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Ollie.I didn’t know he’d be here, but part of me had hoped. I won’t give him the satisfaction of turning to face him, though. I don’t want to seem too eager. “What are you doing here? You aren’t part of the crew,” I say.
“Alex invited me. He’s not crew anymore either. Mitch’s is open to the public, yeah?”
I should’ve known this was Alex’s doing. He and Ollie have becomebudsover the last year. They even have matching T-shirts withGordon Ramsay’s face on them that sayWhere’s the lamb sauce?I don’t get the joke, and I don’t want to. All I know is Ollie talks to Alex about me, and I don’t like it.
“How’s the form, Neen?” Ollie says.
His breath is warm against my skin, and he smells like the mint tea he drinks obsessively. My instinct is to lean into him, but I’m not sure if being around him will make tonight better or worse, so I try not to move.
“I used to be a professional gymnast, Oliver,” I say. “My form is excellent.” I know that’s not what he means. I’ve picked up more Irish slang over the years than I let on. This is just part of the game we play.
“You know I don’t like being called Oliver,” he says, like he often does when I use his full name.
“And you know I don’t care,” I reply, like I have hundreds of times. Thousands, maybe. Same old barbs. Same old reactions. I like to think of them as the grooves of our relationship. We settle into them when we’re around each other just to remind ourselves they exist. If we stick to the lines, we can play this game for as long as we like. If we follow the rules, no one gets hurt.
Ollie wraps his arms around me and rests his chin on my shoulder. I hate how I don’t mind it. How I can’t help but rest my weight against his chest. Before Jo, it was just me and Ollie. A whole lifetime ago, it seems. He and I have more history than I care to admit. And though Jo is my best friend, my relationship with Ollie means just as much, albeit in a vastly different and infinitely more complicated way.
Ollie’s barely-there stubble scratches my cheek when he speaks. “You good, Neen?”
I keep my eyes on the wall ahead of me. “Why wouldn’t I be?” I say.Better, I think.Being around him will make tonight better.
“Heard you might’ve got some bad news,” he says.
So even Ollie found out about Jo and Alex’s plans before me?Worse, I decide. “I’m marvelous,” I say.
Ollie’s nose nudges my neck. I ignore the way it makes me weak in the knees, and not just the bad one. “I’ve missed you,” he says, not at all the way you tell your ex-coworker you miss them.
I want to put some space between us, but Ollie is too comfortable, and I can’t drag myself away. “Where’s your girlfriend?” I ask. Sondra? Samantha? Tall. Redhead. I like her.
“Don’t have one anymore.”
No surprise there. The man goes through girlfriends faster than I can snap up a pair of vintage Levi’s off the rack. “What was wrong with this one?”
“She wasn’t you,” he says. His breath raises goose bumps on my neck. So, he wants to playthatversion of our game.
I pull his arms off me with a sigh. “Not tonight,” I say.
“It’s true.”
I turn, getting the first good look at him I’ve had since I left for charter season. He’s unchanged, everything about him as in-between as ever. His hair, between blond and brown, between straight and curly, short on the sides and longer on top. He isn’t tall, but he isn’t short either. Even his outfit, a navy button-down, jeans, and white sneakers, falls somewhere between formal and informal. That’s not to say Ollie is plain, because he isn’t. There’s something striking about the balance of him. Beautiful, really.
The only out-of-balance feature on Oliver Dunne is his eyes. Blue, but not like the sky or the ocean. They’re an intense, impossible blue that reminds me of the blue-raspberry Slurpees I shared with my father after gymnastics practice when I was a kid. We’d stop at the 7-Eleven, and I’d stay in the truck while my father disappeared inside. He kept a lucky quarter in the cupholder between our seats, and I’d warm it between my palms while I waited for him.When he returned, I’d pass him the quarter for his scratch-off ticket in exchange for the Slurpee. Every now and then, the smell of quarters and scratch-off dust washes over me, making me sick. I thought my father and I were playing a game. I suppose we were. But that didn’t mean there weren’t consequences.
All this is to say, I’ve encountered many attractive people in my life, ones who wanted exactly what I did—no feelings, no strings attached—but none of them drove me wild like Ollie does. At first I thought it was the accent. But even with his mouth shut I want to kiss him. I tell Jo I don’t love him. I tellhimI don’t love him. But of course I do. If soul mates exist, Oliver Dunne is the closest thing I have to one. But that doesn’t mean we’re good for each other. It doesn’t make either of us immune to the damage we can inflict on one another. It doesn’t change the rules.
Ollie looks me up and down. “Nice dress,” he says. It is nice. A knee-length color-block dress with matching buttons down the front. Vintage Liz Claiborne. One hundred percent silk. He catches the hem between his fingers, and his knuckles brush against my thigh. “Where’d you get it?”
“Do you really care?” I should step back, but my muscles are frozen. I blame the bad knee.
“Maybe I do,” Ollie says, his eyes on the fabric between his fingers.
“Butch, of course.” Butch, the owner of my favorite thrift store, knows exactly what I like.
“The one and only Butch. You make me jealous when you talk about him.”
When he lifts his gaze to mine, I force myself not to look away. I hate when he looks at me that way. It makes me feel stark naked when I’m obviously overdressed.
“Youshouldbe jealous. Butch is the man of my heart.”
