Page 9 of Depths of Desire
Oliver didn’t argue. He just nodded once and kept his eyes ahead.
I pulled into the lot, which was only half-plowed, with patches of slush that sent the car bumping gently as I eased into a spot. The building was small, beige brick with a handful of vending machines outside and a neon OPEN sign hanging crooked in the window.
Inside, the place smelled like overbrewed coffee and something fried hours ago. It was warm, though, and quiet. There was just one old guy in a booth, half-asleep with a newspaper open on the table in front of him.
We grabbed coffees and sandwiches from a glass counter manned by a cheerful woman in a holiday sweater, then sat across from each other at a booth by the window.
I watched Oliver unwrap his sandwich in silence. His fingers were methodical, like he was preserving the paper for something important. He took a bite and chewed slowly, gaze flicking toward the parking lot.
I cleared my throat and nudged my cup closer. “So…the Olympics.”
He didn’t look at me, but his jaw locked around the bread like I’d asked something offensive.
I waited.
He swallowed. “What about them?”
“You got silver,” I said carefully. “That’s incredible.”
A muscle jumped in his cheek. “Yeah.”
I searched his face, but it was locked down again, eyes distant.
I waited another second. Two. Three.
He didn’t elaborate.
“Okay,” I said, raising both hands in mock surrender. “Not a medal talker. Got it.”
He didn’t laugh. Didn’t even smile. But his posture softened just a little, and that was something.
I picked up my sandwich, took a bite, then leaned back. “I remember Lena,” I said after a pause, trying another angle. “She and my sister used to hang out. April and Lena were like…matching chaos gremlins.”
That got something. The corner of Oliver’s mouth twitched, barely there, but real.
“She still is,” he said. His voice had a warmth to it I hadn’t heard all morning. “She’s smarter than me. Always has been. She doesn’t have to work for it, either, not like I do. It just happens. Tests, essays, anything. She knocks it out and moves on.”
“She wants to go to Westmont, right?”
He nodded. “Yeah. She’s been obsessed with it since I got in. But she wants pre-law. Not sports or anything I do.”
“And you’re proud of her.”
That made him look at me, finally. Just for a second.
“Yeah,” he said. “I am.”
His gaze dropped back to his coffee, but something had shifted. His shoulders were less tight. His fingers didn’t clench around the paper cup like it might try to escape.
We had our sandwiches in the silence that was a little less uncomfortable. I wasn’t sure if I subscribed to that phrase. I didn’t know a comfortable silence. Tolerable, at best, but not something you shared with a person and felt grateful for. Either way, it felt as though the sheet of ice between us had cracked a teeny, tiny bit after I’d mentioned Lena.
Oliver Hayworth wasn’t a robot, after all.
We got back into the car with warm hands and full stomachs, and the silence was different now. Not relaxed, exactly, but less brittle. Like we’d made it through something minor and now didn’t need to flinch every time one of us cleared our throat.
Oliver buckled in, eyes fixed straight ahead, and I stole a quick glance as I turned the engine over.
He was…ridiculous.
