Yours to Keep (Man of the Year)

by Lauren Layne

  She turned to the chauffeur. The middle-aged man was solemnly holding out a pristine white handkerchief toward her.

  Olive gave it a puzzled look, then glanced up at the driver. “What’s that for?”

  He merely cleared his throat again, and though his implacable expression never changed, his eyes flicked, not quite rudely, but pointedly, all the way down to her feet and then all the way back up, ending with his gaze on her hairline. He gave the handkerchief a meaningful shake. You really need this.

  “I don’t—”

  Olive groaned as realization sank in.

  Haven’s illustrious golden boy was back in town. And she had just welcomed him while covered head to toe in green glitter.

  Chapter Three

  Friday, August 7

  Carter was smiling as he tossed the keys on the kitchen counter and dropped his bag onto the hardwood floors.

  Olive Dunn.

  His chemistry lab partner from senior year hadn’t changed a bit. Granted, the green, sparkly look was new. The Olive he remembered had been far more into copper chloride than kindergarten-variety glitter.

  But her strange appearance had been the perfect welcome home. A refreshing change from his neighbors on the Upper East Side, who wouldn’t dream of having a hair out of place, much less dressing up as a leprechaun, or whatever Olive Dunn was about these days.

  People weren’t afraid to be themselves in Haven, and Olive had always flown her quirky flag especially high and proud. He’d liked that about her, so he hadn’t uttered a word about her appearance just now, not even a cheesy pun about her being olive green.

  Live and let live, as his mother always said.

  A knock pounded at the front door. A second later it burst open, and a blur of blonde and green sparkles marched into his kitchen. Behind Olive, Carter saw Mike hovering in the doorway with the luggage. Carter nodded in thanks as the chauffeur left his bags just inside the front door. He liked Mike well enough, but he was also eager for the man to leave. Being delivered to your hometown, just two hours north of your current home, felt like a douchebag move. A broken arm didn’t preclude him from driving himself. But the team’s coordinator had insisted, probably to make Carter feel like he was “still part of the team.”

  At least the only person who’d seen him riding into town like a prima donna was Olive, who was now roaming around his kitchen.

  He turned his attention to the green interloper. “Did you just let yourself into my house?”

  Olive unapologetically inspected the appliances and tile backsplash before turning to face him.

  “Well, you should have locked the door if you didn’t want company,” she said pragmatically.

  “Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize that coming uninvited into someone’s house was a thing that people actually did.”

  She shrugged as she opened his microwave, then closed it again. “You obviously don’t remember life in Haven all that well. An open-door policy is sort of small-town MO. Also, I have this same microwave.” She pointed at the countertop appliance. “It looks fancy, but don’t use the popcorn button unless you want to set off the smoke detector and prefer your popcorn to taste like burned dust. Though it does do a really nice job with baked potatoes.”

  “I thought you liked your solitude?” he asked, bemused.

  “Given the choice, sure. But since you’re here . . .” Olive hoisted herself into a seated position on the counter beside his kitchen sink. “So, you’re renting this place?”

  It was part question, part demand, as though it were her right to know his every bit of business, but since he had no reason not to tell her, he shrugged. “I subleased it from the owners through September.”

  She whistled. “Almost two months. That’s got to be a record for you, right? Last time you were in town was Christmas, and you stayed for . . . two days?”

  Some of his easygoing amusement faded. “Were we closer friends than I remember? You seem awfully interested in my business.”

  “Not your business. Everyone’s business. I’m what some might call a busybody.” She grinned as she said it, and though she’d wiped some of the glitter off her face between the car and barging into his kitchen, her features were still mostly green, making her teeth look extremely white in contrast.

  He found himself smiling back, in spite of his irritation with her. He didn’t remember Olive the teenager being particularly smiley. At least not in the sweet, charming way that Felicity and some of the more popular girls had been. Olive had been more focused on doing things than smiling about them.

  But when she did smile, it was an all-out grin, unapologetic, endearing, and damn hard not to respond to.

  “So this is a thing you do then? Let yourself into other people’s houses and interrogate them?” he asked.

  “If there’s a need.” She hopped down and opened his fridge. “You’ll need to do a grocery run.”

  “Yeah. I was planning to hit up Turner & Reed this afternoon for some basics,” he said, referring to one of the local grocery stores in town.

  “Turner & Reed?” she said, closing the door and turning toward him.

  “Are they not open anymore?” he said, feeling a little chagrined that he’d been gone so long he didn’t even know where to buy food in his hometown.

  “Oh no, they’re open,” she said. “And doing great. Jennie Reed took it over from her parents a while back and it’s even fancier than it was before. Truffle-flavored everything.”

  “So what’s the problem?” he asked.

  “It’s just not the place you go for basics unless you want to pay six dollars for a carton of eggs.” He stared at her for a moment, and she laughed. “You have no idea if that’s expensive or not, do you?”

  Carter gave a sheepish grin. “I confess it’s been a few years since I bought my own groceries.”

  Olive’s eyebrows lifted. “Have you ever had to buy your groceries?”

  He merely smiled wider.

  Olive sighed. “I know you probably have more money than every person in this town combined, but I can’t let you do this.” She stepped forward and picked up the iPhone on the counter.

  “That’s mine,” Carter said.

  “I know.” She held it up, screen facing out in front of his face, and used the facial recognition to unlock it.

  “Busybody does not even begin to describe you,” he said under his breath.

  “Heard that,” she said, not looking up from his phone.

  “You were supposed to.”

  She said nothing for a moment longer, thumbs busy, then handed his phone back. “Ta-da.”

  Carter took it reluctantly and glanced down to see his Maps app open. “What am I looking at?”

  “Directions to Walmart. That’s where you should buy your groceries.”

  “I can’t believe Haven has a Walmart now,” he mused, zooming in on the screen to see where in his small town they’d fit the behemoth superstore, annoyed that he had to set the phone on the counter in order to do so with his one free hand.

  “Heck yes we have a Walmart. It’s about a fifteen-minute drive, and I feel like I should warn you that you’ll stand out like a sore thumb when your fancy driver takes you there.”

  “Mike’s already on his way back to the city,” Carter said.

  “What? He doesn’t say goodbye? You don’t say goodbye?”

  “Trust me, Mike likes it that way. On the talkative scale, there’s you.” He extended his free hand all the way outward. “And if this other arm weren’t in a cast, imagine me spreading my arm as far as it could go the other way. That’s where Mike is on the scale. Practically a mute. The cast, admittedly, weakens the visual effect.”

  She stepped closer to him and extended her right arm out to the side, to where his casted left arm couldn’t. “There. An assist.”

  “Thanks,” he said with a laugh, realizing it had been a long time since he’d spent time with someone like Olive Dunn. In fact, it had been ten years, since they’d be
en lab partners, because there was no one else like her.

  Her gaze dropped to his cast. “How long do you have to wear that thing?”

  “Four to six weeks. Hopefully.” He braced himself for one of the pitying oh no looks he’d been getting nonstop over the past week. No matter how many times Carter reminded himself that it was compassion, it was getting increasingly tiresome to have people look at him like his life was over just because his career had hit a pothole.

  Instead of a pitying look, Olive reached out and flicked the cast gently, experimentally, then simply said, “Huh. Well, good seeing you again, I suppose.”

  She stepped back and headed toward his front door, apparently planning to exit as unceremoniously as she’d entered; then she turned back. “Hey, wait. If your driver’s gone, how will you get around? You should have rented a place closer to Franklin Street. The only thing within walking distance from here is my house.”

  “Lucky me,” he said with a small smile. “And I’m picking up a car from Billy’s later.”

  “Picking up a car from Billy’s—as in, Billy’s Dealership?”

  “Yup.”

  She blinked. “I didn’t realize he did rentals.”

  Carter smiled again.

  She sighed. “You’re going to buy a car, aren’t you? Just for the month or so you’re going to be here?”

  “Say, that reminds me. Do you know anyone who’d want to buy a like-new car in four to six weeks?”

  She rolled her eyes and walked out of his kitchen and disappeared, only to stick her head back in at the last moment. “Of course I do. We’ll talk when it gets closer.” Olive disappeared again, and the kitchen turned silent—too silent.

  He followed her as she opened his front door. “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “To shower, obviously. I can’t drive you to Billy’s looking like this,” she said, gesturing with both hands over her green-glitter body.

  For the first time, Carter registered that the legs beneath the glitter were long, strong, and very shapely. “You’re driving me to Billy’s?”

  “Of course. How else would you get there?” she said, as though this were very clear, and he were very slow. “Wheels up in fifteen, Baseball. Don’t make me wait.” She stepped out onto his front porch and shut the door.

  Only after he saw a green, sparkly blur shoot across the lawn to the house next door did he fully absorb what had happened.

  He had just been yanked back into small-town life by an admittedly strange source, and . . . he didn’t hate it.

  “See, now I think this plan is coming along really nicely, don’t you?” Olive asked, looking across the console of her secondhand car at Carter with a grin.

  “What plan? The one where you kidnap me?”

  “Please. You’re too big for such things, and you got into my car quite willingly,” she pointed out.

  “Only because you’re taking me to pick up my new car, ensuring I have a mode of transportation should I need to escape my crazy new neighbor.”

  “Speaking of that, can you drive with one arm?” Olive asked.

  Carter looked pointedly across the car at where she had her right hand on the wheel, her left elbow propped on the open window, her fingers spread as she let the air rush through them.

  “Fair point,” Olive acknowledged. “Still, it must suck.”

  “Having a broken arm? A little bit.” He turned and looked out the window. His aviator glasses were back in place, and Olive got the distinct impression that he wore them as much to hide his mood as he did against the August sunshine. Not because Carter Ramsey was a moody kind of guy—quite the opposite, he seemed rather likable. But it didn’t take a genius to see that his current state frustrated him.

  “Being dependent on people to help you is annoying,” she said sympathetically.

  “What?” He looked back toward her. “Oh. Yeah. Though that’s not the worst part. It’s more not being able to do the thing I love most in the world.”

  “Oh, you mean . . .” She made a crude gesture with her hand, and Carter let out a surprised laugh and shook his head.

  “Not that,” he said.

  “Ah. That thing you do with the other stick and balls,” she said.

  Instead of replying he turned more fully toward her. “Wait, back up. What plan is going along ‘really nicely’?” He lifted his good hand to make air quotes as he said it.

  “My plan to make you a nonstranger.”

  “When did you hatch this plan?”

  “The second I saw your car drive up and assumed you were the hotshot owner of the house next door who’d finally decided to grace Haven with your presence. Then, of course, I realized you were a hotshot renter of the house who finally decided to grace Haven with your presence, but the plan stayed the same.”

  “What, to harass me?”

  “Nope. To eliminate all stranger-danger vibes.”

  “You know me from high school. How am I a stranger?”

  “I knew you from high school, past tense. People change,” she said.

  “You haven’t.” The way he muttered it made her think it wasn’t a compliment, but she understood that she was an acquired taste.

  “I suppose you haven’t much, either,” she admitted. “Still annoyingly good-looking, with a touch of ego, and big legs.”

  “Big legs?” he echoed.

  “You know. Sporty legs. Strong.” She reached across to pat his thigh, but he caught her hand and placed it purposely on her own leg.

  “Yours aren’t so bad, either,” he said.

  “Right?” She beamed proudly. “Arms are my favorite workout—I love the fast results. But I’ve been giving my lower body some love at the gym this year and it’s finally paying off.”

  “Indeed,” he said noncommittally.

  “Here we are!” she said, turning into Billy’s parking lot and pulling up into one of the spots. “Which one’s yours?”

  “Guess I’m about to find out,” he said, unbuckling his seat belt.

  “You don’t know?” she said, aghast.

  “It’s only for a few weeks. Don’t really care.”

  “Oh, but you must care.” She unbuckled her own seat belt. “Here, I’ll come help. I know Billy.”

  “Of course you do,” he said with a sigh, but he smiled this time, and he seemed more resigned than annoyed.

  “See? Plan coming along nicely.”

  Chapter Four

  Friday, August 7

  Once out of Olive’s car, Carter turned and lifted a hand, intending to wave farewell to his amusing, if slightly exhausting, new neighbor, and tell her that while her offer was appreciated, he really could manage to buy a car without her supervision.

  Carter hadn’t seen Olive in ten years, had spent all of thirty minutes in her company this decade. He couldn’t claim to know her well.

  But she was already out of the car, shoving her keys into her back pocket.

  Carter’s hand dropped with a sigh. “There’s no chance I can politely decline your help, is there?”

  “You said that you hadn’t bought groceries yourself in like ever. Car shopping is way trickier than buying eggs. I can’t, in good conscience, let a pampered celebrity like yourself get taken advantage of. Billy’s the best, but he’s also smart and will be able to spot a sucker.”

  “Pampered celebrity? Wait . . . sucker?” he called after her, following Olive into the small office building.

  Billy’s Dealership looked pretty much like it had when Carter’s parents had brought Caitlyn and him on their sixteenth birthday to pick a used car to share. There were the same brightly colored red balloons tied to the handwritten sign in the driveway—the bouquet small, but cheerful. Same assortment of shiny new Hondas and not-so-shiny Cadillacs older than Carter.

  Though, if he wasn’t mistaken, the enormous “Billy’s” sign and logo were new, even if the building beneath them was not. Thankfully, the old building had top-notch air-conditioning, and Carter relished the bl
ast of cold air as he stepped inside behind Olive.

  The bell on the door tinkled as they entered, and almost immediately, an older woman wearing a flowy bright pink dress with even brighter yellow flowers printed on it emerged. Her hair was short and purple in color. Everything about her was bright, and Carter blinked, suddenly tempted to put his sunglasses back on just to look at her.

  “Olive, darling, what are you—” The woman broke off as she fixed her attention on Carter. “Carter Ramsey, is that you?”

  “Please,” Olive answered for him in a dismissive tone. “Of course it’s him. He’s one of a kind. God and the angels had to retire his model after Carter was born because Earth could only handle so much glory.”

  Carter had time for only the briefest of ha ha looks in Olive’s direction before the older woman was coming toward him, giving him an honest-to-God cheek squeeze. “I haven’t seen you since you were . . .” She started to lift her hand to indicate his height, then dropped it. “Well, I guess you were already about this tall the last time I saw you. But still, you’re all grown up!”

  Carter felt a surge of panic. He had no idea who this woman was.

  Olive spoke up. “Carter, of course you remember Mona. She’s been working at Billy’s almost since he opened the place.”

  Carter blinked in surprise. Mona? The only Mona he remembered was Mona Pullen, the diminutive, blend in with the wall receptionist who he vaguely remembered processing the paperwork for his and Caitlyn’s first Camry purchase all those years ago. Looking closer, he saw it was that Mona, just with a whole new look and attitude.

  He shot Olive a brief thank-you smile for the name assist before grinning at the older woman. “Mona. Of course I recognized you, but barely. Are you aging in reverse?”

  Mona gave a girlish giggle that had Olive rolling her eyes. “I do feel younger after Olive here helped give me a makeover a few years ago.”

  Ah. Suddenly, Mona’s appearance made a lot more sense. The brightly colored everything would be the handiwork of a woman who, less than an hour ago, had been covered in green glitter.