He tilted his head in aWhat?!
I chuckled. “Yep. It’s a long story. Well, not really. There was a protest outside campus my second year.”
“Of course there was.” Oliver huffed a chuckle and nodded as if everything had become clear to him.
I laughed. “Yeah, well, let me spoil it for you—unlike in junior high, this one ended up in nothing. They didn’t improve the housekeeping staff’s social benefits. Anyway, we protested, students and housekeeping staff, and this guy—I’m not proud of this—he passed me by and snickered, ‘Check out the working-class hero wannabes.’ Again, not proud of myself at all—it cost me way too much later—but I smacked the back of his head with my sign. It was made of cardboard and had no stick, so he didn’t sustain any injury or anything, except to his ego. But he started yelling at me and that called the attention of the campus police who were just waiting for something like that to happen. I was arrested, and so were a few others who chained themselves to the gate. I lost my scholarship. They said I forfeited the right to it. So, that’s that.”
The worst of it had been disappointing my mother. The education she had fought for me to get had gone down the drain. And that was before I had followed in her footsteps entirely and had become a struggling single mother.
“They forced me to retroactively pay for two years of tuition, and I only received the minimum federal loan that wasn’t close to covering it.” I didn’t add that I was still paying for that, and that one of the temp custodians, who had participated in the protest, had soon after become the father of my twins and had lost his temp job,notbecause of the protest. Unlike the kids who weren’t dependent on a full scholarship and could continue studying despite being arrested, I couldn’t.
Maybe that had pushed me to Jamie. In a place that had become hostile, I thought he was “my kind,” the only one who could “understand.” A working-class hero, ten years my senior. Little did I know back then that he was nothing of the sort or how things would turn out.
“I’m so sorry, January. You would have made a wonderful attorney.” Oliver uncrossed his arms and pushed himself from the counter. For a moment, I thought he was going to cross the room and hug me or something, but he remained in place.
I tightened my lips, feeling my heart tightening in my chest at his words; words that caressed the long-lost dream that I had left behind at nineteen. It was hard enough standing there alone with Oliver, fighting to push away the memories of his hands, lips, and body on me. Adding the effect of his warm words when everything else about him seemed almost glacial was torture.
I chuckled to hide it. “Ruth Bader Ginsburg sure lost a great colleague in me. Nah, my plan was to work in legal aid. So, even if I did become a lawyer, I’d still be poor.” I was still chuckling, though Oliver wasn’t. He just smiled as people do when they forgive someone for being silly. I stopped myself from adding that the police record also meant that I couldn’t work in certain jobs.
“You still found the capacity to aid people,” he said, his gaze quickly skimming my uniform.
Oliver, always on the outside looking in, saw what no one else did.
I put a hand over the hollow in my neck, wishing I wore a necklace to fumble with, something to focus on beside Oliver. “Yeah, and the bonus is that, even on bad days, I’m always considered young and pretty over there,” I deflected and huffed a forced chuckle at my own joke again.
“Just there?” Oliver asked. He still wasn’t laughing. Those green eyes were piercing me.
Did he think me pretty despite what the years of hard work and worry had done to me?
I swallowed. Even with the short sleeves of my scrubs and the cooler evening air that entered through the open windows, I was sweating. Fight or flight were still battling inside me. Part of me wanted to stay in this kitchen with him, and another part, the sensible June part of me, wanted to flee because, except for his words, everything about Oliver said, “barbed wire, keep out.”
My phone dinged. Saved by the bell!
A picture appeared on my screen. My son with his arm around a girl’s shoulders.
“You’ll meet her soon, but for now, this is her. Stephanie Andrene. Isn’t she perfect?” Will’s text read.
“She is!” I texted back. My heart soared. My son looked happy. And, it might have been silly, but Stephanie was a pretty, curvy, brown-eyed girl. She reminded me of myself at that age, but no one had called me perfect or beautiful back then. Only one person had made mefeelthat way. Oliver.
I felt Oliver’s eyes on me. I looked up from my phone and smiled. “It’s Will. He sent me a picture of his girlfriend. The boy’s in love.” I turned the screen toward him, happy for my son and proud that I raised him to fall for a person and not a clothing size.
Oliver left his spot by the counter, crossed the kitchen, and stopped next to me. “She’s pretty,” he said, looking at my phone.
I could have loved him just for that.
“And that’s Will?”
“And Lennox,” I said, swiping to another picture.
“Opposites. Like you and June.” Will was fair, while Lennox was darker.
I smiled at his profile.
When he shifted his gaze from my phone, we found ourselves looking at each other with just a few inches between us.
Fight or flight, my body screamed.
“He says it’s serious, but he’s so young,” I said, my eyes on the phone again in an effort to think of something else.
