Page 17 of The One for Me
“So, we’ll see him when those things aren’t happening.” Dad chuckles. “That boy can’t stay away, Shrimpy. You’re just too damn irresistible.”
“Yes,” my mother says snidely as she enters the room. “Men, boys, all creatures just can’t resist, can they?”
I let my guard down, and now I must pay. “I guess not, Mom.”
“That was not what I was saying, and we all know it,” Dad corrects her. “Not to mention, when Sean was around, Devney smiled more.”
“Yes, we could all use a little of that, I guess.”
In other words, she really doesn’t care.
The doorbell rings, bringing this enlightening conversation to a close before it turns ugly. When I open the door, my heart nearly stops.
“Oliver?”
“Dev.” He smiles warmly. “How are you?”
I glance toward my parents and then step outside with Oliver. I don’t want them overhearing any of this. “I’m good, you?”
“I’m good.”
“I didn’t expect to see you,” I say as we move over to the chairs on the far side of the wraparound porch.
Oliver looks different. Even though it’s only been two weeks, something has changed with him. As though he’s . . . lighter.
Guilt hits me as I wonder if the relationship was what weighed him down. I know I’m not an easy person to love. I’m stubborn, closed off, and untrusting by nature. It took Oliver asking me out for almost four months straight before I agreed to go on a date. He was persistent and wore me down.
I loved him in the only way I could, but it wasn’t enough.
I let him into very select places of my heart, but it was never deep enough for him to have the ability to truly hurt me.
Someone before him taught me that.
We both sit, and he sighs. “I wanted to drop off a few of your things that you left at my place, but I also wanted to let you know about something.”
“Oh?”
“A month ago, an opportunity within my father’s company was brought to me. I was reluctant to accept.”
“Because of me?”
He smiles and nods. “I knew that you wouldn’t leave Sugarloaf, and I wasn’t going to ask you since I knew the answer.”
God, what a bitch I was. “That’s . . . so wrong.”
“Wrong?”
“Yes, Ollie, it was wrong that you wanted to spend your life with me and couldn’t ask me to move with you. I should never have made you feel that way. It’s not fair to you. I am so sorry that I ever made you reluctant to take a job offer that would further your career.”
“Stop. Please. I really didn’t want the job, and I think I used our relationship as the reason to turn it down. I knew my dad would never force me to choose, but now that we’re not together, I sort of lost that bargaining chip. I’m not as honorable as you’d like to think I am.”
That’s where he’s wrong. “No, I think you are.”
He laughs. “Well, at least one of us does.”
“Still, I owe you so much.”
“I’m going to take the job in Wyoming.”
