Even as I’m recognizing that this Oliver?
Margot wouldn’t like him.
Not likethat.
And he doesn’t want her.
Her lifestyle actively wouldn’t agree with him.
It’s ironic—I’m here because I wanted to tell him to leave her alone, that he wasn’t good for her, that she deserved better—but I’m finding I can’t convince myself that I want him to leavemealone, that he’s not good forme, thatIdeserve better.
This Oliver?
I like him.
I feel for him. I respect what he’s doing. Even when he’s been grumpy and mad at me, I get it.
I understand.
I don’t hold it against him.
Plus the fact that he can get mad at me but still tell me he wants me to stay with him? That we’re able to work through the conflict and have a fun dinner and that he notices when I want a stuffed crab and he buys me a microwavable heating pad for my neck?
Then insists that I take the bed because of it?
“It’s a new bed thing,” I tell Oliver, switching my story and earning a flat stare from him. “It always takes me a night or two to warm up to sleeping well in a new bed, and I’m used to sleeping on a floor now since they all feel the same.”
“That’s working well for your neck.”
It’s wrong to get a little fluttery in the heart when a guy who was almost my brother-in-law wants to take care of me in some ways, right?
That’s definitely wrong.
He’s simply showing me basic human compassion.
Compassion wasn’t exactly in abundance when I was growing up. Definitely not the way I’ve found it in Athena’s Rest.
And watching him visibly relax and turn off his GPS and get uslostlost, without freaking out, while seeming to enjoy himself today—yeah, that hasn’t messed with my head and possibly other parts of me at all lately.
“My neck’s all better,” I lie.
He snorts, clearly amused, clearlynotannoyed.
“I’m gonna sit on the bed and watch TV for a couple hours though,” I tell him. “Not sleep in it. Justsiton it.”
He makes ahelp yourselfgesture and disappears into the bathroom. The door won’t shut all the way, but he tries to make it, tugging it and banging it harder and harder until he gives up, apparently deciding it’s stuck enough, even if it’s nottrulyshut.
In any case, I can’t hear him inside, so the door’s better than a lot of the other doors have been this trip.
I settle my bags in a corner of the room, then plop into the middle of the bed and turn on the TV.
One channel’s having anIn the Weedsmarathon, which makes me both grimace and smile.
The show truly is awful. Even Simon will tell you so, though privately.
But seeing a familiar face—even when he’s in character and scowling, which is now utterly hilarious considering I learned this summer that he smiles nonstop in real life—makes me happy in a homesick kind of way.
I flip the channel and grimace again.
