by Emily Childs
Olive rolls her bottom lip over her teeth. “I didn’t like how she handled all that, and I understand not wanting to talk. Mama wants me to talk to Tom since I keep dodging his calls too.”
“She wants you talking to that idiot?”
My hands are in my pockets, and I love how Olive slips one arm through the crook of my elbow. Her touch draws out a spark of heat I’d like to keep a little longer.
“That’s what I said,” Olive tells me. “What could I possibly say to him? Of course, the gossiper inside of me has a sliver of curiosity to know what Dalia wants to say.”
I laugh, but lower my voice when we come closer to Dot. “You’d ask me to suffer to give you a little drama in your life?”
“Possibly.”
“Ollie!” Dot squeals, waves, and darts the rest of the way down the sidewalk. “Glad you two made it. Hi there, Rafe. Don’t you look all spiffed-up and handsome. I’d like to introduce you both to Mr. Sawyer Lanford.”
Olive accepts Sawyer’s hand. He’s shorter than me, has some red in his hair like Dot, and seems close to our age. Sawyer grins and shakes my hand next. “Pleasure to meet y’all. Dottie’s told me all about you, Olive.”
“Oh, you can call me Ollie, and it’s a pleasure to meet you too.”
Dot wraps her arm around Sawyer’s waist and beams. “Alright already, let’s get to it. I’m starving and I’ve heard this place is simply to die for. Let’s ride together, seems silly if we don’t.”
I’m surprised when Sawyer and Dot take us to a Honda. I’d expected a Porsche or Cadillac or something. A pleasant surprise, no mistake. Maybe Sawyer is down to earth, not another Beau.
“I think I’m underdressed,” I whisper to Olive. She looks ready for a photoshoot, Sawyer is in a buttoned-down shirt with slacks, and Dot is in a cocktail dress. Olive snickers and licks her lips, dragging her eyes across my body. I squeeze her elbow. “Hey, undressing me with your eyes was not part of our agreement.”
“We’re not using our agreement tonight, now are we?” she says. “And relax, you look handsome and charming.”
“Would you just get in the car?”
“So indecisive. You want me to compliment your delightful figure and edible apparel, then you want me to get in the car. Make up your mind.”
“Keep talking Ollie, and you’re going to make my head puff up.” I shut the door on her, but she gets in a pinch to my side before I lock her away.
“So, Rafe,” Sawyer asks once we’re well into traffic. “What do you do for a living?”
A typical first question. I don’t get it. Why do guys need to measure each other by employment? Funny, though, how sometimes it’s the first thing I ask too.
“I’m a mechanic.”
“No kidding?” Sawyer says.
Weird. He doesn’t sound ready to laugh, or sniff with self-importance like Beau or Thomas would. He sounds impressed.
“I’ve had this check engine light on for a week now,” Sawyer goes on. “I was just telling Dottie I need to get it into the shop.” Sawyer glances at me in the rearview mirror. “I’ll be coming to see you, my friend.”
“It’s true,” Dot says. “He was talking about it only yesterday.”
“Bring her in. We’ll get you checked out,” I say, my shoulders relaxing.
Olive settles against me; we listen to Dot gush over Sawyer and his work in financials, and his current negotiations for taking over a massive pharmaceutical company in Raleigh. He comes from old Southern money, like Dot and Olive, but his parents are firm believers of their boys making their own way, so he has no access to his trust fund until he’s thirty.
Sawyer tries to change the subject at least five times. I can appreciate not wanting the attention.
Dinner is as relaxed as the car ride. Turns out we all have some things in common. We talk about the beach, tourists, our equal love for frozen custard and ice cream at hometown creameries. I nearly swallow my tongue when underneath the table Olive settles her hand on my leg.
I flick my eyes to her. She grins as if to ask if she’s crossing a line. I look down at her hand, then slip my fingers into hers. As much as I try, I can’t deny every touch from Olive is starting to ignite a burning need for more.
Dorothy-Ann was right about the food, I’d probably die to eat there again. I take the black payment book, but Olive rifles through her purse and whips out her credit card.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“You don’t need to pay for me,” she whispers, glancing across the table as Dot presses smacking kisses along Sawyer’s cheeks as the man tries placing his own card.
I narrow my gaze. “Put it away, princess. Let a man keep some sort of pride.”
“Rafe, I can be more stubborn than you.” She leans closer. Olive shouldn’t wear that perfume, like strawberries and cream with a hint of citrus, and now my head is spinning.
“I’d like to see you win this one, Ol.” Our faces are inches apart. Thankfully, Dot and Sawyer are too preoccupied with their locked lips and laughing to notice the pressure stacking across the table.
When had things changed so drastically between us? The engagement party? Back when we nearly slipped in Minnesota? I’ve battled with this woman more times than I can count, but the way we’re looking at each other now breaks a piece of the wall I built when she said yes to Thomas Abernathy, the wall to make sure I never fall for Olive Cutler.
Gently, I tuck some of her hair behind her ear, my thumb traces the softness of her cheek. She breathes harder. She doesn’t blink.
Then I slap my card into the book and practically throw it at the waiter.
“I win,” I say.
Olive’s jaw drops. “You bullheaded man. Don’t be all sweet and play your games. I’ll get you back now. You know I will.”
“I’m looking forward to it, Ollie.”
I pull her flush against me; her arms hug my waist. When Olive tilts her head, our faces are too close. I can’t help but look at her pink lips, close enough to kiss. “Want to go to the beach?”
“Oh, the beach sounds perfect,” Dot squeals. “Come on, baby, I need something cold. There’s this amazing little ice cream parlor down on the shore.”
Olive’s cheeks grow pink when she releases my waist, she clears her throat. “I need to stop at the restroom first.”
“Me too.” Dot winks at Sawyer. “We travel in packs, you know.”
Sawyer laughs and pops a chocolate mint in his mouth before following me to the entrance. “So, you and Olive, you two aren’t together? Dottie never made it really clear.”
I fidget, only because I never know how to explain this. “Some days we are, I guess.”
“I don’t follow.”
“You understand pretenses are important in some families, right?”
Sawyer rolls his eyes. “It’s exhausting and downright stupid. I feel for Dottie. If my parents didn’t have money, then I’m certain her mama would toss me out on my backside. Doesn’t matter what sort of success I’ve achieved mind you. I’m lucky my parents couldn’t care less so long as my brothers and I are happy.”
“The nutshell story is Olive needed a fiancé in her family’s eyes—for at least a few weeks—and I’m the guy. She dumped her fiancé after a few high-end parties were already arranged.”
Sawyer groaned. “I get it—the shame, right?”
I laugh. “Ollie and I have known each other since we were kids. At parties we’re to smile and play the loving couple, but nights like tonight we can just be us, I guess. But you can’t let on, or Ms. Cutler will skin my hide.”
Sawyer lifts a brow. “So you’re not really together? You really are pretending for the parties?”
“Yeah.” I go through my explanation trying to find where I wasn’t clear.
“If you don’t mind me saying,” Sawyer says lightly. “You two could have fooled me. If this is you two being normal, I never would’ve guessed you weren’t together.”
“What?”
&
nbsp; “That’s why I asked since Dottie hinted you weren’t.”
“We’re friends, that’s it. Guys like me aren’t suited for women like Ollie.”
“You complain about the standards Olive has to keep, but it seems like you’re feeding the old-world bull too, my friend.” Sawyer says with a grin. “Listen, what do I know, we just met. My opinion, though, even if Dottie’s parents said I wasn’t good enough, I want her so I think the good southern boy act would drop and I’d tell ‘em where to kiss it.”
If it were so simple, I probably would’ve claimed Olive as mine a long time ago. Truth be told, I blame myself for what happened with Dalia. The way she set me up to choose between her and Olive.
I didn’t choose right. To her, at least.
Maybe she had reasons to give ultimatums, to seek out other people who paid her attention. When Olive got engaged I pulled back from everyone. I didn’t recognize it as jealousy then, not until Dalia pointed it out. I’d called her crazy, but looking back she was right. I hated making her cry when she told me to cut ties with Olive, so we could have a chance. I never blinked when I said no. Not when she said if I loved her, then I’d do it. Not when she told me she’d kissed someone else, and she’d date him if I refused.
Olive was engaged, but I never budged.
Never would, either.
How would it be possible to cut a woman like Olive out of my life?
Sawyer and Dot didn’t last long at the shore. I suspect they wanted time alone, and as much as I think Sawyer is a decent guy and Dot is ten times more fun around him, I’m glad to be alone with Olive.
She hugs her body against the night air, but she’s smiling. Olive’s love for the water is one of the things I’ve always admired about her. She finds joy in the simplest things. Like a vase filled with snail shells.
I pick up a smooth, iridescent shell jutting out of the sand. Rich blues, grays, burgundies stain the shell in a whimsical patter. Exactly the type needed for a shell connoisseur. “Ollie.” I tap her arm. “For the beach vase.”
“Oh, this is a pretty one,” she says. “It’s like a rainbow on this side.”
Olive offers me a watery smile.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I don’t know, you let me be . . . me. You don’t make fun of my shells. I want to teach, and you’re one of two people who think that’s great. Millie is the other one.” She stares at the newest piece for her vase with a touch of something sad. “Tom always made fun of my shells. He teased me saying after we got married the shells were going to vanish mysteriously.”
“Because Tom’s porch light is on but no one’s home.”
Olive snickers. “You though, you pick up shells for the collection. I’m not sure I realized it until recently how you were always that way. I never have any reason to pretend with you. You teased me whether I was gussied up or digging in the mud.”
My throat feels dry. She draws in a sharp breath when I take her hand, tracing the lines of her palm gently. “Ollie,” I clear my throat. “You don’t ever need to change with me. I’d have a few strong words to say if you put on a face. There still are those people who enjoy letting August and I know how we don’t measure up to people like you—”
“Rafe—”
“No, it’s fine, I’m trying to say you were never one of them. There were things that happened you didn’t see, but at the end of the day I always knew it didn’t matter where I lived, or if I was always grimy and smelly. I don’t worry about it at all. Not with you.”
“You aren’t smelly,” she insists.
I laugh. “All I’m saying is I’m glad to be me around you too. Even if you can be annoying.”
“I think you’re talking about your less-than redeeming qualities.”
I use my knuckle to tip her chin, so she’s looking me in the eye. “You’re good how you are, Ol. Don’t change.”
I pull her against my chest, and rest my chin on top of her head. Olive laces her fingers behind my back, her face nestles against my heart. We stay like that until the last of the sky darkens to pitch and we can only hear the crash of the waves.
I’m leaning over a ledge with my friend, ready to fall. Frankly, I’m not sure I’m going to stop myself anymore.
Olive
6 years ago
“Beau, you stop that right now!” I tug on my cousin’s arm to keep him from tossing a homeless man’s lunch into the center of the street.
Beau chuckles, but drops the brown paper sack. “Relax, Ollie. Quit being such a killjoy.”
Tom, Beau, and their third-wheel, Nick, laugh as Beau strolls back to Eloise Tinley and drapes his arm around her shoulders. She giggles stupidly even though he didn’t say anything. I wish Dot were behaving any better, but my best friend is eyeing Nick like he’s her next meal. Ever since Dot spilled the beans that her family is moving to North Carolina, she is determined to love on as many Honeyville boys as possible. At least it seems that way.
“You’re cruel sometimes, Beau,” I say. “There’s simply no other way to put it.”
“Come on, Olive,” Eloise says, nipping at Beau’s ear. “The guys were having fun, that’s all.”
I roll my eyes, but hold my tongue. Dot links her arm with mine and whispers, “Let it go, Ollie. Now, let’s go see this movie. I’ve been waiting all night to get into a dark theater with Nick.”
“Hey, Beau,” Tom says, pointing at the entrance of the movie theater. “Speaking of gutter trash, look who’s coming our way.”
My throat goes all tight and sticky when Rafe, August, Lily, Zachariah, and a pair of girls I don’t know leave the theater.
All of them laughing and minding their own business, by the way.
Beau sneers wickedly. “Hey, Whitfield!”
Both August and Rafe flip their heads our way. August’s dark eyes narrow, and he taps Rafe’s arm. Rafe’s eyes aren’t trained on Beau—those sky blues lock on me as I rush to my cousin.
I slug Beau’s arm, then Tom right after. “You two knock it off.”
“Yeah, we want to see a movie,” Dot insists. “You fools are looking for trouble tonight.”
“We’re not seeing a movie when the likes of them are around,” Tom says, mightily proud to earn a nod of approval from Beau.
I dare meet Rafe’s eyes down the walk. He’s clutching the keys to his truck, and I’m starting to worry if he holds them any tighter, he’ll impale his own hand. August is an inch taller, and the only one who seems to have sense between the twins. He tries to distract his brother before giving up and taking his girlfriend, Lily’s, hand in his own and leaving for the truck. Lily is as sweet as anything, but even she glares at my cousin with resentment. Zac is trying to reason with Rafe now that August is giving up.
“Rafe, don’t.” Eventually Zac gives up too.
I suppose Rafe isn’t doing anything threatening, he’s simply standing there. I shoot Lily an apologetic glance, and she looks at me like she pities me in return. But for Rafe I shake my head. Don’t do anything.
Rafe scowls, but starts to turn away.
“That’s right, walk away, son,” Beau calls out.
I bury my face in my palms, cursing the twisted branches on my family tree.
Tom joins in too. “Scurry on back to the slums, boy.”
My insides flip. Rafe stops. I know him well enough to guess he’s considering breaking Beau’s nose again.
“Rafe, stop,” August shouts from the truck. “He’s not worth it. Fine, get suspended again, you idiot.”
I can’t stand here another second, or I’m going to burst in two. “Wait for me!” I call out to Lily and August specifically, but I like that it draws Rafe’s attention. “I’m coming with y’all.”
Beau is about to flip his lid. “Olive! Get on back here.”
“Nah,” I say, walking backward past Rafe. He’s watching me like he’s never seen me before. “I’m going to wherever these lowlifes are going. They sound heaps more exciting than th
e highlife.”
“Oh, girl, you give me some stories later,” Dot says with a laugh as she jumps onto Nick’s back so he catches her under her thighs.
“Olive, I’ll tell Uncle Lon you left with them,” Beau threatens.
“Go ahead. You think Daddy will be surprised?” I shrug and link my arm with Lily outside the truck, then turn to Rafe. “Hey, you coming or would you rather bloody those knuckles again?”
“Whitfield,” Beau snaps, stalking after them, but stops ten feet back. Even Tom seems ready to curl inside out. “You don’t take my cousin anywhere.”
I step away from Lily and trade her arm for Rafe’s.
He chuckles, squeezing my hand to his side. “Bold, princess.”
“Bye, Beau. Call you later, Dot!” I wave over my shoulder.
“Alright, lollipop,” August says and pounds his fist with mine. “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Beau stunned that stupid.”
I laugh and take in their group. Two girls eye me suspiciously, but Zac laughs and tells them to get into the back of the truck. I look to Rafe. “So, where are we going?”
“To the beach.” He holds my hand as I climb onto the front bench. There is a shimmer of something in his eyes, more knowing, a look I haven’t seen before. I like it. Rafe gets behind the wheel. “It will be a tight squeeze with all of us.”
“I can handle it, Rafe,” I say as our legs touch. And when he smiles I feel like I can finally breathe again.
Chapter 12
Rafe
Heavy silence hangs on the line. I drum my fingers on the kitchen table. “You still there?”
“I’m here,” August rumbles. My brother sounds tired, but I suppose that comes with a new baby. “Just trying to decide if I heard you right. Did you say you’re fixin’ to marry Ollie? Because last I heard, she’d lost her brain and was marrying Tom Abernathy.”
“What is it with you and Mama? I told you, it’s only through the bridal shower in a few weeks, idiot.”
“Oh, right. I must have blacked-out the insane part where you’re taking money to pretend to be Olive’s fiancé!”
“It’s fifteen hundred dollars an event, Aug.”