“I had to go cave diving for this. It was shoved into the back of my closet.”
“Pining for fresh air.”
“I took pity on it. This is a mercy outing.”
“No mercy for me, clearly.”
He says it with enough amusement that I can’t tease him for such a slick line. How am I supposed to respond to charm?
A server comes over as soon as we are seated. “Wine list?”
“No, I think we’ll have some bottled water to start,” Ollie says without looking up.
I’m grateful that he remembered, assuming he said that for my benefit.
As he glances down at the menu, I feel like I don’t know him at all. It hits me in a wave, and I tuck my hands into my sides as I stare at the list of overpriced duck and sea bass entrees.
My white trash origins always sneak up on me at moments like this. I can picture twenty-year-old Laura in a place like this, her eyes lined in black smudge, wearing a bustier instead of a shirt, telling Ollie she’d like to give him a blowjob inthe bathroom. When things get too quiet, she tends to crawl from the depths of my subconscious and try to get me to say something wildly inappropriate. I can practically smell her hairspray and knock-off Calvin Klein perfume as I look over the menu. I say nothing. I’ve inherited my mother’s tendency to like to blow things up, but I don’t have to act on it.
“So where did you grow up?” Ollie asks quietly. I guess we’re doing small talk, now.
“Nowhere as interesting as Australia,” I say. “How did you end up here?”
He shrugs. “Not my decision. My father is a businessman. Major player in Melbourne, but he always wanted to come to New York. I think he loved the movieWall Street. Probably took the wrong message from it.” He frowns slightly. “So when my older brother got accepted to NYU, my father moved the whole family here. I think he didn’t want my brother to conquer the city before he did.”
“And did your dad conquer the city?”
Ollie shrugs. “He does okay. Not as well as he wanted to. That’s why he wanted me and my brother to become lawyers. He thought that was the missing piece in his success. I followed the path my dad wanted for us. Undergrad at Fordham, NYU law. But my older brother rebelled, did a whole bunch of other things. Worked on a fishing boat, drove around the country selling antiques. He eventually became an auctioneer.”
“An auctioneer? Like, ‘Going once, going twice…!’”
He grins ruefully. “He’s at Christie’s now, doing quite well. You can make millions of dollars at that if you’re good at it. He’s a real charmer. The kind of guy who can work a room.” Ollie frowns; his charming brother definitely charmed his wife, and I wish Ollie knew that I knew, so we could talk about it. “He’s more like my father than I am, in a lot of ways. I was the shy one growing up.”
“But you’re so loud and abrasive now.”
He chuckles. “My father was appalled when I chose tax law. He thinks it’s boring. But it was one of the few parts of law where nobody’s angry, sad, or injured.”
“Unlike criminal or divorce law?”
“Exactly.” Even divorce law seems like a loaded topic. Is there any non-loaded topic with Ollie?
“And the dancing?” I ask gently.
“That was Eliana, my ex. I started dating her when I was in law school and she was a senior in college, studying dance at Marymount. She was the driving force behind West Coast Swing. She wanted to learn it and then she wanted to compete. And I went along with it because it made her happy.” He shrugs. “It was probably a little act of rebellion. My father is convinced that only gay men can dance well. And I used to do small things that annoyed him, just to prove him wrong.”
“But it must have been tricky when you were in law school, putting in time to compete.”
“It wasn’t that bad in law school.” He frowns, remembering. “But once I got out, it was harder. I ended up quitting my job at a big law firm. That’s why I landed as a legal consultant to an accounting firm. It was impossible for me to be on the partner track at Big Law, putting in billable hours all weekend, and still dance. What I like about my job at Murano is that they genuinely expect us to be there from nine to five and then go home.”
“So you can have a life.” I smile.
“Well, that was the theory. I’m not sure how much of a life I have at the moment.”
I nod. That is one thing we have in common. “So why did you stop competing?”
“I never officially stopped, but Eliana and I never did especially well. We weren’t winning any big competitions, which I didn’t care about, but it bothered her. She wanted to becomebetter known, get teaching jobs. And there was this guy, Connor Yung. Amazing dancer based in L.A. We used to love watching him. And one time, he and Ellie were picked to do a Jack & Jill together.”
“That’s the improvised dance where you get a random song and a random partner?”
