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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

ROZ

I stared at my wardrobe, naked and still slightly damp from my shower. Shit. What was appropriate movie-night attire?

While my clothing selection had expanded considerably thanks to my shopping trip with Olivia, there was still a gaping hole when it came to clothing to socialize in. My options were a suit, my gym clothes or farm clothes. The memory of Olivia staring at me as I stepped out of my truck wearing Lycra on the day of the bike ride was still fresh in my mind. Gym clothes were definitely off the table. I pulled out a pair of charcoal gray suit pants and a white shirt and held them against my body in front of the mirror.

I sighed. No, that looked way too formal to eat pizza in.

Tan work pants and a red flannel shirt it would have to be.

Olivia’s movie night suggestion had surprised me, especially given her strange behavior lately, but I was looking forward to having a distraction from worrying about the farm, especially after the discussion with the accountant I’d had earlier in the week. We didn’t just need the funding to keep the flower farm going. We needed it to keep the entire business above water. A heavy sensation pulled at my chest. There’s no point dwelling on it now.

My doorbell chimed. I flung on my shirt and pulled on the pants, then glanced at my reflection in the mirror. It would have to do.

Running my hand through my hair, I jogged down the stairs, slowing my pace as I approached the front door. I didn’t want to be out of breath to greet Olivia.

I opened the door and blinked.

Mom and Dad stood in front of me, beaming.They looked like they’d come directly from playing tennis, both wearing white shoes and white polo shirts, Mom in blue capris and Dad in white shorts.

I folded my arms. “What are you doing here?”

“Nice to see you too, sweetheart,” Mom said, pulling her sunglasses on top of her head.

Dad’s gaze shifted to the perimeter of the parking lot. “Your roses are looking good, Roz.”

Despite myself, my chest welled with pride. “I just pruned them.” I refocused my attention on my parents. “So, what do I owe the pleasure of this impromptu visit to?”

“Ah, yes. Surprise!” Dad threw something at me.

Ouch. A small hard object hit my chest. I grabbed it just as it slid down my shirt.

Dad grimaced. “Sorry. I forgot about your poor reflexes.”

I stared at the object in my hand and frowned. Were they playing some weird joke on me? It looked like the car key for my old car, just without any scratches on it.

“It’s parked over there.” Mom pointed in the direction of the parking lot.

My gaze fell on a shiny black Mercedes-Benz. My eyes narrowed. They didn’t. “What’s that?”

“It’s your new car.” Mom grinned. “Since your insurance company wouldn’t cover it, we thought we would.”

They did. My blood pounded through my veins with ferocious intensity.

I sucked in a deep breath, held it and then released it. Stay calm. “That is very generous, but you know how I feel about accepting gifts.” Especially gifts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from my parents, of all people. “And I’m quite happy driving the farm trucks around. It’s a lot more practical than a Mercedes. Can you please return it?”

“Come on, Roz,” Dad said, glancing at Mom whose smile was faltering. “Just take it. We want you to have it.”

Mom nodded. “We have more than enough money.”

“No. I—” A door slammed. I shifted my gaze toward the parking lot. Olivia jumped out of her car, wearing jeans and a light red sweater. She leaned back in and pulled out four pizza boxes. My eyebrows shot up. “Olivia has just arrived for dinner. I’m not arguing about this. I know you mean well, but I don’t want the car.”

“Hello.” Olivia smiled as she approached the steps.

“Olivia!” Mom embraced her, nearly knocking the pizza boxes Olivia was holding to the ground. “Can you please talk some sense into your girlfriend? She?—”

“Mom! That’s enough! Don’t rope Olivia into this.”

“We just want you to be happy,” Mom pleaded.

“Well, the car won’t make me happy.” I reached out and slipped the keys into the pocket of Dad’s shorts. “Our dinner is getting cold. Would you mind leaving? We can talk about this some other time.”

I put a hand on each of my parents’ backs and led them toward the parking lot.

“Just think about it darling. Surely you want a nice car when you’re driving outside the farm?”

“Actually, no. I want people to take me seriously around here. Driving an overpriced luxury car is not going to aid that cause.” I was surprised how little I’d missed my old car, and how little interest I had in getting a new one.

I opened the door to the Mercedes and ushered Dad in. “I’ll see you at dinner on Sunday.”

To my relief, Dad didn’t put up a fight. Mom grumbled as I accompanied her to her car and she slipped into the driver’s seat.

“We will talk about this more on Sunday.” Mom gazed up at me, and then yanked down her sunglasses.

“Bye, Mom.” I closed her door and stood with my arms crossed until they both drove off, clouds of dust swirling up from the dirt road.

I hiked back to the house and up the front steps where Olivia leaned against the wall next to the front door.

“What was that all about?” she asked.

I grabbed the pizza boxes from the wooden floor of the porch next to Olivia’s feet. “Just my parents trying to help me by giving me a new car I don’t want.”

Olivia turned her head to see Dad driving off in the car. Her eyes widened. “They bought you a new Mercedes-Benz?”

I shifted the pizza boxes in my arms, a comforting heat radiating through the cardboard. “Yes. I think their love language is gift giving. Unfortunately, gift receiving isn’t mine. And their gifts are usually over the top and unnecessary. Like a new car that’s completely impractical on a farm. I think it might be tied up in residual guilt for working so hard when we were kids and never being around.”

“Yikes.” Olivia grimaced, opening the front door wide.

“Yeah. They don’t seem to have gotten the message yet that I don’t need their money, despite me rebuffing their offers of help for the past twenty years.” I watched Mom turn out of the long driveway, already feeling a little lighter. “I also don’t need the judgement that would come along with accepting help from them. If I accepted the car, they’d be sure to comment if they felt I wasn’t taking good care of it, or if it got scratched.” Or run over by another tractor, god forbid. “Anyway, sorry to keep you waiting. Let’s go in.” I strode through the front door. “This is a lot of pizza, by the way. Did you invite the whole trivia team over as well?”

Olivia chuckled as she followed me into the house. “No, I just wasn’t sure what you liked so I got a selection. I don’t know about you, but I like eating cold pizza the next day. So, I’m more than happy to live off the leftovers for the next two days. I assure you, none of this will go to waste.”

“Hey, I’m not complaining.” I grinned. Olivia’s confident stride reminded me of the first time she’d come storming to my house, demanding to speak to me. It was hard to believe that was only two weeks ago. If someone had told me back then that we’d be having a movie night together, I would have laughed in their face.

“How’s your foot?” I asked as I led Olivia through to the living room.

“It’s fine, thank you,” she said. “Although, if you were planning to offer me another foot massage, then, uh, yeah, it’s excruciatingly painful.” Olivia’s cheeks flushed.

I laughed. “Well?—”

“Oh, my God!” Olivia exclaimed, stopping in her tracks. “What is that?”

“What?” I asked, eyes darting around. Had a gigantic spider made a nest here or had Louise broken in and taken a giant dump on the couch?

Olivia pointed at the television, her eyes wide. “That TV. It’s tiny. You didn’t tell me I needed to bring binoculars. Is it from the eighties or something?”

Hmm. It was rather small.“Jim left it when they moved out, because they were getting a new one.”

“I’m not surprised they upgraded.” Olivia stepped forward and inspected it more closely. “Can you even get any of the streaming services on it?”

Oh, shit. I hadn’t thought to check. I grabbed the ancient-looking remote and examined it. It didn’t look promising. I pressed the power button, and the TV came to life. A news show blared. I winced. The sound quality was terrible and a black line flitted a quarter of the way down the screen. Damn .

“Uh, no, I don’t think it does. I’ve never actually turned it on before. Sorry.”

“So where do you watch your documentaries, then?” Olivia tugged at her handbag, looking around.

Heat pricked my neck. “My bedroom. I know it’s not good sleep hygiene but there’s nothing better than watching a good documentary about the Great Recession and then turning over and going straight to sleep.”

Olivia snorted. “Jeez, that sounds so relaxing. I guess that would put me to sleep right away too.” She took the pizza boxes out of my hands. “Well, I guess we’re watching a movie in your bedroom then.”

I followed her into the hall. I didn’t love the idea of pizza crumbs in my bed, but it wasn’t like there was another option. “Do you even know where my bedroom is?”

“No,” she admitted, walking past the study and peering into the formal dining room.

“It’s upstairs,” I said, gesturing to the staircase at the end of the hallway.

Olivia strode ahead of me, bouncing up the stairs. On the second floor, I squeezed past and opened the door into the bedroom. Thank god I made the bed this morning.

“Wow, this room is huge,” Olivia said, taking in the spacious room with its massive oak wardrobe, king-sized bed with a matching oak headboard, large TV on the wall and dark-green upholstered armchair by the window. I’d inherited all of the furniture except the TV from Jim, and while they showed signs of age—a few dents and scratches on the wood and faded upholstery—they made the room feel cozy and lived in. Olivia walked over to the window. “Oh, the view is incredible.”

The window looked out over the farm, from the petting zoo all the way past the corn maze, orchards and flower fields to the Christmas trees. Orange and purple hues were spreading across the sky as the sun dipped behind the mountains, bathing the farm in the last of the evening light.

I smiled. “Yeah, I love it up here.”

Olivia turned and looked at the bed, the smile fading from her face. “I’ll sit in the armchair.”

“You’re welcome to sit on the bed. The TV is firmly stuck on the wall, so it would be an awkward angle to watch from the chair.”

“I’ll be fine.” She placed the pizza boxes on the side table.

“I’ll go grab some plates and drinks. What would you like? I’ve got wine, cider from Terry’s Apple Orchards, beer, Coke, water…”

Olivia slid off her shoes and tucked them neatly under the bed. “A cider sounds great, thanks. I’ll cue up the first movie. I narrowed my list of favorite fake-dating movies down to two and also selected one I haven’t seen yet, so we’ll need to make a start ASAP if we’re going to finish at a decent hour.”

“Sounds like a plan.”I handed her the remote from the bedside table and ducked out of the room.

I returned a few minutes later to find Olivia sitting on my bed, leaning against its headboard. She was perched perilously close to the edge of the bed. I surreptitiously sniffed myself. Did I smell bad or something?All I could smell was pizza.

“I couldn’t get the chair into a good position, so this will have to do,” Olivia said.

I handed her a plate and a bottle of cider and then jumped onto the other side of the bed. “Okay, so what’s first on the list?”

“ Pretty Woman , followed by The Proposal and then Love to Hate You . The first two are old classics. Love to Hate You just came out, but I’ve heard it’s great.”

Olivia pressed play, and I bit into a slice of pizza—very garlicky, but delicious. If I didn’t smell before this pizza, I would now. Julia Roberts appeared and I lost myself in the fun but incredibly improbable plot.

“Shit!” Olivia screeched.

I twisted my head just in time to see Olivia disappear off the side of the bed, followed by a loud thud.

I scrambled across the duvet and peered over the side of the mattress. Olivia lay groaning, on the floor. “Are you okay?”

“I think so. I was reaching for my cider on the side table and suddenly toppled off the bed.”

I slipped off the bed, leaned over Olivia and offered her my hand. “Let me help you up.”

She gripped it and I pulled her up, studying her for any signs of injury. “Do you need an icepack?”

“No thanks. I think I just need my balance checked.” She sat back on the bed.

“Well, perhaps if you sat a little closer to the center of the bed, you wouldn’t fall out. I don’t bite, you know. I just consumed an extremely garlicky pizza, so I’m definitely not a vampire.”

Olivia laughed and scooted slightly closer to me on the bed. “Now, what did we miss?” She rewound the movie until we recognized the scene.

I was chuckling away at Julia Roberts enjoying the luxury hotel room when I sensed Olivia’s eyes on me.

“What?” I turned to her.

Olivia paused the movie and grinned. “I don’t know. I guess I just didn’t expect you to be into it.” She must have shifted toward me while I was watching, as she was even closer to me than she had been when I looked last. If I reached out, I could rub her thigh with my hand. I frowned. Why would I even think that?

I shrugged. “It’s not terrible.”

Olivia rolled her eyes. “By the way, what is your love language?”

I did a double-take, my head jerking back. “I’m sorry?”

Did Olivia’s cheeks just flush, or was it the glow from the TV screen?

“Your love language… You said it wasn’t receiving gifts. I was just wondering what it was—in case it comes up with Fred.” Her eyes skittered away.

I tilted my head. I couldn’t imagine Fred bringing it up, but Olivia seemed genuinely interested. We’d been getting along surprisingly well, so I didn’t want to dismiss her question out of hand, especially with Matt’s words still echoing in my head about being more personable. “I’m not sure.” Definitely not gift receiving or words of affirmation. Sadie and my parents had seen to that. The pizza sat heavy in my stomach. “Perhaps acts of service and quality time? What about you?”

“I think I’m the same. And physical touch.” Olivia was definitely blushing. She turned back to the screen and pressed play, breaking into a laugh as Julia Roberts teased Richard Gere. I couldn’t help smiling. God, Olivia was pretty, all glossy hair, bright eyes and pink cheeks. And she had such an infectious laugh. I forced my gaze back to the screen.

Pretty Woman led to the next movie, and the one after that. I turned off the TV as the credits rolled on Love to Hate You.

“Well, they were all entertaining, even if they weren’t full of helpful advice.” I turned to Olivia, who was uncharacteristically silent. “Olivia?”

Her body was slumped against the headboard only inches from me, her eyes closed. Her chest rose and fell. Warmth welled inside me. I leaned over and removed her empty plate, then glanced at my watch. It was past midnight. Too late for her to drive home. Besides, if I woke her now, she’d feel really groggy. Better to let her be.

Not wanting to disturb her, I pulled a spare duvet out of my closet. I placed it over her, tucking the edges around her body. I yawned and lay beside her, my gaze running over her long, dark lashes and pink lips. I’d just rest here for a few minutes and then go sleep in the spare room.