“Anyway,” I say in a breath, as I reach into the little tub of cheese and pop a square into my mouth. “Your turn . . . How long are you usually with a woman before you go your separate ways?”
His mouth twitches, and I can tell he’s trying not to laugh. “It depends.”
“On the woman?”
“Yeah, and the situation.”
“What’s the longest you’ve stayed? I’m not sure if I should say what’s the longest relationship you’ve had because I know you don’t call them that,” I say, looking away when I feel myself blush. This is more awkward than when he asked me about Wyatt.
Oliver chuckles. “The longest I’ve stayed . . .” My eyes cut to his when he sighs loudly. “Probably two months, give or take.”
“That’s it?”
He smiles, running his thumb over my eyebrows to clear my frown. “I had a romantic affair with my school work. You know that’s always been my top priority.”
I sigh and wrap my arms around his torso, burying my face in his hard chest. “Thank you. This date has been everything. I mean it.” Against my face, I feel his abdomen constrict and hear him take a deep breath.
“Thank you for letting me kidnap you.”
I smile, tilting my head back to prop my chin on his chest as he looks down at me. “You’re welcome to kidnap me any time you want.”
His entire face lights up as he smiles at me, his dimples wink, and his eyes twinkle. It feels like my birthday and Christmas all wrapped up in one beautiful face.
“I just might,” he says, with promise in his deep voice.
I WIPE MY hands on a kitchen towel and pick up my phone to read the incoming text message from Oliver.
Come outside.
I frown and glance over my shoulder at the open back door where my brother stands. I can’t tell what he’s doing, but I’m pretty sure his surfboard is involved. I walk to the front of the house, and look through the peephole, smiling at the sight of Oliver on the other side with his hands tucked into the front pockets of his jeans. He’s wearing a gray-checkered button-down and a matching beanie pulled down so low, that his sandy hair brushes against the collar of his shirt. I open the door and lean against it, holding the knob as he gives me a slow onceover. As always, his eyes leave a trail of heat behind as they travel the length of my body.
“You look cute,” I say, and laugh when he raises an eyebrow.
“Cute?”
“Cute is a compliment.”
“For a four-year-old, maybe,” he says, stepping in to share the space of the threshold with me.
I smile. “Nope. The word holds weight for life. You can be cute even if you’re eighty.”
The side of his mouth turns up slowly as he leans into me, stretching his arms above me so that he’s clutching the top of the doorframe and his chest is flush against mine. I catch a glimpse of tanned stomach peeking out from under his shirt and reach out to touch it. He tucks his face into my neck, kissing me there and hissing when I grip tighter.
“I’ll show you cute,” he says, his voice low and husky. I smile, and throw my head back. “Where’s your brother?” he asks, as his lips move from my throat to my shoulder.
“Out back,” I whisper, closing my eyes as I push myself up against him.
“Let’s go somewhere.”
I bite down on my lip to stifle a moan, as his tongue runs over my clavicle. “Where?”
“Anywhere. The beach, pier, sushi . . . wherever you want.” He kisses his way along my jaw and up my cheek.
“You hate sushi,” I say, opening my eyes to meet his. He drops his hands from the door and straightens, brushing my face with the back of his hand.
“I can get tempura.”
“Okay. Let me tell Vic I’m leaving.”
Oliver steps away and signals for me to lead the way.
“What’s he doing anyway?” he asks as we reach the back door.
“I’m not sure. I think cleaning his surfboards.”
“Waxing,” Victor corrects, startling me. “Why are you so jumpy lately?”
“I’m not jumpy,” I say, swallowing to contain my rapid heartbeat.
“You are.” He raises an eyebrow and runs a hand through his hair. “What’s up, man?” he says to Oliver.
“Not much. Day off.”
“I’m surprised you’re not sleeping,” Victor says, going back to his surfboard.
“Nah. I wanted to take advantage of the day. Estelle and I are going to go get sushi. Want to come?”
Victor’s hands come to a stop on the board, and he looks up, his eyes narrowing as they look from me to Oliver and back again. “No, thanks,” he says, looking at the board once more and then back at us. I’m pretty sure he can hear the hammering in my chest from where he’s sitting. I brace myself for the inevitable question when he opens his mouth. “You’re never going to get back on the dating bandwagon if you keep hanging out with Oliver. You realize that, right?”
“How many times are you going to wax over the same spot?” I ask, turning my back to him and walking back into the house to hide my irritation.
“This is a different board,” he calls out.
“No, it’s not. I’ve never seen anybody wax the same board as many times as you do,” I call back.
I hear Oliver say his goodbyes before he walks back inside, and I feel him behind me shortly after. “Some people just don’t know how to wax boards,” he murmurs, his breath tickling the back of my neck.
“Do you?” I ask, flashing a smile over my shoulder.
He leans in and kisses me—a quick, hard peck on my lips. “How ‘bout I show you?” he says in my ear.
“What do you have in mind?” I ask, as we step out and walk toward his car.
“Let’s pick up the sushi and have a beach picnic.”
“I like that plan.”
“I love that plan,” he says, depositing a kiss on my cheek before he drops his arms and opens the door for me.
He orders food for us, stopping and glancing my way for approval every time he names a roll he thinks I might like. Once he hangs up the phone, we’re silent for a long moment until he speaks up again.
“I think we should tell him,” he says, threading his fingers through mine. My heart threatens to leap out of my chest at his suggestion.
“What would we tell him?” I ask quietly, facing forward.
“That we’re together.”
“We’re together?” I ask quietly, smiling at the thought.
Oliver chuckles and drops my hand, bringing it up to cup my chin. “Aren’t we?”
My smile grows wider. “I don’t know, Doctor. Are we?”
His hand makes its way to the nape of my neck. He pulls my face closer to his until the tips of our noses touch. “I think it’s safe to say we are.”
“What do you think he’ll say if we tell him?” I ask in a breath against his lips.
“He’ll be pissed.” He pauses to search my eyes. “At me, not you.”
“Aren’t you worried it’ll ruin your friendship?” I whisper.
The breath he releases blows over my lips. It smells like peppermint, the residue of the mints he constantly pops in his mouth. “Why do you think it’s taken me so long to come around, Elle?” he says in a low voice, dropping a kiss on one side of my mouth and then the other.
I close my eyes, relishing the feel of his soft lips on me. “I think we should just wait a little longer,” I say finally.
Oliver backs away and looks at me, waiting for an explanation. After a couple of beats, I finally open my mouth to voice my opinion, but shut it again when his phone vibrates. He answers, telling the restaurant he’ll be right in for the food.
“Hold that thought,” he says, tapping the tip of my nose before getting out.
I sag against the seat behind me, and let out a deep breath. How do I explain everything I’m feeling? I’m not sure I can put it into words. I can only remember what everybody said when Wyatt and I started dating. Thei
r whispered disapproval becomes a shout in my head as I sit there, wondering if Oliver and I hold the same fate. Wyatt was just some random to everybody. Oliver is family to us. I have no doubt in my mind that Victor would see our relationship as incestuous, even though we have no ties aside from him. I watch Oliver walk back to the car with a bag in one hand and his phone in the other. He has a worried look on his face that instantly puts me on edge.
“Everything okay?” I ask when he gets in and closes the door.
“Yeah, I had to call the hospital and check on a patient,” he responds, his lips pursed.
“Anyone I know?” I ask, waiting on bated breath when he doesn’t respond right away. I don’t know what I would do if something happens to one of the kids I’ve grown to love so much.
“No. It’s one of my toddlers.”
“I don’t know how you do it,” I whisper.
“Sometimes I don’t either,” he says quietly, letting out a sigh. He claps his hands together loudly, making me jump in my seat and look at him. He chuckles at the look on my face. “You really are easily startled lately.”
I try to hide my smile by looking away as he starts driving.
“You never answered why you want to wait,” he says once we’re back on PCH.
I sigh. “I just want to keep this to myself for a while.”
“You want me to be your dirty little secret,” he says with a wolfish grin.
“I didn’t say that.”
He shrugs. “I’m not against it. I like being a dirty little secret.”
Every time he says dirty little secret, something inside me stirs. Somehow, Oliver manages to make everything sound sexy.
“I’m not saying I don’t want anybody knowing because I’m ashamed or anything,” I say, feeling the need to make that clear.
He pulls into the parking lot of the 1,000 Steps Beach and smiles as he gets out of the car to open the door for me. Once I’m out, he pops the trunk and grabs a couple of beach towels.
“Do you have impromptu picnics often?” I ask, raising an eyebrow as I hold out my hand to take the towels.
Oliver laughs, shakes his head, and pulls me into an embrace. “Only with women named Estelle.”
“I can think of a couple of Estelle’s,” I say, pushing him away from me lightly, as I feign anger.
He cocks his head, still smiling. “So can I, but I can only think of one I would resort to eating Japanese food with and take to the beach without demanding she dress down to a bikini.”
I purse my lips and walk toward the stairs. “Does that mean you don’t like to see me in a bikini?”
We step to the side so that some people leaving the beach can walk by us, and Oliver leans down to whisper in my ear. “You look great in a bikini, but you look better naked, on my bed, with your legs spread open for me.”
I stop suddenly, holding on to the rocks of the wall beside me. Oliver’s arm goes around my waist to keep us from toppling down the nine hundred steps we have left to navigate. I turn around in his arm and crane my head to look at him.
“You need to keep those comments to yourself when we’re in public,” I say.
He bites down on his bottom lip, trying, and failing, to hold back a smile. “Why? Because it gets you all hot and bothered?” he asks, dipping his face to meet mine when I nod. He runs the tip of his nose from my jaw to my ear in a slow caress, breathing me in as he does so. “What if I told you I want you that way?”
“Why would you want to do that to me when we’re about to eat on a public beach?” I ask in a whisper against his neck.
He chuckles. “Maybe I like knowing that I get to you.”
“You know you get to me,” I say, leaning away so that I can take a good look at his face.
His green eyes twinkle. “Maybe I want you begging me to take you back to my place,” he says, his voice low as he runs his hand under the filmy shirt I’m wearing. I suck in a breath, my eyes widening as I look around at the people walking past us, up and down the stairs.
“Oliver,” I say in warning.
“Estelle,” he says, mimicking my voice as his hand moves up to the side of my rib cage and stops there, right below my left breast.
“Do you want to just go back to your place?” I ask breathily.
His lips slightly part as he shakes his head slowly. When he looks at me the way he’s looking at me now, like it’s the first time he’s seeing me—like I’m the most fascinating woman he’s ever laid eyes on—I’ll melt in his arms.
“I want to do what I promised and take my girl on a picnic,” he says quietly, before leaning in closer and letting his lips fall over mine. His mouth molds against mine, moving slowly, as he takes his time to feel me. His tongue dances with mine in a slow seduction—the complete opposite of the rapid fire coursing inside of me. At the sound of a catcall by one of the bystanders, we break away and look into each other’s eyes with a short laugh. He runs the tips of his fingers over my bottom lip and smiles.
“Let’s go eat before this sushi goes bad and we end up in the ER,” he says, turning me around to keep walking.
After we eat, we sit on the beach with our legs outstretched and braided around the other’s. We people-watch, as the beach is full of runners, surfers, sunbathers and tourists.
“I think I’ve only been here a handful of times,” he says after a while.
“Yeah?”
“My parents used to bring us here when we were kids. Every time we came, Sophie would bury me in the sand, until one day she put so much sand on me I almost drowned in it,” he says, chuckling at the memory. “My dad was so mad at her at first because he had to unbury me in a hurry, but then I was fine, and we all laughed until we had tears in our eyes.” He pauses and flashes me a sad smile. “I think that was the only time my parents cried out of happiness. That I saw, anyway.”
I scoot closer to him and lean my head on his shoulder. He puts his head against mine and reaches out to hold my hand.
“It’s a good memory,” I comment.
“This one’s better,” he responds, squeezing my hand.
For the next week, Oliver and I meet up like that. Not at the beach, but in quick segments that turn into long installments. We talk, we laugh, we kiss, we make love, and we joke around. I don’t want to say that I feel complete when I’m with him—because I’m complete without him—but when I’m with him I feel like a better version of myself. And I think that’s what has always drawn me to Oliver. He makes me feel good about who I am, and I don’t feel like I need to change or pretend when I’m around him. I’m just me, and being me has never felt better.
THE FOLLOWING SUNDAY night, I opt out of dinner at Wyatt’s parents’ house. I don’t even bother hiding the reason from Felicia.
“I went on a date last week,” I tell her, to which she gasps. I don’t mention that a date turned into a weeklong event of non-stop dates. Even when we don’t see each other, we talk on the phone or text message back and forth.
“And? How did it go?”
“It went well,” I say, holding a breath. “I . . . it went really well.”
“Good. I’m glad. We’re happy for you, Elle. You know that, right? We’re happy if you move on. You’re young, you’re beautiful . . . you deserve it. Wyatt would want that.”
I don’t tell her that I kind of doubt that, because I can’t imagine him wanting me to move on, but obviously I’m doing it anyway. The worst part is, that I don’t even feel guilty about it when I’m in the moment. It isn’t until late at night when I’m alone and think about how happy Oliver makes me, that it kind of seeps in. It’s like my heart has already decided what to do with itself, but my mind keeps tripping over the box of guilt. When I hang up with her, I head downstairs to make myself a sandwich because I’m starving. It seems that unless I set the Crock-pot before I leave for the day, nobody eats around here.
“Elle, can you order pizza?” Victor yells from the living room, followed by a slew of curse words aimed at the televisi
on. My best guess is that the Forty-Niners are losing.
“Yes!” I shout back. I order it, make my sandwich, and take a bite as I walk over to where he is. “What the hell did you do when I wasn’t living here?” I ask, opening my mouth to take another bite and stop when I see he’s not alone. Oliver holds his beer up to me, as does Jenson, who shoots a weird look between Oliver and me. I know it has everything to do with what he saw—or thought he saw—outside of the club a couple of weeks ago. Victor just watches the game and waves his hand.
“Obviously I survived,” he says.
Normally Oliver would pat the seat beside him, but he doesn’t today. I take a seat beside Victor and prop my foot on his coffee table, as I take another bite of my sandwich.
“What does that have in it?” Jenson asks, looking at my sandwich like he’s going to bite it out of my hand.
“Turkey and Swiss,” I respond, and hold it out for him to take, because it’s either that, make him his own, or tell him to go fuck himself—which will result in an argument I don’t want to start—especially with his big mouth.
“Thanks,” he says, taking it from me with a wide grin. He winks at me and makes a satisfied sound as he bites into it. I roll my eyes and lean back into the couch. I sort of watch the game until the pizza gets there, and then end up falling asleep leaning against Jenson’s muscled arm. I only wake up because I hear Vic screaming again, and it startles me. That’s when I realize I am completely wrapped in Jenson’s arm. He hugs me closer when I jolt and try to pull away. My eyes flicker to Oliver, who’s relaxed and watching the game, but I keep staring until his gaze finds mine. I catch the discomfort in his eyes as they jump from me to Jenson. He grumbles, exhales and looks away. I don’t know what I expect him to do, but the fact that he does nothing at all makes me want to scream. It’s not like I want him to be jealous over this—it would be ridiculous for him to be threatened over Jenson—but still. I berate myself, since I was the one who insisted we keep whatever is going on between us a secret. Give me time, I said, but I kind of wish he would just tell Victor despite what I said. I wish he wouldn’t listen to me for once. I sigh and pinch the inside of Jenson’s arm hard. He yelps and lets go of me.
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