by Nicky Shanks
I open my eyes and let the sunlight into my sticky eyelids. I feel so stupid for answering Brandon’s phone call—thinking I could make him go away on my own—that I do want to make it up to Oliver somehow. I think about the possessiveness that Oliver showered me with…the glint of rage in his eyes scared me when he towered over Brandon, about to choke him to death.
He would have killed him if I hadn’t stopped him.
“Good morning, sunshine.” I can feel him smile against my hair. His sleepy voice weaves through the chills he sends shivering down my spine. “Apparently it’s hump day.” The grip he holds on my fingers tightens and he moves closer to me, nearly flush against my shoulders. My entire body is numb. Each time he closes in on me, it’s like something locks me in place and I’m unable to break free and run from him.
“You tossed and turned a lot last night—did you have a nightmare?” I say, my lips trembling around a yawn. Oliver never lets go of his hold on my body as he brings our locked-together hands up to my chest and rests them there. When he finally lets me go, I can turn to see him holding himself up on one elbow, his brow strained and confused. “Not a nightmare. More of a…surprise.” His tongue glides across the outside of his teeth, making me squeeze my legs together almost instantly.
“Let me take you to breakfast.” He smiles and kisses my forehead quickly, before I can protest. I hardly want to open the curtains to let the full sunlight inside, so going somewhere is out of the question. “Come on, get up.” He winks and then disappears into the bathroom, running water in the sink and brushing his teeth.
I take a long time getting ready, brushing my hair and trying to make some kind of sense out of it before I realize that it’s going to be a mess no matter what I manage to do with it. I pick out my best jeans and a red sweater before frowning at myself in the mirror. I hear the bathroom door open and Oliver walks through the bedroom, naked and dripping wet from his shower.
“So, are you always going to walk around naked?” I ask him playfully, my hands on my hips while I squint my eyes. “Do I need to get a different room? There seems to be too much nudity in this one.”
He laughs as he pulls on a pair of black boxer briefs, making a point to face me so I have a full-frontal view. “You wouldn’t dare do that to me.” He winks at me, pulling me next to him on the bed and locking his arm around mine. “I’m not letting you go until you promise to stay.”
“I’m staying, I’m staying.” I raise my hands in surrender. “But it’s not fair when you walk around like…that.”
He lets me go to pull on his jeans. “Like what?”
I roll my eyes. “Like a Greek god or something.”
Oliver snickers. “I’m no god. I’m just me.”
“Yeah well, ‘just me’ is pretty intimidating sometimes.”
He frowns. “So, what? Do you think you’re not good enough for me?”
I snort. “Oh, I know I’m not good enough for you.”
“Dammit, Julie,” he growls, angrily pulling on an ocean-blue sweater. “If anything, it’s me that’s not good enough for you.”
“Oliver—” He looks like he’s going to cry so I close my mouth, rushing through ways I can fix this in my head. He sits on the edge of the bed and pulls me to his side. “This conversation ends here, okay? You have nothing to worry about; if you hadn’t noticed, I am totally into you.”
There isn’t anything I can do now about the way I’d just made him feel, so I pull on my shoes and join Oliver downstairs, where he’s greeting everyone and letting Nora know our plans so she won’t worry. He laces his fingers with mine and squeezes to let me know it’s going to be okay.
“So, there’s a small cafe in town,” Oliver says a few minutes after we pull out of the driveway of the cabin. I watch it get smaller and smaller by the second as we drive, then it disappears. A lot has happened there in just five days that running through everything in my head makes me dizzy. I’m in way, way over my head. “Is that okay?” I hear him say.
“What?” My voice cracks and I blush, embarrassed that I got caught not listening…but for a very good reason.
Oliver laughs. “The cafe? Is that okay?”
He parks the Jeep and we sit in silence for a few minutes, breathing in each other’s air and frustration. “I don’t know what you want from me,” I say in a low voice, my gaze still fixed on the small, ritzy cafe ahead of us. Oliver finally takes the key from the ignition.
“I want to eat breakfast with you,” he answers me matter-of-factly. “I assumed you want the same since you came with me. You can eat whatever you want.”
I scoff. “You know what I mean.”
He smiles and turns his tall body so he towers over me. “I know what you mean, I just don’t think this is the time or place to discuss it.” My mouth opens and closes as I search for the words to knock him off his feet, but find none. He smiles again and nods, pleased that for once he’s succeeded in rendering me speechless. “Come on.” He pats my leg gently and leaves the car, walking around to my door and opening it for me. He pulls me out into his grasp. “Let’s eat.”
I allow him to escort me inside without too much of a protest. The hostess, a small brunette, big-chested model, melts at the sight of Oliver when we enter the building. There’s a small wave of silence as everyone notices him, and when they see me next to him, I can hear murmuring. The hostess frowns when she sees my hand in his.
“Hey, Kate.” Oliver waves weakly at her. “Table for two, please.”
Kate smacks her lips. “Only two?” She snickers as she looks around us, obviously hoping we had friends and this wasn’t a breakfast date. I think about Brandon and how he never took me on dates—he did use my money to take Rachel on dates, however. My grip tightens and Oliver notices. He pulls me into the booth next to him and places his warm hand on my thigh, tugging me back into the moment. “Hey, you okay?”
I nod. “I’m fine. She’s a pistol.” I point to Kate and he laughs, not even bothering to look at her.
“We were friends for a few weeks.” I can feel the heat flush to my cheeks, but he’s already one step ahead of me. “Look, you’ll find that out a lot about me. After Heather—” He cringes when he says her name out loud. “—I had a lot of friends like Kate.” His face falls a little and I know that even though I don’t share this with him, I understand that it’s in the past.
“Do you think we’re crazy for being this comfortable together?” I ask. “You know, we just met—”
He cuts me off. “Why are you so fixed on how long we’ve known each other? Why does time even matter? I like you, you like me, right? So, what does a few days have to do with it?” His voice grows angrier by the second, and then he looks saddened by his outburst. “I just really wish we could get past whatever it is holding us back and just be together and not care what other people think.”
“I’m just a little scared,” I tell him. “This is weird for me. Brandon wasn’t exactly nice toward the end of our relationship, and I’m conditioned to think the worst.”
He claps and smiles. “Okay, new rule. No more talking about exes. We’re moving forward with each other: Oliver and Julie, okay? Now, let’s eat.” He calls Kate over and tells her to bring us pancakes and eggs, fruit, and biscuits and gravy. My mouth waters when they bring us all of the requested food and Oliver digs in like a hungry wolf.
I pick at the pancakes and eggs and gobble down a few small pieces of fruit, and the entire time Kate and a few other women are eyeballing the two of us, gritting their teeth and gossiping.
Oliver squeezes my leg and smiles at me; he can see what the vultures are doing too. “What do you want to do today?” He pushes his plate away and downs a glass of milk. “I haven’t worked out in a few days, unless you count what we did in the bedroom.” His eyes twinkle as he thinks about our night together. “But I can do that later. What about shopping?”
I make a sour face. His mouth forms an O in surprise. “No shopping? Well, that’s a first. What
about renting a boat and going out on the lake for a while?”
“Okay.” I raise my eyebrows in intrigue. “But I get to drive the boat.”
He laughs. “Oh? You know how to drive boats, do you?”
“I guess we’ll see.” I smack my lips like Kate did. After paying the check, Oliver tips Kate very well and basically pulls me to the Jeep, tosses me in, and revs back onto the road.
The marina smells like fish so badly it makes my nose crinkle. He laughs at me as he escorts me inside and pays for the rental. He places a life jacket on me and I frown.
“Where’s yours?” I demand and cross my arms over my chest. “Am I the only one that’s supposed to be safe?” Groaning, he takes one for himself and holds it in the air for me to see, but he doesn’t put it on. Once we’re in the large pontoon boat and slowly drifting away from the docks, I watch Oliver in silence. He has such grace when he steers the boat, his gaze fixed on the calm morning waters.
His eyes are blissfully happy.
“There’s our cabin,” he says to me over the quaint lake breeze. His voice is only a little louder than a whisper. “I bet everyone else already went back to sleep.”
I giggle. “Jealous?”
Oliver shakes his head immediately. “Not at all. I am exactly where I want to be.”
I freeze.
He wants to be here with me, looking at our cabin.
No. Don’t let yourself open up too much more or he’s going to swallow you whole and spit you right back out, tearing your life to shreds more than it already is. I smile to myself because he already has.
Oliver lets the boat drift on its own while he joins me on the long backseat just above the now-quiet motor. He smiles over at me, gently intertwining our hands. “I’ve never been this relaxed in my life.” His face brightens as we soak in the scenery around us. “It’s perfect out here; this whole thing is perfect. You’re perfect, the air is perfect.”
My entire body buzzes with weird emotions and hope.
This can’t be real.
Oliver is gorgeous. Like, really gorgeous. He looks like he’s been kissed by the sun and blessed by something—not humanly possible. I watch him push his dark hair from his eyes and let the lake mist graze his face. His thick lips curve into a smile as he squeezes my hand and looks up at the silky blue sky. We soak up the morning light for a long time, stretched out next to each other, making sure we’re always touching. I’m nearly asleep when I hear him stand up. He kisses the top of my head, starts the engine, and swiftly drives us back to the boat docks.
***
“Get in here!” I hear Brandon yelling at me from the bedroom. “Don’t make me come and get you.”
I go to him, crying.
“Stop crying,” he demands and pushes me on the bed, sitting down next to me. “I’m sorry for losing my temper.”
I nod. “It’s okay.”
He sighs. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
I nod again. “It’s okay.”
Brandon scoffs. “You just make me angry sometimes…you don’t listen to me and it frustrates me. Didn’t I specifically ask you to pick up my dry cleaning at noon?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer. “And you didn’t pick it up until three. I needed that jacket for a meeting.”
“I’m sorry,” I say in a small voice.
Brandon sighs again. “I love you, Jules. You know that, right?” He pulls my body into his. “You are so lucky I’m a reasonable man.”
I nod and let him take control over me.
“Do you remember our first date?” he asks. I frantically think so I can give him the right answer. “It was at that stupid bowling alley arcade place on Barney Road, remember?” He continues without giving me a chance to speak. “And we got drunk in my car that night, remember? Peach schnapps and apple ale.” His nose wrinkles in disgust. “And I took your virginity in the backseat of that old thing, remember that?”
“Yes,” I say.
His eyes glitter. “What do you say we relive the memory?”
I scream.
***
“Hey, it’s all right.” Oliver’s smooth voice comforts me. He strokes my head and cradles me in his lap. “Did you have another bad dream?”
My eyes feel sticky from the fresh daylight. “Must be just the boat ride,” I say and swat his hands away. “I’m fine.”
He lets me go free and doesn’t push me, which I silently thank him for.
What am I doing here?
I don’t belong here; this entire thing with Oliver is crazy.
Mr. Oliver Jackson.
That’s all I know about him.
I have to end this somehow.
I know it’s going to be hard.
“Oh, good—the Inn employees brought our lunch for us,” Oliver says, motioning toward the dock. A thick, flannel blanket and a picnic basket full of snacks has been spread out for us. My jaw drops and I instantly draw back into him. “It’s just a light lunch with some chardonnay, no big deal.” It’s as if he were reading my mind.
I swallow, and my throat is so dry I think I could rip it to shreds. “This is really sweet of you.”
His smile is huge. “There you go, using that word again. Sweet.”
“Just help me off the boat.” He laughs and helps me onto the dock, and we talk about the water and how he’s always wanted a house right on the lake so he can jump into it from his backyard. When he speaks about life, he has such a childlike presence about him, and that puts me at ease a little as the afternoon goes on and my heart warms back up to him.
He holds my hand almost the entire time.
After we end our conversation about fantasy vacations, he’s quiet as he studies me. “You’re really beautiful—I wish you knew that about yourself.” He raises his left eyebrow. “I plan on telling you every damn day too.”
I squint to see him—the two o’clock sun hovers behind him. “What exactly is the plan once we return home?”
“I plan on seeing a lot of you.”
“My brother and Clyde, they’re very protective of me since…you know.” I lower my gaze to the ground, but he picks me back up with two sentences.
“Well, then I guess I’ll have to win them over, won’t I? They’ll see that I want to love you, not hurt you.”
Crap. Crap. Crap.
I just keep getting deeper into a world I don’t belong in.
With a man I don’t belong with.
Chapter Eleven
Oliver
Julie picks at the food waiting for us when we dock the boat like it’s tainted with poison. I can tell something is on her mind, but I really don’t want anything to take away from the time alone we have, just the two of us. I enjoy being alone with her; I don’t have to be anyone but myself. And I can be whoever I want to be. Not Oliver Jackson, grandson of a legend. Not Ollie. Just Oliver. I can’t imagine what she thinks of me: rough around the edges and rude one minute and then sleeping with her and kissing her fingers the next.
I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here with her, either.
She bites her bottom lip and it makes me smile. She’s amazing; I’m getting addicted to the small things that she does like twisting the ends of her hair when she’s deep in thought or the way her smile gets wider when she laughs at something stupid I’ve said.
Six days.
Six days is all it took for me to forget about Heather completely and actually focus on someone better—someone I’ve been waiting to meet for a very long time.
“Are you getting cold?” I ask when she tucks her hands underneath the place where her thighs meet her ass. I lick my lips when I see her do this and she blushes, noticing the predatory grip I have on her. “We should head back, anyway; Nora and Staci are arranging a date night for all of us. Cheesy couple games and all.” Her eyes darken a little, but when we talked about it earlier, Casey and I decided that it’d be good for us to mingle with the other people in the house.
My phone starts to ring and I look at the call
er ID—Casey’s name pops up, so I hit the ignore button and shove it back into my pocket. Almost immediately, it rings again and a wave of adrenaline rushes over me as I look at Casey’s name once more. “Yeah?” I answer it as I help Julie to her feet and keep her from falling off the dock and into the cold lake water.
“Dude, are you planning on coming back here today?” Casey’s voice shakes. “You should take Julie to that hotel you’ve always wanted to stay at. You know, the one down Wickermaker Road.”
I look at the Lake Reed Inn standing in the distance, and the Inn workers—identified by their bright white uniforms—are trickling out to tend to us. I hold up my finger toward Julie and walk a few feet away from her. “Down Wicker…The Lake Reed Inn? Why, what’s going on?” Girls squeal in the background and I hold the phone as far from my ear as I can. Julie’s eyebrows rise in suspicion. “Casey, what the hell is going on over there?”
I hear him shuffle away from the screaming and shut a door behind him. “Dude, Heather is here.” I laugh instantly. “No, really. That’s Nora’s friend she invited up here. God, Ollie, I had absolutely no idea—I don’t even know how they know each other.”
My entire body freezes in place. He isn’t kidding. Heather is Nora’s friend? The friend that she basically invited to stay with us at the cabin? Now I have to try harder to remember Nora. I never made much of an effort to know Heather’s friends—since she has so many—but I would have remembered Nora by seeing her a second time. Right? “Oh, shit.” I say it a little too loudly and fearfully, keeping my eyes on Julie as she acts like she isn’t trying to hear my conversation. “Casey, tell me you’re bullshitting me.”
I can almost see him shake his head in my mind. “I’m not, Ollie. I had no idea.”
“You said that already,” I growl at him, then hang up. I sigh loudly. “Julie?” I turn around and watch her fold up the blanket like it’s her job, helping the group of people wearing uniforms clean up our mess of food and dirty glasses. She smiles as they chat with her; I don’t hear or care what they’re saying, but the entire scene is just so…simple.
