Page 24 of Misfortune and Mr. Right

“I know.”

“I’ve never seen you so tongue-tied and incapacitated as you get around her.”

“I know.”

Gil chuckles. “Are you just going to keep saying,I know?”

“Until you say something I don’t already know, yes.” I sigh. “I honestly don’t know what to do.”

I already filled Gil in on the travesty that happened during my morning run. He astutely observed that I could have simply changed my route instead of instigating a one-on-one foot race. It never occurred to me. Something nearly debilitating happens to me whenever Olivia’s around. I lose all common sense, and my capacity for reasoning flies out the window, often taking my verbal skills with it.

“Well, if it’s any encouragement,” Gil says. “Maisy thinks there’s hope.”

“That is an encouragement.”

“She said where there’s animosity, there’s passion. And where there’s passion, the people care. So, in my wife’s unofficial junior psychologist opinion, you and Olivia care about one another.”

“I do care about her.”

“Oh, I know!” Gil chuckles, waggling his eyebrows like a junior high schooler.

“Not like that …”

Not exactly, I don’t think. I mean, how could I be attracted to Olivia? She basically hates me. And I came pretty close to hating her in high school. Nothatehate. I never wanted her to suffer. I just wanted to watch her face fall while I won. I was so immature back then. What can I say? I was a teen boy.

“You don’t find her attractive?” Gil crosses his arms over his chest and tilts his head.

“Of course I do. I’d have to be dead or blind not to notice her. She’s attractive. And unfortunately, she’s my type. Visually speaking.”

He huffs out a little noise of self-satisfaction.

“And if you close your eyes and think of her, not what she looks like … just think of her … ?”

“She’s like a burr. One of the ones that gets woven deep into your sock when you’re on a hike, leaving pinpricks and barbs behind even after you pluck it away. I can’t shake her or the effect she has on me.”

I open my eyes, not even realizing I had shut them when Gil told me to.

Gil’s wearing a grinchy smirk. “Mm-hmm. I thought so. And I knew it in high school. Under all that animosity, you’re drawn to Olivia. She’s your match. You’ve actually met your match.”

“Look,” I sigh.

Rhett plops to the ground at the end of his leash, snorting when he lands.

“I just want to make peace with her … to make up for the ways I overdid it when we were younger. That’s it. Nothing more. If I can achieve that, I’ll consider it my greatest win. You and Maisy are dreaming if you think there will ever be anything more than a ceasefire between me and Olivia. I’ll be lucky if we ever even achieve that.”

“A win, huh?” Gil smiles. “Well, I’ve never seen you lose at anything you intended to win, so let’s hope this is no exception.”

“She’s always been an exception.”

Gil claps me on the back. “I have a feeling I’m going to need a big bucket of popcorn for this. The show is about to get good.”

“Oh, yeah. Entertain yourself with my misery,” I half-joke.

“You’ll be fine,” he assures me. “Let’s have dinner one night this week. Let me check with Maisy, and I’ll get back to you with a night that works.”

Rhett jumps up and starts wheeze-snorting and wagging his rear.

“Yeah. Yeah,” Gil says to my dog. “You can come too.”

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