I shrug and take a sip of my coffee. “That was a mean text,” I say, tapping a fingernail against the side of my mug. “Don’t you have a restaurant to run off to?”
He laughs and runs a hand through his bronze hair. His eyes meet mine with a softness that makes me restless, and I look down into my mug. Ollie has always dealt with anxiety, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at him. In public he is loud and brash and confrontational. When we first met, I was sure he wanted nothing to do with me, but I soon realized he liked to keep people from getting too close. Buttoday, despite the teasing tone, I see the vulnerability that was in his voice last night when he told me he was terrified.
He drops his gaze to his mug, fingers fidgeting with the string of the tea bag. “I quit the restaurant,” he says.
I still with the transformed flamingo mug halfway to my lips. “What do you mean youquit? That place can make you. I thought you were going to be head chef once what’s-his-face left.”
He sets the mug on the counter and lifts his eyes to mine. “Maybe I don’t want to be the person it would make me. Maybe I want to be someone else.”
“What happened to being done with yachting?I’m a restaurant man now, Neen,” I say, giving him my best Irish accent.
He shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans. If I turned them out, I know what I’d find. In the back right pocket: his wallet, flattened and worn. Front left: two saint medals threaded onto a chain. Saint Dymphna and Saint Valentine. He’s had the Saint Dymphna one for as long as I’ve known him, but once upon a time, the Saint Valentine medal belonged to me.
Ollie drops his voice to a whisper and leans closer. “I’m not here because I care about yachting, Nina. I’m here for you.”
Here for me.My heart vaults into my throat as I watch him pick up his mug again and blow across it, wafting steam in my direction.
“I’ll be home in June,” I say. “We go months without seeing each other all the time.”
Ollie takes a sip of his tea. He winces at the heat and sets the mug back down. His skin is still warm from the mug when he reaches for one of my unicorn earrings and his fingers graze my neck. “I’m here for you,” he says again.
The warmth of his touch jolts right through me. Doesn’t he realize we’re in a room full of our coworkers? “Well, you found me. Surprise! I’m right where I always am.”
I can’t deal with this right now. Certainly not in front of the rest of the crew. I abandon my coffee on the counter, grab my suitcase, and start toward the sleeping quarters. There’s too much to do. I suppose we’ve moved on to the part of our game in which Ollie insists he wantsmore, and I tell him I can’t give it to him. It’s too bad. We were having so much fun.
“I’m serious,” Ollie says, following me down the hall. “You might not be going anywhere, but I am. If we aren’t together by the end of charter season, I’m going home.”
Home?I whirl around to face him. Muffled laughter sounds from the crew mess, but it’s quiet here in the hallway. Ollie looks... wild. Desperate. He’s always intense, but this is different. I’ve seen this look on him before. He looks like a man out of options. “What do you meanhome?”
“I’ll move back to Ireland,” he says.
Ireland!He wouldn’t. He’s only been to Ireland once since he left nearly fifteen years ago. “That’s ridiculous.”
Ollie steps closer. “Maybe it is, but I don’t care. I’m done with all the games. I’m done pretending you aren’t the only reason I’m still here.”
“I’m not the reason you’re here, Oliver.” We’ve toed the line between friends with benefits and something more ever since our first charter season, but we were clear about our intentions from the outset: It was casual. A mutually beneficial arrangement. We were too young for something serious. I was too in debt and too hurt by my parents’ betrayal to trust anyone with my heart, no matter how much I liked them. Ollie, for his part, had something to prove. He’d left his family, his country, his whole life to start over here. Neither of us was interested in commitment. Or so we said.
We’re not as young as we were then, and our circumstances have changed. I’m no longer in debt. Ollie has his career. Orhadit untiltoday anyway. Even so, loving someone and being with them, to do the whole for-better-or-worse thing, are not the same. I don’t do commitment. Ollie knows that. It’s been almost ten years, but people don’t really change. And by people, I mean me.Idon’t change. Not for anyone. Not even Oliver Dunne.
“What do you mean bytogether?” I say. “We gettogetherall the time. What more do you want from me?”
“I want something real.”
I laugh. “Feels pretty real to me.”
“You know what I mean.”
“We spoke on the phone last night,” I say. “You didn’t think to say any of this then?”
Ollie sighs and looks up at the ceiling. “I thought about it, yeah, but I wanted to talk in person.” He settles his gaze on me. “I thought maybe we could... go out.”
“Go out,” I repeat.
“Like on a date.”
I snort out a laugh. “A date?”
“What’s so funny about that? I’ve never taken you on a real date before.”
