So even Ollie found out about Jo and Alex’s plans before me?Worse, I decide. “I’m marvelous,” I say.
Ollie’s nose nudges my neck. I ignore the way it makes me weak in the knees, and not just the bad one. “I’ve missed you,” he says, not at all the way you tell your ex-coworker you miss them.
I want to put some space between us, but Ollie is too comfortable, and I can’t drag myself away. “Where’s your girlfriend?” I ask. Sondra? Samantha? Tall. Redhead. I like her.
“Don’t have one anymore.”
No surprise there. The man goes through girlfriends faster than I can snap up a pair of vintage Levi’s off the rack. “What was wrong with this one?”
“She wasn’t you,” he says. His breath raises goose bumps on my neck. So, he wants to playthatversion of our game.
I pull his arms off me with a sigh. “Not tonight,” I say.
“It’s true.”
I turn, getting the first good look at him I’ve had since I left for charter season. He’s unchanged, everything about him as in-between as ever. His hair, between blond and brown, between straight and curly, short on the sides and longer on top. He isn’t tall, but he isn’t short either. Even his outfit, a navy button-down, jeans, and white sneakers, falls somewhere between formal and informal. That’s not to say Ollie is plain, because he isn’t. There’s something striking about the balance of him. Beautiful, really.
The only out-of-balance feature on Oliver Dunne is his eyes. Blue, but not like the sky or the ocean. They’re an intense, impossible blue that reminds me of the blue-raspberry Slurpees I shared with my father after gymnastics practice when I was a kid. We’d stop at the 7-Eleven, and I’d stay in the truck while my father disappeared inside. He kept a lucky quarter in the cupholder between our seats, and I’dwarm it between my palms while I waited for him. When he returned, I’d pass him the quarter for his scratch-off ticket in exchange for the Slurpee. Every now and then, the smell of quarters and scratch-off dust washes over me, making me sick. I thought my father and I were playing a game. I suppose we were. But that didn’t mean there weren’t consequences.
All this is to say, I’ve encountered many attractive people in my life, ones who wanted exactly what I did—no feelings, no strings attached—but none of them drove me wild like Ollie does. At first I thought it was the accent. But even with his mouth shut I want to kiss him. I tell Jo I don’t love him. I tellhimI don’t love him. But of course I do. If soul mates exist, Oliver Dunne is the closest thing I have to one. But that doesn’t mean we’re good for each other. It doesn’t make either of us immune to the damage we can inflict on one another. It doesn’t change the rules.
Ollie looks me up and down. “Nice dress,” he says. It is nice. A knee-length color-block dress with matching buttons down the front. Vintage Liz Claiborne. One hundred percent silk. He catches the hem between his fingers, and his knuckles brush against my thigh. “Where’d you get it?”
“Do you really care?” I should step back, but my muscles are frozen. I blame the bad knee.
“Maybe I do,” Ollie says, his eyes on the fabric between his fingers.
“Butch, of course.” Butch, the owner of my favorite thrift store, knows exactly what I like.
“The one and only Butch. You make me jealous when you talk about him.”
When he lifts his gaze to mine, I force myself not to look away. I hate when he looks at me that way. It makes me feel stark naked when I’m obviously overdressed.
“Youshouldbe jealous. Butch is the man of my heart.”
“And Jo is the woman, I know.”
“Not anymore.” I look beyond Ollie. Amir, RJ, and some of the other deckhands have joined Jo, Alex, and Britt at the table. Amir says something that makes everyone but RJ laugh. The look RJ gives him could fillet him alive. At least I’m not the only one who’s miserable tonight.
Ollie doesn’t say anything else. When I look up at him again, I catch the soft smile he saves only for me. Being near him is like sighing into my couch when I first get home from charter season. We haven’t spent much time together since he moved from Palm Beach to Miami. He’s only an hour and a half away, but the restaurant keeps him busy, and I’ve avoided driving down to see him ever since the last time I ended up in his bed.
For the last year, my friendship with Ollie has consisted of phone calls on his drive home from work. Most nights, unless I’m working late on the boat, he calls just as I’ve gotten into bed. I always put the phone on speaker and close my eyes as we talk, mostly about nothing. The restaurant, the yacht, weird Craigslist listings. By the time I hear Ollie unlock his apartment door, I’m half-asleep, lulled there by the sound of his voice.
It sounds like a capital-RRelationship, but it’s not. I don’t know what to call it. The phone calls and occasional hook-ups are all I can give. They’re enough for me. But this phase, the one in which we can be friends, lasts only so long before Ollie is itching for more, something with a label. And when I refuse, he’ll pull away from me again. We won’t talk for months, maybe a year. He always says he’s done, and sometimes he finds someone else, someone he really likes. But it’s no use. We always find ourselves back here, walking this in-between place like a balance beam.
“Did you miss me?” he asks.
“We spoke yesterday. Though you failed to mention you’d be here.”
“Wasn’t sure I’d come. But I like to see the faces you make when you tease me.”
“Teasing? Me? Never.” I rest my hands on his shoulders. “You’re built like a hunky fridge,” I say. My hands slide down his arms to give his biceps a squeeze. He laughs, and I shoot him a glare. “What? You’re frigid, and bulky, and occasionally provide food.” I’m making quite the spectacle of myself tonight. Maybe it’s time to give up the tequila.
“That face. Right there,” Ollie says. He presses his thumb to my mouth. “And you say you don’t tease me.”
My heart is doing moves now that would be physically impossible for anyone but Simone Biles. I take Ollie’s hand in mine and squint at his palm like a fortune-teller. I know the callus at the base of his forefinger. I can map out the small scars and discolored burns that run up his hands and arms. Even when I don’t want to, I think of them whenever someone else touches me. It’s a real mood killer.
“No new injuries, I see.”
