Mitch is quiet, waiting for me.
“Coach made us co-captains, and she said we have to get along.”
“And?” he says after a beat.
“I can’t,” I mutter. “I can’t be friends with him.”
“Why not?”
Because one moment, that disturbingly honest voice inside me says, of letting down my guard, and I nearly crashed my mouth to his, to shut him up, to wipe the wounded, stricken look off his face and replace it with pleasure.
“Because he’s intolerable.”
Mitch rolls his eyes. “Let me guess. He’s happy. And good-looking. And kind.”
I glare at him. “If he was, that would be irrelevant. Seeing as we work together. And we’re fucking teammates. And he’s ten years younger than me.”
“And you like him. And it scared the shit out of you. So you bit his head off.”
“He’s fucking irritating! He whistles like a goddamn Disney character. He smiles all the time. He’s unnervingly upbeat. Biting his head off is all I can do.”
“Not true. You can apologize.”
I tug at my hair. “Fuck’s sake, Mitchell. It’s not that simple.”
“Yeah, it is,” Mitch says while hacking one of his wet, former-smoker coughs. “You’re just so used to making things complicated, Gav.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means you’re lonely, but you won’t let anyone close. You’re miserable, but you won’t open your arms to happiness. You’re scared—”
“I’m not scared.”
“—and you won’t let anyone comfort you or help you figure out how it’s going to be okay.”
Because it’s not going to be.
I swallow roughly. “Bit harsh, Mitchell.”
He shrugs. “I’m too old to prevaricate. Now listen here. I don’t know much about you beyond what you let me see. I know your folks never come around. I know you left an entire life in England—friendships, a home, maybe a relationship—that you’d built for over a decade. I know you’re hurting in more ways than one, and you hate for people to see it. So you snarl and growl and put up your big cold walls to keep them from getting too close, from seeing the cracks in your armor.”
My throat thickens.
“But I got news for you, Gav.” Mitch sets his folded hands on his belly, his wedding ring that he’s never taken off glinting in the moonlight. “And I hate to sound like a Hallmark card, but the cracks are where the light shines through. You can deny it until you’re blue in the face, but everyone wants to be loved somehow, some way, for their little bit of warped, jagged light, for those cracks that have shaped who they are—not just their joy but their pain. Everyone wants to be seen.” He pauses, smoothing down his mustache. “Some folks are just very good at denying themselves that. And you are an expert.”
I blink at him as silence stretches between us. A car door slams, a dog barks. Inside, my cat, Wilde, meows about something, then thumps to the floor from his window bed.
“So,” Mitch says, holding my eyes. “Whenever you’re done living in denial, I’m here to listen. Or better yet—” He juts his chin in the direction over my shoulder. “Talk to that tall, cool drink of water who lives next door.”
I jolt like I’ve been electrified, head whipping so fast, a muscle pops in my neck and burns. “Fuck me,” I hiss, clapping a hand over it.
There he stands, Oliver Bergman, wheat-at-sunset hair falling in his face, just long enough that he tucks it behind his ears, frowning at the lock on his back door. The floodlight turns the tips of his eyelashes to tiny glittering stars, bathes his head in a halo of light.
How appropriate. There he is, angelic, whole, dazzling in the light. While I sit in darkness, broken, scarred.
“Well, probably time I hit the road,” Mitch says loudly. So loudly, Oliver glances our way.
“I’m going to murder you,” I growl.
“I’d like to see you try.” He flexes a Navy-tattooed bicep as he stands and pats it, then says to Oliver, “Evening!”
Oliver glances between us, wearing a confused frown before his expression smooths and that familiar, sparkling smile warms his face. “Evening!” He waves back.
“Mitchell O’Connor, at your service,” Mitch says, making his way across the yard.
Oh, God. It’s a train wreck. I can’t stop it. I can’t stop watching. My worlds are about to collide.
So far, I’ve managed to avoid introducing the poker guys to Oliver, to avoid meeting anybody who matters to him either. It’s simple enough, seeing as I’ve always pretended Oliver isn’t my neighbor at all.
When the guys come for poker, I rush them inside like I run a speakeasy, desperate for them not to see him, positive they’ll know there’s some kind of connection, let alone one that I resent so deeply. And whenever Oliver’s small yard, a mirror of mine, is packed with people laughing, shouting—the sounds of family, the smell of home-cooked food and belonging, wafting toward me—I close my windows, lower the blinds, and turn up the stereo until it’s drowned out.
It was only a matter of time until those evasion tactics failed me. I should have been prepared. I was not.
“Oliver Bergman,” he’s saying as Mitch shakes his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
I throw back the rest of my seltzer, wishing it was something stronger.
“Ollie,” Mitch says, patting his hand, “a pleasure to meet you. Gavin’s said great things.”
The fizzy water rushes down my windpipe, making me cough.
Oliver flashes him an amused smile. “I doubt that highly.”
“You kidding?” Mitch claps a hand on Oliver’s arm and glances back at me. “Says you’re a real rising star that he’s honored to share the field with, isn’t that right, Gav?”
My eyes are watering as I smack my chest, but I still manage to glare murder at Mitchell.
Oliver doesn’t buy it, and he shouldn’t. Our eyes meet, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Something’s different. That infuriatingly upbeat smile, that dogged optimism oozing from his pores, is gone. In its place is a blue-flame fire in his eyes, insouciant posture, a sinister edge to his smile.
Is that fucker smirking at me?
Mitchell clears his throat, wrenching me from my thoughts. “Well, I better be going.”
“I’ll drive you.” I stand out of my chair so fast it flips back.
Mitch glances from the chair to me and raises his eyebrows. “No, you won’t.”
“Yes, Mitchell,” I say between clenched teeth. “I will.”
A honk sounds out front. Mitch grins. “No you won’t. I’ve got plans. And my ride is here.”
“Plans!” I yell, indignant. “What was dinner with me, then?”
“Ah.” Waving a hand, Mitch starts walking toward the front of my house where the poker guys are piled into Lou’s ’55 Chevy. “You don’t want to spend all night with a bunch of old guys who can drink you under the table.”
Except Jim, at least, who honks the horn and hollers out the front passenger window, “Hurry up, slow poke! I’ve got a Shirley Temple calling my name!”
“Ollie,” Mitch says, throwing him a wink. “Great to meet ya. Don’t be a stranger, okay?”
“You too,” Oliver says on a smile.
Jorge catcalls from the back. I flip him the finger. “Tossers!” I yell.
I get a bunch of shit hollered my way for that. Oliver bites his lip, hands in his pockets as he watches them pull out. I turn back, and our gazes collide.
“Who are they?” he asks, jutting his chin toward Lou’s Chevy as it takes the bend and disappears. “They seem like fun.”
I shove my hands in my pockets. “I play poker with them.”
His brow furrows. “You play poker with a bunch of grandpas?”
“They’re feisty grandpas,” I grumble defensively.
He smirks again—that damn smirk!
“What?” I snap.
Oliver shrugs. “Just didn’t picture you as a poker player. Or a hang-out-with-fun-senior-citizens type. Then again, I can’t say what I do picture you as, other than miserable.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Did something…rude just come out of your mouth?”
“Is it rude if it’s the truth?”
A surprised laugh bursts out of me, deep and rusty. I can’t remember the last time I laughed. “Wow. Okay.”
Oliver leans against his house, arms folded across his chest. “Just because I haven’t said it, doesn’t mean I haven’t been thinking it, Hayes.”
Well, welcome to that club. I clear my throat and stare down at my shoes. “Fair enough.”
There’s a thick quiet between us. I watch him inhale a deep tug of air, like he’s about to say something. But he doesn’t.