Drag Nick out of bed, buy two first class tickets to Fiji, and never look back?
Oliver pulled his phone out of his pocket and started dialing. “I should call Avery and make sure he’s okay.”
Seb made a noise like a buzzer and grabbed the phone out of Oliver’s hand. “Wrong answer. The correct answer is let the uber-nerd lick his wounds for a while, then try to win back his business with a bouquet of fresh cilantro and sweet pea shoots.”
That was the thing that worried Oliver the most. Avery would be embarrassed, possibly hurt. He’d more or less said he wouldn’t be coming into the store again. He really had been Oliver’s very best—nearly only—customer, and losing him now would be devastating, on top of Oliver enjoying his company.
“Can I make a suggestion?” Seb said. He was now lying on the floor, his body stretched out parallel to Oliver’s on the couch.
“Will you do it even if I say no?”
“Of course.”
“Then no.”
Seb laughed softly. “What do you love about the juice bar?”
“That’s a question, not a suggestion.”
“Thank you, counselor, I’m aware of that. Please answer it.”
Oliver leaned over the edge of the couch. “Been watchingLaw & Orderreruns again?”
Seb smiled. “Martin has a secret crush on early twenty-first century Benjamin Bratt and doesn’t want to tell me.”
“You’ll be watchingMiss Congenialitynext.”
Seb grunted and pushed himself up on his elbows. His platinum hair was askew. “Are you being a dick on purpose, or are you avoiding my question because your answer is ‘nothing?’”
Oliver’s grin spread as Seb scowled at him, but then he actually thought about the question and rolled back onto the couch. “I don’t know. It’s been so hard lately. So many little hurdles to get over and—”
“My entire life’s work was destroyed last fall, and Martin and I were building the new gallery within a month.”
“It wasn’t yourentirelife’s work. Just the stuff you didn’t sell.”
Seb flipped him off, then settled to the floor again with a grunt. “My point is, there was never a question in my mind that I was going to rebuild. The fire was awful, and I’ll never get those pieces back, but I knew what I wanted. If the juice bar burned down tomorrow—”
“Shit, that’s exactly what this day needs.”
“Shut up. If the juice bar burned down tomorrow, would you turn around and rebuild it all over, or would you do something else?”
Oliver went to laugh at the ridiculousness of the question. What a pointless hypothetical. The building was freshly renovated, with new smoke alarms and everything. Oliver had never been in the bookstore, but from what he understood about the fire, the place had been a tinderbox for decades.
But just as he was about to come back with his usual sarcastic reply, he stopped. “The store was Cooper’s idea.”
“Not yours?”
Back then, Oliver had been living on coffee and cigarettes, choking down the occasional smoothie when Cooper forced it on him. “He was trying this new thing. Juicing everything in the house. God, the mess. The counters were sticky all the time.”
“I always knew he was a kinky bastard.”
“Shut up.” Oliver laughed, but he quieted quickly. “I gave up a lot to start this business. Everything.”
“I’m not denying that.”
“And now you’re telling me it was a mistake?” He shifted on the sofa, picking at the upholstery.
“Not if you love it.”
