Someday Maybe (14 page)

Chapter Twenty

“I believe I’m officially done drinking for the night.”

Nick propped an elbow on the bar and looked at me through lazy, half-lidded eyes. “It’s only seven o’clock.”

“And we’ve been to eight bars so far.”

“It’s for a good cause. Plus, it gives you a chance to show off your seventies fashion.” He touched the sleeve of my “flower power” T-shirt.

When I’d agreed to the trip—which also meant agreeing to participate in all the festivities, including the twelve-hour pub crawl—I’d forgotten that the theme for this year’s “Get Happy” festival was Disco Days.

“I think the fates were aligned so I’d miss that entire decade.” I swiveled around on my bar stool and displayed my bright yellow clogs. “I can rock four-inch heels, but these puppies are killing my feet.”

“Your
shoes
are
fab
,” Meghan said as she breezed by wearing a tiny lime-green dress and white go-go boots. “They make your entire outfit.” She bumped my arm. “Let’s go, time to crawl, y’all.”

“Ugh.” I rolled my eyes good-naturedly and slid off the stool.

“Are you cold?” Nick asked after we’d been walking a few blocks. “The tip of your nose is red, and I know it’s not from alcohol. I’ve been monitoring your intake.”

I rubbed my nose with the back of my hand. “I probably should’ve worn something more than a T-shirt.”

“You look cute.” His blue eyes did that cute squinting thing. “Like when we were on the couches the other night.”

I felt an oncoming blush, so I turned to pretend window shop at a closed store. Meghan, Oliver, and the others passed me on our way to the next bar. I saw wind chimes through the store window, and candles, reminding me that I needed to go to
Another Time & Place
to restock my essential oils when I got home.

“Here.” Nick draped his white polyester
Saturday Night Fever
jacket across my shoulders. “Keep it ‘til you get back to the hotel.”

His face was so pretty. Women would kill for those cheekbones. “Thanks.” I slid my arms through the sleeves, still warm from his body. “I guess I am cold…
was
cold.”

He fastened the three buttons of the jacket then put the collar up. “Even cuter.”

When I smiled, my teeth chattered with another shiver. The next thing I knew, Nick’s hands were on my waist and he was pulling me in.

“Better?” he asked, wrapping his arms around me.

I was too caught off guard to reply, so I froze against his chest and kind of patted his sides like I was a TSA agent. He was being so sweet, and he was warm and strong and too pretty for human eyes. It had been a really long time since I’d felt a man’s arms around me, so long that I couldn’t remember what to do.

“Much better.” Though I wasn’t as relaxed as I should be. “What happened to our nice pre-spring warm spell?”

“SoCal. If you don’t like the weather, wait a day and it’ll change.”

“I think that original quote was describing Facebook.”

Nick shook in quiet laugher, then squeezed me once and let go. “You smell nice. Like a walk in the woods.”

“Good guess. It’s lavender, verbena, and cedar. I blended it for this trip.” I pushed up the sleeve of his jacket to expose the inside of my wrist. When his nose touched my skin, I felt a zing. Gotta love that zing. “I hoped there’d be occasion for a man to want a whiff of me.”

“Rachel.” He dropped my hand and stared hard at me, as if trying to convey what he couldn’t express verbally. When his expression broke into a sexy smile, my stomach turned a cartwheel. “Come on, we better keep moving before I make a scene.”

“Promises, promises,” I said.

He took my hand, looping my arm through his.

Three days into our six-day trip and Nick was never more than an outstretched arm away. I wasn’t used to the attention. But I liked it.

A few crawl stops later, we hit a bar that had a restaurant. Our group took a table in the back. Nick was parked at my left with Oliver at the head of the table, our elbows bumping every now and again. My side was to him most of the meal because I was trying very hard to put my efforts into Nick.

“You really shouldn’t drink so many of those,” Ryan said to Meghan after she slurped down her third glass of Diet Coke.

“You don’t say.” Her voice slurred sarcastically as she arched an eyebrow. “I suppose it would be okay if it had a shot of rum?” Meghan wasn’t a big cocktail drinker. If she was going to alter her mood, she preferred her beverages be stimulants rather than depressants.

“Megs only intakes carbonation when she’s
not
on Gwyneth Paltrow’s pomegranate diet,” I said, jumping to her defense.

“My skin felt glowy for days.”

Ryan rotated all the way around to face her. “There’ve been studies for years on diet sodas. The cola beans, the aspartame, they actually eat away at your intestinal tissue—”

“Eww.” Sarah squealed.

“Excellent dinner conversation, buddy.” Oliver raised his glass.

Ryan looked down at his plate. “It’s unhealthy. So is crash dieting—which you haven’t stopped talking about for three days.”

“You sound like my
mother
.” Meghan, herself, sounded testy and a little tipsy. She flagged down our waiter and asked for another refill. “Do you think I enjoy having to whiten my teeth every six months like a chain smoker, and getting the worst migraines you can imagine when I’m not within two inches of a straw?”

“Then do something about it,” Ryan said. “I can help.”

“Are you drunk?”

“Megs,” I whispered, trying to catch her eye.

She scoffed. “Not all of us are born with the perfect body like
Rachel
.”

“What?”

“Never mind.” She took one long pull from her straw, excused herself from the table, and stomped away on her platform heels.

Nick was the first to break the silence. “Note to self. Do
not
mock Meghan’s junk food habit, no matter how disgusting. Better remember that, Rad, or you’re in for a hell of a life with that one.”

Oliver pushed away his plate. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Before he could get an answer, Ryan said, “I was trying to help.” He gazed toward where Megs had disappeared. “In every other way, she’s amazing and perfect and—” He cut off.

Huh. Maybe we’d all been pub crawling for too long.

Our table turned awkwardly quiet. I stole a glance at Oliver who was fingering his chin, looking faraway and lost. I would’ve had to be a heartless zombie to not see the trouble behind his gray eyes.

“It’s cool,” I said to Ryan. “She’ll be all right. I mean, after she’s had another refill.” There was nervous tittering around the table. “So…how ‘bout them Lakers? Who still misses Shaq? Raise your hand.”

Nick chuckled and draped his arm across the back of my chair. “Never liked the Lakers. Not since I was a kid.”

“Me, neither,” I admitted, lowering my voice. “It must be a beating living in L.A.”

He nodded, sagely. “I have to write about it every week during the season. We can always hope their injury list keeps growing and their defensive plays—”

“
Quiet
,” I warned. “That kind of talk is grounds for an old-fashioned California firing squad.” I leaned toward him, dropping my voice to a private tone. “If you’re lucky. I shudder at the alternative, though it could be kinda fun.”

Nick laughed out loud. “This woman is trouble,” he announced to the table. “She says too much for her own good, but when she holds back”—he nodded at me, his eyes looking all smoldering—“it’s even better.”

“Har, har, whatever,” I said, waving him off.

While loading my fork full of chicken enchiladas, my gaze moved to Oliver. He was watching me with a curious, almost confused expression. I did not move my eyes away, meeting his questioning gaze while asking a few unspoken questions of my own.

“Hey, Rad,” Nick said. Oliver blinked and broke our stare. “Rad, did you know—”

“Did
you
know,” Oliver cut in, “that I haven’t gone by Rad in two years?”

Nick stared back, his mouth frozen in mid-word.

“The only reason Meghan used that name in the first place is because she heard Tim say it, and now everyone in San Francisco calls me that.”

“Not everyone,” I said before I’d processed the thought.

Oliver rotated his body to face me. “I know.” It was the closest we’d been—physically—since we broke up. “Thank you, Rachel, I’ve noticed.” His voice was so kind and so solid, making warmth and butterfly wings engulf my stomach, my chest.

His gaze remained on me, neither of us breaking contact this time. In the back of my mind, I could tell the others around us had moved the conversation along, but Oliver kept his eyes on me. After a moment, he cracked into a smile.

“What?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

He shook his head. “I was just thinking about that weekend.”

“Weekend?” I repeated, leaning an inch closer.

“Yeah. The weekend in your dorm when we didn’t watch
Dawson’s Creek
.”

I knew exactly what he meant, and when his smile was replaced by an expression of intensity and longing, I knew what that meant, too; I remembered it from six years ago. Or was it seven? For a moment, the world broke apart, and it was us…

…

March, Freshman Year

After trudging up four flights of stairs, I arrived home exhausted and starving from back-to-back study sessions, a huge exam, and an oral presentation in my journalism class. So ready to tear off my stupid, dressy skirt and collapse into bed, I almost didn’t notice Oliver waiting for me in my dorm room. At first sight, I panicked. My roommate was bound to come in and bust us. Then I remembered she was gone for the weekend. The moment I met Oliver’s eyes—the knowing look behind them—I realized that was his plan.

“Hi.” I was happy to see him, but almost too tired to react. “This is the best surprise—”

“Shh.” He took my backpack and set it on the desk, peeled me out of my jacket one sleeve at a time, then wound his arms around me, lifting me off my feet, my shoes falling off in the process. “I know what a long twenty-four hours you’ve had.” He kissed me lightly. “Now I’m here to take care of you.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I have your favorite pizza, the third season of
Dawson’s Creek
on DVD, and I found some of that oil you were out of.”

“Cinnamon Bliss? Wait, you don’t even like
Dawson’s Creek
.”

“But you love it.” He sat on the foot of the bed, cradling me on his lap like a baby. “I know you’ve been going since last night, so what would you like first? We can eat, or you can crash out—I don’t mind.” He placed a hand on my cheek and eased me against his chest. “I’ll rub oil into your feet if you want.”

It was overwhelming. Without him doing a thing, I’d never felt so taken care of. It was then that I realized it wasn’t just a freshman fling. Oliver loved me, like
real
love, like when no one is looking and when you have nothing to gain but you give and you love and you sacrifice and cherish. That’s what he was offering me as he held me against his beating heart.

“I want to do all those things.” I stroked the back of his neck. “But first I want to kiss you.”

He dipped his chin so I could press my lips to his. “Done, sweet pea. Now what? Food? Yoga pants?”

“I want you to kiss me.”

He smiled and met my mouth, sending pulses of heat through me.

“Next?”

“What if I asked you to kiss me all day and all night?” I rotated around so I was on my knees, my skirt sliding up as my legs straddled him.

“Then I would never stop.” As he kissed me, his hands rested at the sides of my neck then moved down, landing on my thighs. They slid under my skirt, cupping my butt, hoisting me closer. Heat burned through the layers of cotton between our skin. “All day and all night?” he whispered over my mouth.

“That’s all I want.”

“I’ll kiss you here.” He pressed his lips to mine. “And here.” They moved to my jaw, down my neck. “Here.” He moved his hands to my sides, boosting me higher, pressing his lips between my collarbones.

I smelled his hair, the blinding endorphins that made me never want to breathe in any other scent that wasn’t him. I sucked in a gasp as his hands slid inside my shirt, holding me right below the ribcage.

“Here.” He kissed the top of my shoulder, then as he rotated me around to lie back, he deftly pulled my shirt over my head. “Here.” He knelt over me, resting his palms flat over my bare stomach, then touched his mouth between them, planting kisses all over my skin. “Beautiful,” he whispered as he moved.

“Oliver.” I held the back of his head, torn between letting him take his time with me or climbing on top of him.

After one more kiss, he lifted his head. “So beautiful.” We locked eyes in a way that made something deep inside me break apart. “Whatever you want, Rachel. Whatever you need, you know I’m here. Always.”

My heart banged in my chest, and more love than I’d ever known I had inside sang through my blood. “Come here.” I pulled him to me. “I’ll always remember this moment, always.” I moved him over me, feeling the firmness of his love, the solidness of his body. “I love you,” I whispered. “No matter what I do or say. Never forget.”

…

“I haven’t forgotten.” Oliver’s silvery eyes locked on me, though the vision of us together all those years ago had dissolved.

“Neither have I.” Was everyone in the restaurant witnessing this? I almost didn’t care.

He placed a hand on the table, an inch from mine. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”

“Me, too.” Though there was no way we were referring to the same thing. How could we be?

“When we get home?” Before I could answer, he smiled—at me, only me. And I’d never seen anything more beautiful in all my life. “Rach.” He brushed his finger over mine.

“Who’s ready for dessert?” The glasses and dishes rattled when Meghan returned to the table, all smiles.

I blinked and my lungs sucked in a gulp of air. Oliver did the same, shooting me one more look before sitting back in his chair. I pulled my hand off the table and wiped my palms on my jeans. Oliver did the exact same thing.