him or that you might have made a mistake when you broke up with him?”
“Wanting to be engaged before you move in with someone isn’t a ridiculous request, especially when you’ve been dating that person for over a year.”
“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” I reply softly, then remind her, “but he never said he wouldn’t ask you. He just didn’t want to be pressured into doing it before he was ready. And he wanted to live with you for a while before you two took that step.”
“If you know, you know, and he obviously didn’t know that he wanted to spend his life with me, so why waste either of our time?”
“Okay, then why are you going out with him tonight?”
“Because I’m still in love with him,” she answers, sounding sickened by just admitting it.
“So if he asked you to get back together, would you say yes?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” She lets out a breath. “Or maybe not. It just depends on if things have changed.”
I shake my head. “You mean if he’s changed his mind about getting engaged.”
“We were together for over a year!”
Fourteen months is barely over a year, but I don’t remind her of that. She already knows.
“Molly got engaged to Adam in like two months.”
“You’re right, and now they are married with a baby, but she mostly hates his guts because he doesn’t step up and help her out like he should. And she is basically a single mom of two kids, one of them being a thirty-plus-year-old man who wants to do nothing but drink all day and play video games when he’s not working. Something she might have learned and been able to avoid had they lived together for more than the few months after they got engaged and before they got married.”
“So you think I should have moved in with Clark without a ring on my finger?”
“I think that, at the end of the day, my opinion doesn’t matter. You have to do what is right for you, which is what I told you when you told me that you were going to break up with him.”
“You also told me that I shouldn’t break up with him.”
“Because you’re in love with him and were basing your decision to break up with him on what your parents would say about you living together without being engaged first. I also told you their opinion shouldn’t matter because it’s not their life.”
“Can we stop talking about this?”
“Sure.” I press my lips together while shaking my head. We’ve had this conversation dozens of times, and it always ends the same way. With me attempting to get her to see she might have jumped the gun when breaking up with Clark—who she was and still is very much in love with—and her refusing to believe she did and getting mad about it because I won’t say she was right to do it.
“Have you spoken to Peter?”
Great. A topic I definitely don’t want to talk about.
“No.” I let out a breath. “I blocked his number after the last time he called me.”
“Good, because he’s still fucking her.” Her being my ex-coworker and supposed friend, Mindy, and Peter being my ex-boyfriend-slash-boss.
“Good for them. They deserve each other,” I mutter.
“Right, and if she thinks he’s not going to do the same thing to her, she’s out of her mind.”
I bite my lip. That statement feels like a smack in the face, even if it wasn’t her intent. When my old boss, Lindsey, retired and Peter took over the dermatology practice I was working at, he was dating someone else but would flirt with me constantly. I hate—after basking in his attention—that I allowed him wanting me to go to my head. Even if I refused to have any type of relationship with him until he broke up with his girlfriend, I know—had I opened that door—he would have stepped right on through, whether he was single or not.
“How’s everyone else?” I change the subject. I don’t want to talk about Peter or Mindy. I might be over the worst of their betrayal, but I’m still angry with myself for thinking he would’ve been faithful to me, for believing that, after the newness wore off, I wouldn’t be just another woman he screwed, then screwed over.
Not that the newness even had a chance to wear off. We had only been dating for a few weeks before I caught him with his cock down Mindy’s throat and at work, of all places. And for all I know, that had been happening long before he and I started officially seeing each other.
“Good. We all miss you like crazy… and hate Peter a little more every day that you’re gone.”
I swallow through the sudden tightness in my throat. I loved my job and all the people I used to work with back in Chicago. I got that position not long after I graduated, and I worked there for five years. My old boss and everyone in that office were like family to me. We spent holidays together and took trips as a group whenever we could. And even though finding out what Peter had done was the reason I left the practice and wanted to find somewhere else to work, he was not the reason I decided to leave Chicago despite what everyone believes.
“I miss you guys too.”
“How’s your new job going?” she asks.
“Good. I mean, it’s only been four days, so I’m still finding my footing. But I already have a pretty full calendar, so hopefully that keeps up.”
“It will. You’re the best at what you do. You already know I’m going to have to come down to visit you in a couple of months when it’s time for my touch-up. There is no way I’m letting anyone else near my face.” She chuckles.
“I’m looking forward to that visit.” I smile as I flip on my signal to turn down my parents’ road. “I just got to my parents’, so call me later and tell me about dinner.”
“I will. Love you.”
“Love you too,” I reply, and I hang up and watch my parents’ three-bedroom house and overflowing garden beds come into view. Along with the largest of their three dogs, Max, who bounds out of the open garage and right for my car while barking.
“Max, if I run you over, Mom is going to kill me, you idiot,” I grumble, slowing to a roll so I won’t accidentally hit him.
When I finally pull up to the house, I put my car in park and grab my purse, along with the bag of samples I brought for my mom from the spa. I push open my door, and Max greets me, with all seventy pounds of his big body hitting me right in the chest, knocking me back a step when he tries to reach my face with his tongue.
“Max, down!” Mom shouts, and he falls to his bottom, then looks over at her like he knows he got caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to.
“Hey, Mom.” I smile, taking her in as I rub the top of Max’s head.
My mom had me when she was forty-two and is now seventy, and even though she is active and in good health, her age is showing. And not just in her hair that she gave up coloring years ago that’s now a beautiful silver with white highlights, nor the laugh lines around her eyes and mouth. But the way she moves has changed, she’s slowed and gotten more careful.
And that is the real reason I decided to move back to Tennessee. Because my parents are both getting up there in age. My dad is already seventy-four, and I know logically I only have a few more years with them, and I don’t want to have any regrets. I also don’t want to be hundreds of miles away if they need me for any reason or know that I only saw them a couple of times a year when my schedule allowed or when Mom was up for taking the drive to Chicago to come see me, something my parents rarely did because my Mom is terrified of flying.
Plus, the timing was perfect since my lease was up for the apartment I was renting, and I was in the process of looking for a new job, so I felt like it was kismet.
“This is a nice surprise.” Mom smiles, stepping down off the porch. “I didn’t know you were coming by.”
“I just wanted to bring you some stuff from the spa and to check on you guys.” I leave Max and meet her at the bottom step, accepting a kiss to my cheek. “Where’s Dad?”
“Still out and about. He should be home soon.” She opens the screen door to the house and holds it for me. “I made chicken potpie for dinner. Do you want to stick around and eat with Dad and me?”
“I’d like that.” I follow her inside, and just like every time I come home, I feel as if I’ve been teleported back to my childhood. Nothing has changed over the years. All of Liam’s and my old school pictures are still hanging on the walls in chronological order. The blanket I used to curl up under to read is still on the back of the couch. And all of my beloved books are still lining the shelves in the living room. The only difference is that there is more stuff. Boxes and bags of food line the walls to be taken to the local food bank, and other garbage bags are stuffed full of clothes to be dropped off at whatever charity my mom’s church is donating to. And since Mom coordinates all of that stuff, everyone brings all their items to her house each week so she can distribute it all.
“So tell me about your new job. Do you like it?” Mom looks at me over her shoulder as I follow her down the hall to the kitchen.
“I do. The girls I work with all seem really nice, and even though it’s a much smaller practice than where I was working in Chicago, they seem to be pretty busy, which is good.” I drop my stuff on the dining table that is just off the kitchen.
“And your room at Kourtney’s?”
“It’s just a room.” I shrug.
Her eyes come to me over her shoulder once again as she opens the fridge. “You could have stayed in your room here.”
“I know, and Liam said the same thing, but neither of you really have space for me and all my stuff.”
“We would have made room for you, the same way we would have made room for you so you wouldn’t have to stay with Liam in his RV.”
“I know, but you know Dad.” I walk into the kitchen and lean against the counter next to the stove. “The minute I moved in, he would have given me a curfew and a strict bedtime of nine o’clock on weeknights. It was bad enough with Liam calling to ask me where I was and what I was doing if I wasn’t home when he got there.”
Laughing, she carries the pitcher of iced tea she brought out of the fridge to the counter and then gets down two glasses from the cabinet. “No matter how old you get, you’ll always be the baby.”
“Which is why I can’t live with you and Dad or with Liam,” I point out as she hands me a glass of sweet tea, and I take a sip. To this day, my mom still makes the best sun tea I’ve ever had. The secret is she lets the tea sit outside in the sun for a whole day in a glass jar that was passed down to her from her mom, and my great-grandmother before her.
“How’s it been living with Kourtney?”
“Fine. She’s working in LA for the next three weeks, so it’s just me at the house.” That was one of the reasons I decided to take Kourtney up on her offer when she told me she had a room in her house I could rent from her. Even as close as we were while growing up and staying pretty good friends over the years, I haven’t had a roommate since college, and I don’t really want one now. But as she put it, she’s gone all the time as a travel nurse, so it would be just me most of the time. Staying with her would give me a chance to see if I really wanted to settle here and not closer to Nashville before signing a yearlong lease on an apartment.
“How long will she be back for after this job?”
“She’s normally only home for a week or two between any of her contracts.”
“That must be hard on her.”
“She likes it, and she’s making good money. She told me that her house is already almost paid off, which is pretty awesome since she’s the same age as me.”
“Yeah, but what about building actual relationships? That’s difficult to do when you travel all the time.”
“I guess.” I shrug. “But she’s happy, so that’s all that matters.”
“You’re right,” she mutters, but I know her and know that she’s thinking that Kourtney should be out, dating and trying to find a man to settle down with so she can have some kids. And I know this because I’ve heard it from her more than once over the past few years when it comes to me and my own dating life.
“When are the rest of your things getting here?” Thankfully, she changes the subject.
“The delivery guys called this afternoon and said they should have everything to me by seven this evening.”
“That’s kind of late.”
“I know, but it’s better that way. It means I won’t have to miss work tomorrow, and this weekend, I can sort through boxes and figure out what furniture I’m going to take over to Liam’s storage unit.”
“Let me know when you’re ready, and Dad and I can bring his truck over to help.”
“Thanks.” I turn to look toward the hall that leads to the front door when I hear it open, and tiny paws hit the tile in the foyer, followed by the sound of heavy boots. Before my dad reaches the kitchen, Tums and Herb—my parents’ chihuahuas—run into the room and circle the floor between Mom and me, unable to decide who they are more excited to see.
I set my glass of tea down and pick Herb up while my mom grabs Tums.
“Both of my favorite girls are here,” Dad says in greeting, walking into the kitchen. Even at his age, he still gets up every day and goes to the mechanic shop he owns, so his hat and shirt are covered with grease stains and dirt from a hard day’s work—the same as always.
“Hey, Dad.” I smile as he walks past me to give my mom a kiss before he comes to me and kisses the side of my head.
“This is a nice surprise.” His heavy arm circles my shoulders, and he squeezes me into his side.
“I said the same thing.” Mom beams as she looks between my dad and me.
“You staying for dinner?” Dad asks, giving me a squeeze.
“Do you think I’d ever pass up Mom’s chicken potpie?” I ask, and he laughs.
“Guess not.” He kisses the side of my head, then looks at Mom. “I’m gonna go wash up.”
“Alright, honey.” She tells him, then looks at me. “Well, since you’re here, do you feel like helping me sort some of the donations while we wait for dinner to finish?”
“Sure.” I follow her into the living room, where we spend an hour going through all the clothes, food, and random donations people have brought over, then Dad and I load everything into her car so she can drop it all off tomorrow.
As we finish dinner, the delivery drivers call to tell me they are about thirty minutes away, so I tell my parents goodbye and hurry across town. As I’m pulling into Kourtney’s driveway, I glance next door to check and see if Bax is home, but he’s not. Then again, I haven’t even seen him or his truck parked in his driveway since I moved in. After I park, I grab all my stuff off my passenger seat and take it inside. As I’m changing out of my work clothes, the doorbell rings so I quickly put on my cropped long-sleeved shirt and rush to the living room.
“Hi.” I swing the door in, and a young guy with a backward baseball cap smiles.
“Olivia Gannon?”
“That’s me.”
“Awesome, we’re here to drop off your stuff. Can you tell me where we’re placing everything?”
“Just right here in the living room.” I motion to the side of me. “I’ll sort it all out this weekend.”
“Awesome, that makes it easier for us.” He smiles and then looks down at the paper in his hand before meeting my gaze. “Alright, in order to start unloading, we're going to need two thousand dollars.” I start to shake my head as he continues. “If you don’t have cash, I have Cash-app or Venmo. You can use either of those.”
“Sorry.” I shake my head. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding. I already paid in full.”
“Yes, I understand how that’s confusing, but you still need to pay us for the delivery.”
“No, I paid for everything up front, and I was told my balance on delivery would be zero dollars.”
“You were told wrong.”
“I think I need to call the moving company. There has obviously been a misunderstanding.” I sigh, and he shrugs.
“Do whatever you need to, but you’re not getting your stuff unless you pay me.”
“You can’t take my stuff.”
“It’s in my truck, so you’re wrong,” he says, turning and heading down the steps.
“Hey,” I follow him, closing the door behind me. “I just need to call the delivery company,” I tell his back as he continues down the sidewalk. “Sir, just give me a second.” He doesn't even turn to look at me as he opens the door to the semi that is backed up to the driveway and gets inside. Oh my God, I run to get in front of him to block him from leaving when the engine rumbles to life, and he starts to pull forward.
“Move,” he yells out the window.
“Give me my stuff,” I yell back, pressing my hands on the front grill of the semi.
“Bitch, get out of the fucking way before I run you over.”
“No,” I scream, hoping like heck that he doesn’t say screw it and follow through with his threat.