“I still can’t believe we’re going here.”
“The owner is a family friend,” I say.
She shakes her head in disbelief. “Good friends to have.”
“Yeah, I suppose so.” I take her hand again, and we enter the restaurant. “Carlisle,” I say to the hostess, and we don’t have to wait at all. We’re led back to one of their more private tables on a balcony that overlooks the Hudson River, and the breeze off the water is the perfect antidote to the remaining afternoon heat. I pull out Ollie’s chair and she sits, her dress puffing out beneath her.
I have an image in my head of us sinking into bed together, and fucking her while surrounded by all those layers of skirt. I wonder if I can make that happen later tonight.
Sitting across from her, the light is streaming from behind her and it’s such a perfect picture that I pull out my phone. “I need a picture of this,” I say.
“Why?”
“Because the lighting is perfect, and I need a picture of you for my long and lonely nights at the hospital.”
Ollie blushes, and I snap the picture right as she looks away toward the river. It’s perfect. Gorgeous. A person is suddenly by our table, and I look up. “Anton,” I say, “hello.” I stand and hug him. “I didn’t know you would be here tonight.”
“When you called for a reservation, I thought it had been so long that I needed to see you and say hello.” He looks over at Ollie. “And who is your lovely companion?”
“This is Olivia Mitchell.”
He holds out a hand and she takes it. “It’s nice to meet you, Olivia Mitchell. I hope you know that you have an excellent young man here.”
“I do know that,” she says, smiling.
Anton turns back to me. “Tonight you’re getting the chef’s finest. I’ll make sure they take care of you.”
I shake his hand. “I appreciate that. Next time I come, you and I will have a drink.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” Nodding to Ollie, he says, “It was lovely to meet you.”
“You too,” she says.
And then he’s gone as quickly as he appeared. “Anton never stops moving,” I say. “He’s always chatting with patrons and his friends and sometimes he cooks too. He cares more about this restaurant and food more than any person I’ve ever met.”
“He seems nice,” she says, laughing. “From the thirty seconds he was here.”
“He is, and if he says that he’s making sure our food is amazing, it will be.”
Our waiter appears with wine, and pours us each a glass. “So,” she says, “you have a couple days off now?”
“I do, and I was actually going to ask you about that.”
Ollie makes a sarcastic face. “You were going to ask me about your days off?”
“In a way, yes.”
“Okay?”
“I actually have two things that I need to ask you.” I take a sip of wine ad clear my throat. “I was wondering if you wanted to go away this weekend. My family has a house out on the island. No one is there, and I want to just—”
“Yes,” she says. “Hell yes. Did you think I would say no?”
“I mean, I know it’s fast.”
She shakes her head, and the sun catches her hair, distracting me. “Seriously, I’d love to.” Then she lowers her voice. “We can’t seem to keep our hands off each other, and a big house where we’re all alone seems like the perfect place to get some of that out of our system.”
I grin. “My thoughts exactly.”
“What’s the second thing?”
I sigh, this one is trickier. “My mother is hosting a party next week. I’d like you to come.”
“You don’t sound as happy about that one.”
“I’m not,” I say. “Though that has nothing to do with you. I generally don’t love my parents’ parties. Imagine all the parents of the people in our class and you have the people that populate those circles.”
“Oh.”
I laugh. “Yeah. It’s a real fun time.”
Ollie spins her wineglass on the table, and watches the watery reflection of light on the table. The truth is, I don’t know how I’ll be able to get myself out of my predicament by the party, but if worse comes to worse, I want Ollie to be there. But I need some way to warn her about what might happen if she goes. How can I tell her about Sasha without breaking her heart all over again? That’s the last thing that I want, especially since what we have is so new and so good. I don’t want to break it.
“Hey,” Ollie says gently. “Where’d you go?”
“Sorry.”
She reaches across the table and grabs my hand. “You have nothing to be sorry for. But you can tell me what’s wrong.”
How can I? “I’m not sure how.”
“Is it a problem at work?”
“Kind of,” I sigh. “I…agreed to something a few years ago that I thought would help my career. But it wasn’t the right choice to make. It’s kind of so obvious now that I’m not sure how I didn’t see it then. But because of that choice, there’s a couple people, my father included, who are making it hard to get off that path.”
“Did it help?”
“My career?” She nods. “Maybe. I think I probably could have done just fine on my own.”
She takes another sip of her wine, the breeze catching her hair and blowing it into her eyes for a second while she looks at the river. “And you can’t…get out of this?”
“I’m trying.”
The way she’s looking at me, searching, it’s like I can feel her stare in my chest. “What’s stopping you?”
“I’m not sure that doing what I did helped my career, but it’s made clear to me that reversing it would definitely hurt it.”
Ollie frowns. “And you can’t tell me what it is? Maybe I could help.”
I brush my thumb across the back of her hand. “I wish I could,” I say, and I really do. “But I can’t right now.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, trying to pull her hand away. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
I don’t let her pull away. “Of course you should have. Believe me, this would be easier if I could just talk about it. Hopefully soon I’ll be able to.”
She smiles, and it’s a little sad. “Well I’m sorry that you have to deal with it at all.”
“Me too.”
I look out over the river for a second, and then back at Ollie. My eyes follow the line of her dress, and I’m distracted by her collarbones, sweeping gracefully out to her shoulders. “So… is Italian your favorite?” I say, asking a question to try to change the subject and bring back the lighthearted feeling that got lost in me almost admitting everything.
“Yeah,” she says. “I love Italian. I think my second favorite is probably traditional American diner food. I can really go for a burger now and then.” Our waiter appears with the first course, what looks like a small portion of artisanal fettuccini alfredo, and Ollie grins. “But yeah, Italian is my favorite.”
“It’s my favorite too,” I say. “Though I can always go for Thai too.”
“Mmm.” She groans as she takes a bite the pasta. “This is amazing. And so is Thai.”
I take my own bite, and she’s right. The pasta is creamy with the right proportion of pasta and sauce. Anton really has a talented chef here. I have to make sure that I tell him that the next time I see him.
“Now you can tell me about your parents,” I say.
She laughs. “They’re fine. They still live in the same house, still have the same routines. I think you’d like them.”
“I’m sure I would.”
She shakes her head. “They’re definitely not in the same circles as your parents.”
“I think that probably ensures that I’ll like them more.”
“Maybe,” she laughs. “They’ll do their best to embarrass me when you meet them. Be forewarned.”
“If I get to see you blush more, it works in my favor.”
At my comment, she blushes, and
just like that, our magic is back. We fall back into the get-to-know-you game, and it’s easier to forget the little blip. I wish I could confide in Ollie, I wish that I’d had the strength to say no when my father insisted. I wish that it were anyone but Sasha that was the problem. If it were anyone but her, this would be so much easier.
But it’s not.