Oliver became a staple of Lilymoor, fitting in so seamlessly I couldn’t really imagine the month before he moved into the second-floor corner bedroom, and ever since I accidentally turned him down for dinner, I’d started running into him at the most inopportune times—as if the house justwantedto torment me by reminding me exactly what I’d said no to. Andkeptsaying no to. Because I was only here for another month. I didn’t want to get involved, not even superficially. Not even with someone as charming and kind as Oliver. I hadn’t had a guy be so interested in me in . . .years. And I wasn’t quite sure how to handle it.
To make matters worse, he was, frankly,everywhere: in the kitchen getting morning coffee in his threadbare sweat-pants, and en route from the bathroom to his room in nothing more than a towel and too many abs, and on the veranda while arguing with someone over the phone.
“I don’tcareif he’s not returning my calls, I’m going to leave a thousand more voicemails until his inbox is full, and then I’m going to find wherever he is through the GPS on his phone and—oh, Sophie,” he said, noticing me on the top stepsof the veranda, eyes wide. He took his cell phone from his ear and covered the receiver with his hand. “Erm. Hello.”
“I was just heading up to Eula’s room,” I said, explaining why I was there, at the most terrible moment to be walking through the veranda with a watering can. It was Friday, and while I had accidentally eavesdropped quite a few times throughout the week, since healwaystook his calls on the veranda, this time he sounded a way I hadn’t heard before. Over the last few days I’d gotten to know Oliver a little better—threadbare sweatpants, too many abs, and sunny disposition. Maybe someone from work? Honestly, aside fromrestoring old houses, I didn’t really know what that entailed, and I’d run into his sculpted core too many times (once, which wasplentybecause obviously they left an impression) to just come out and ask. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”
“You’d never,” he replied with another one of his winks, causing me to blush from my toes all the way up to my scalp.
I quickly fled the veranda, watering can in tow, as he returned to his conversation, muttering something sharp and heated into his phone.
In her bedroom, Eula was glaring at the clock on the wall. She was sitting in her favorite wingback chair, a side table pulled up with a pile of papers on it regarding the bicentennial, though they were all forgotten in her war against the clock. She narrowed her eyes at it, arms crossed over her chest.
“Morning, Eula,” I greeted her as I slipped inside. “Just here to water the—”
“What time does the mail come?” she asked.
I went over to water her snake plant. “Um, about eleven?”
“It’s late, then,” she declared matter-of-factly, but then hershoulders rounded and she tore her eyes away from it. “Do you think people who RSVP’d willactuallyshow up?”
So that was what she was worried about. I moved on to the pothos on the bookshelf. “Isn’t that what RSVP’ing is for?”
Eula waved her hand dismissively. “Yes, yes, but do you think they’ll actuallycome? I mean, it’s the end of summer and people do have their own lives.” She frowned. “Perhaps Ididgo overboard …”
“I think people will show up,” I replied. “I know I would, even if I hadn’t been offered this job. Lilymoor is special to a lot of people.”
She pursed her mouth, as if she didn’t quite want to trust me, so I finished tending to her plants. She’d moved the picture of her, Henry, and her nephews to her desk. Oliver and Rus both looked so young in the photo, and Rus had a sort of sly troublemaker grin that I couldn’t even begin to imagine on the man in the garden.
What had happened, I wondered, in the seventeen years to make him lose it entirely?
At least Oliver still had that bright white smile, perfectly symmetrical, though it looked more earnest in the photo. In the years since, he’d practiced it enough for it to become a tool.
One nephew used his charm, the other used his apathy, but somehow, it felt like they both worked toward the same end.
“Oh,speakingof invites,” Eula went on, taking off her glasses, “I had to resend a few, including one to my nephew, because his hadn’t arrived! Can you believe that?”
I froze. He probably never received his because it was still torn in two on the kitchen table in the cottage. “Oh yeah,” Isaid, trying to sound super normal about it, “the mail is . . . tricky.” Especially when it was never sent. “Did he, um, reply?”
From the garden?
She perked up at the question. “Oh yes, he told me he’s thinking about it!”
“He . . . is?”
She noticed my confusion and quickly amended, “It’s still alongshot if he comes, but I love the idea. I haven’t seen him inyears, though he’s tried to get me to do that funny little video call thing once. I hate it. He’s brilliant, really, just like Ollie. Though Rus is a bit more meticulous and grounded, and he’s very particular when it comes to his work.”
Meticulousandgroundedwere two words forpedanticandcold, but I digressed.
Once Eula started talking about her nephews, it was like she couldn’t stop, animated in a way I hadn’t seen since she first rode home in the fire truck. Her eyes glittered when she talked about them in the same way Mom’s did when she talked about me. Eula really loved her nephews. Very, very much.
It made the fact that neither of them visited very often more tragic.
“Ollie’s a talented architect, though he’d never admit it, and Cyrus is a big fancy lawyer. In fact, he’s the one who does your contracts,” she informed me proudly, which was a surprise, but then again, I never really paid attention to all the fine print aside from what pertained tome. Maybe I should have. “Though I was as confused as anyone else when he went into the career. I imagined he’d do something . . . moreexciting. Less structured. But people surprise you. Well, hewasalways a persnickety child, but in fact, he used to be wilder than Ollie!”She laughed, remembering. It made me mourn the loss of that child to whatever man he was now. “He and Henry were made from the same cloth, I think. They used to get into allsortsof trouble together out in that garden. When Henry passed, I think it really affected Rus, though he’d never admit it now.”
“Meticulous and grounded,” I repeated.
She grinned. “Exactly.But some of us remember, and he hates that.”
