Page 17

Olive

M om’s version of a “small” glass of wine would get me fired from Fishtail if I ever served anyone the same amount. Then again, the woman whose image is like a glimpse into the future whenever I look at her also used to give me and Sebastian alcohol underage.

“You’ve got that look,” she accuses, bopping my nose with her finger like I’m a puppy as she walks around me to raid the fridge. I know exactly what she’s grabbing, and smile to myself when she pulls out at least three different kinds of cheeses.

I grab the board she’s going to get next and set it on the counter. “I don’t have a look.”

“Yes, you do,” she argues. “It’s in your eyes.”

Damn. How does she always know when something is on my mind? It isn’t like my eyes change colors. At least, I don’t think they do.

Truthfully, I’ve been thinking about Alex.

Because when am I not these days? He makes it hard to forget him when he sends those stupid texts.

And his last one makes me wonder why he’s in Lindon.

Not only Lindon, but at the bar I work at when he almost never used to go there when he lived there. It makes no sense.

Mom grabs a knife and starts slicing the cheese, making my mouth water. “I was thinking about how you’d let Seb and I drink when we were teenagers,” I lie. Sort of. She did. I’m pretty sure the first time I ever got drunk was at home.

With Mom. From cheap box wine that tasted more like juice than alcohol.

Mom pauses to look at me. “Well, you two were going to do it anyway. At least if I knew about it there could be some ground rules.”

And that’s why I love her. Well, one of the reasons. Going over to the pantry, I dig through the different shelves until I find the crackers. “Do we want Saltines or something fancier?”

“Like those awful wicker-tasting things you love so much?” she questions with disgust heavy in her tone.

Snorting, I bring out a sleeve of Saltines and a box of garden herb Triscuits. “I never make you eat them, do I?”

All she does is sigh as she focuses on the cheese, making sure each slice is precise. She’s mildly OCD like that. “Bad day at the office?” I ask when I stare at her glass of red wine. “Or are we celebrating something?”

She frowns at the glass I got her for Christmas that says, “it’s not drinking alone if your dog is home” before turning to me. Except, we don’t have a dog anymore. So…

“You’re home. That’s plenty reason to celebrate.”

As if she never sees me. “I’ve been home for three days,” I point out. “You just don’t remember the first one because your girlfriends got you super drunk at book club while discussing the deeper meaning of Jane Austen.”

She eyes me but doesn’t argue because she knows there wasn’t a Jane Austen book in sight at her little club meeting. Only wine and snacks.

“And,” I add, stealing a piece of sliced Monterey jack, “I come home every month to see you. It’s not like I went off to school and never came back or called. I’m pretty sure I talk to you more now that I go to college than when I lived here.”

It’s true. Not that I’m complaining. My mom has always been my best friend. Sebastion is a close second. Our family bond has been strong for years, and it seemed to only get stronger when we all went our separate ways.

Which makes me think about what’s going to happen when I graduate. It crossed my mind a time or two, but my conversation with Skylar reminded me I needed to start thinking about jobs and moving home.

And the more I think about how little I know what the next step is, that familiar weight tugs on my consciousness.

It tries dragging me down, down, down into the deepest depths of my mind.

Which is the last place I want to be. The second uncertainty finds me, it holds on like a hawk clenching onto its prey for dear life in its talons.

Then the panic seeps in. I don’t want to go to that dark place where I have to force a smile and pretend I’m not freaking out about my future.

Mom puts away the blocks of cheese when she’s done with them and takes out the olives and pepperoni slices to add to her makeshift charcuterie board.

“I know, I know. But it’s been three days, and I feel like you’ve barely told me anything.

When I got home, you and Bodhi were so quiet.

You’re normally bickering about whatever is on TV or you’re yelling at him for eating your food. It’s like you’re siblings.”

I choke on the cheese.

“Oh, honey!” she drops what she’s doing to get me a glass of water. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I wheeze, coughing up the food. “I just don’t think of Bodhi as a sibling.”

She passes me the glass and watches carefully as I sip the water. “I get it. It’s hard to look at someone attractive that way. But ever since you met him, you’ve bantered just like you and Sebastian always have. I think it’s cute.”

Oh, God. That’s just…really gross to think about considering Bodhi was all up in my business only days ago. “Can we change the subject to something less disturbing?”

Mom laughs, rubbing my shoulder. “I didn’t realize that was going to strike a nerve. Did something happen between you two?”

My face grows hot, so I hide it behind the water cup. “Like what?” I ask, my words echoing into the glass and steaming the sides with my breath.

“I don’t know. A fight?”

A fight. Sure. We could go with that. Because if I told her the truth, she’d probably never sit on her favorite couch again.

Although, it’s hideous. Getting rid of it might not be a bad idea.

“No, I wouldn’t say there was a fight. I suppose we just didn’t feel super chatty about personal stuff that was happening in our lives when it was brought up. ”

That part isn’t a lie. I may have been chasing a feeling to get my mind off of Alex, but it was clear Bodhi was doing the same. I still want to know why he wasn’t at practice, and when I asked Sebastian after he called with updates on my car, he’d told me it was none of my business.

Which means he knows and isn’t telling me. But I respect his loyalty to his friend, even if my curiosity has been thoroughly piqued.

Sibling. I shiver at the thought of Bodhi being a Henderson. No way.

The anticlimactic answer seems to disappointment the woman who’s been my biggest supporter since birth. “Oh. Well, you can tell me about the happenings in your life. Any cute boys I should know about?”

I steal more cheese. “You know me. There’s always a line out the door of cute boys waiting to woo me.”

She pins me with a look. “If they were smart they would be.”

Before she can lecture me about self-worth and how beauty is within and all that jazz, I butt in. “I wanted to focus on school this year. There might have been a boy once. But that got a little complicated and I didn’t need the distraction.”

Mom stops what she’s doing and turns her full body to me. “Why didn’t you say anything when it happened? I knew something was up whenever you’d come home with that shine missing in your eyes, but you never wanted to talk about it.”

What is with her and my eyes? “It was just a silly boy. And what do you see in my eyes that gives me away so easily?”

“You love so deeply, but so cautiously,” she tells me, putting her hand on mine.

“You’re just like me. And, sometimes, that worries me.

I shut myself off from love a long time ago.

But you’re so young. You don’t deserve to look at the world, at people, so cynically.

You still have a light in your eyes, baby girl.

When you’re hurt, you try so hard to pretend you’re not.

But that light flickers the more you fight it. ”

I don’t know why that settles so far into my chest, but it does. Swallowing, I shake my head. “He was just a boy, Mom. I still have plenty of light left.”

Well, maybe not a boy. A man. A professional hockey player. And Sebastian’s college nemesis and current rival. But whatever. Those were all minor details.

“I’ve had my fair share of heartbreak, and they can hurt,” she sympathizes. “I just want you to know I’m here for you if you ever want to talk.”

Is this going to become a mother-daughter Gilmore Girls moment?

As much as I love that show, I hope not.

I really, really hope not. “It sucked, but it’s done with.

There isn’t anything left to talk about.

Plus, it felt kind of nice being able to focus on classes.

I made Media Advertising my bitch despite the professor lowkey hating me. ”

She doesn’t scold me for the language I know she doesn’t like. I think she gave that pointless venture up when Sebastian started playing hockey and she heard the foul talk coming from his teammates. “Well, if you ever want to talk about it—”

“I’m good,” I reassure her. “Promise.”

Her eyes scan me for a moment before nodding, letting it go. “All right, sweetie. Do you want a glass of wine? I thought we could watch a movie together like we used to.”

“ Pride and Prejudice or the new Emma movie?” I ask with a quirked brow as she grabs a second wine glass from the cupboard.

Her smile stretches. “Well, Emma is the novel I was supposed to read for book club. So it wouldn’t hurt to know what happens.”

I snort. “You could, I don’t know, read the book.”

She shrugs, pouring me a glass of wine that definitely goes over the six-to-nine-ounce rule.

But I don’t complain. “I think I’ll be just fine watching the movie.

The only reason we chose Jane Austen is because the girls thought we were reading too much smut.

Can you believe that? Anyway, you grab the wine, I’ve got the cheese board. ”

Another reason I love my mother.

The rest of the night, we don’t talk about boys or heartbreak or what comes after graduation. We watch sappy romances based on nineteenth-century literature, drink wine, and eat our weight in cheese, crackers, and processed meats.

And it’s one of the best nights I’ve had in a while.

A few days later, I’m mentally beating my head against a wall as I talk to my brother on the phone.

“You promised,” I remind Sebastian, staring at the Bluetooth call that’s been going on for eight and a half minutes as I drive down the highway.

“I knew you were going to do this, and you said you wouldn’t, but I knew . ”

He’s backing out of the visit with dear old Dad. Again. “Something came up,” he tells me vaguely. Just like I knew he would.

“You know what else is up? My foot up your butt,” I grumble, clenching my fingers around the leather until my knuckles turn white.

“You don’t have to go, you know. You’re an adult,” he points out. “Neither one of us is obligated to see him just because he’s our dad. I don’t know why you keep putting yourself through this when it never ends well.”

I know he’s got a point, but I’d feel like an ass if I was here and didn’t see him. I’m always visiting Mom, but never Dad on my weekends home from school. Not that he ever asks to see me then.

Sebastian has never had an issue cutting people out of his life. But me? I’m a masochistic people pleaser; a Taylor Swift song waiting to be written. Well, come to think of it, there’s probably a song already out about that. I’d have to relisten to her discography.

“I keep thinking each visit will be better,” I admit to my big brother. “I mean, it can’t be worse than when he was dating that wannabe Victoria Secret model, right?”

Vickki. Blah. Even her name makes me bitter.

Just because she was a double zero at thirty-five-years-old didn’t mean I wanted to be. But she couldn’t get that through her pea-sized brain.

“If you need backup, Bodhi is still with his family,” he offers, making my fingers twitch along the wheel.

Bodhi posted something with the team a couple days ago. Sebastian had been tagged. It could have been an old photo. My brother told me that they have to post a certain number of times a year, and a lot of them fulfill that requirement with backdated images. “Is he here for the summer?”

“On and off” is all my brother says.

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