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Ollie cupped his hand behind one ear. “Whenever you’re ready.”
“Ugh. Fine. I’m sorry I said your man-bun looks stupid, okay?”
“And?”
“Really?” She growled and glared up at his smirking face. The bastard cocked one brow and folded his arms across his chest. Oliver Bennett was just as stubborn as she was, worse sometimes. “Fine,” she said again, huffing and rolling her eyes. “And your beard doesn’t makes you look like a hipster.”
His smirk broadened into a full-blown grin. “That wasn’t so hard now, was it?”
Before she knew what he was doing, Oliver had scooped her up, and she had to wrap her arms around his neck or risk falling to the ground. A few seconds later, his long legs had carried her to the top of the stairs and through the gate, delivering her to the front door.
“Keys?” he asked as he put her down again, holding out his hand expectantly.
Mia fished her keys out of her back pocket, but she didn’t hand them over. “I’m more than capable of opening the front door without your help,” she said, inserting the key into the lock. But when she went to turn it, it wouldn’t budge.
“You sure about that?”
She pulled the key out, stuck it in again, and gave it a good jiggle, but to no avail. “What the bloody hell is wrong with this thing?”
Ollie stuck out his hand again. “Keys,” he said, and this time it wasn’t a request.
Frowning, Mia handed them over.
“If you’d bothered to visit Rafe when you got back to town like you were supposed to, he would have given you a new set of keys,” he said, threading a link with three new keys on it onto her keychain.
“I can understand why Rafe has keys to my mother’s house,” she said, one brow winging up in question, “but why do you?”
“As your mother’s lawyer, Rafe had the locks changed last year. There was an… incident last August. Someone was discovered squatting in another vacant house.” He held out what she assumed was the new front door key. Taking it, she inserted it into the lock. “And I have a set because I do maintenance around the place when I can. Which, I’m sorry to say, hasn’t been as often as I’d like since Louisa passed.”
Mia was about to pop open the door when a wave of sadness crashed over her. She’d only been half listening to Ollie as she’d turned the new key and felt the lock disengage, but now that she was about to enter the house, the house her parents had named Someday, she felt something tighten around her heart, threatening to crush it.
Her mother, Louisa Caldwell, beloved high school music teacher, had died two years earlier, and her death had ripped through Mia like a bullet through glass, shattering her into a million tiny pieces. Her mother had been her rock, her best friend, and confidant. Her biggest cheerleader and her most constructive critic. She’d always been so energetic, seemed so indestructible, even though she’d been dying.
“Cancer’s no excuse not to get shit done,” she’d say before mowing the yard, or painting the kitchen, or interfering in Mia’s haphazard love life.
Another wave of grief rolled over her, and the squeezing around her heart intensified. “I can’t do this,” she said, dropping her hand from the door handle. Her nose prickled, and tears glazed her eyes. “I’m not ready.”
As her tears began streaming down her cheeks, Ollie pulled Mia into his arms and held on tight, letting her sob and wail until she had nothing left. Until she sagged against him, exhausted and wrung out.
Oliver locked the door and pocketed the keys. “Come on, sweetling,” he said, gently steering her back down the steps. “You can stay at The Forge.” When he reached the bottom, he turned away, bent forwards slightly, and looked back over his shoulder. “You still want that piggyback ride?”
Mia was so stunned by the unexpected offer that it forced a laugh to escape her and chased away a little of her grief.
Very little, but enough.
She sniffed and swiped at the tears that refused to stop rolling down her face, then smiled at her friend and nodded, as though not a day had passed since she’d seen him last.
As if it were possible to simply pick up where they’d left off so long ago.
“Yes, please. I’d like that very much.”
“Then climb on,” Ollie said, winking. “And let’s go home.”
Chapter Four
Mia opened her eyes and immediately shut them again, growling ineffectually at the bright sunlight flooding the room. But a deep chuckling sound made her peek them open again.
“Good morning,” Oliver said, grinning from his spot at the door, leaning against the frame with his arms folded over his broad chest and his bare feet crossed at the ankles.
