That’s right. He’s my fucking next-door neighbor.
We live in mirror bungalows in Manhattan Beach, a few blocks inland from the beach itself. It’s not entirely surprising he’s in the neighborhood—a lot of players for LA’s professional sports teams live in Manhattan Beach—but of all the houses I had to pick, it had to be this one. Right next to his. I wish I’d known. After I signed with the Galaxy, before I bought this place, I’d give anything to have known that he’d be next door. I could have avoided so much misery.
“Mighty fine day, isn’t it?” he says, smiling brightly.
“Glorious,” I deadpan.
Oliver frowns thoughtfully, glancing at the empty spot where my black Land Rover is normally parked. “Hmm. You seem to be missing your typical mode of transportation. I don’t see that beautiful gas-guzzling beast anywhere.”
My teeth grind. I don’t respond. Nothing I say will paint me in a favorable light.
Oh, well, you see, Bergman, I was out getting shit-faced with a handful of seventy-year-old men, and I got so plastered, I had to leave my car at a questionably hygienic tiki-slash-karaoke lounge. Then I woke up this morning smelling like an overworked deep fryer and bottom-shelf bad decisions, and here I am.
“You, uh—” He scrubs the back of his neck and smiles, pale blue-gray eyes squinting against the sunlight. “Want a ride?”
“No.”
He frowns again. A thoughtful frown. Not sour or sullen or glum, because he’s constitutionally incapable of it. “No,” he repeats. “Hmm.” Sniffing, he peers up at the sun and smiles even wider. “Well, enjoy the walk!”
How he knows that I hate any chauffeuring system—being placed in the back of a vehicle with some rando in control, capable of fuck all, while they engage in small talk and make me wish for a swift, merciful death—is beyond me. But he does. And that means he knows, right now, I’m screwed.
“Fine,” I grumble, storming toward his absurdly compact hybrid car.
“Hop on in,” he says, as if he expected this, which just makes my teeth grind harder. After unlocking the car, he pops the trunk. “It only took you twenty-four months and three weeks to accept my carpool offer, but who’s counting?”
“I like personal space,” I grumble.
“The environment likes lower emissions.” He points to the sky. “But what’s a colossal carbon footprint to the personal preference for solitude on a twenty-minute, twice-daily commute?”
“Exactly.” I throw my bag in the trunk, then walk to the passenger side. “God, man. I can’t fit in there.”
“You’re only an inch taller than me, and I fit fine,” he says with another one of those infuriating smiles, before he drops into the driver’s seat and shuts his door.
Cursing under my breath, I ease into the passenger seat and slide it back until I bump into something. I glance back to see what it is, barely holding in a groan as my neck burns from the movement. I’m so fucking tired of hurting already, and I’ve only been awake for thirty-five minutes.
“Sorry about the car seat.” He smiles, tracking my gaze as he presses the car’s start button. “Gotta keep the little niece safe on Uncle Ollie days.”
I grunt in response.
We’re in the car for all of fifteen seconds before he turns on what sounds dangerously like a Broadway musical, so loud the bass rattles his speakers. My skull’s still pounding, and I need silence like I need another cup of coffee. Very badly.
I turn off the music. Oliver throws me a smile, but it’s a little tight at the edges. He turns it back on. I turn it off.
“Now, Mr. Hayes,” Oliver says. An odd something zips down my spine, hearing him call me that. “I’m a simple man with a simple need to start his day on the right foot: sunshine filling the sky and the best of Broadway filling my ears as I cruise in my environmentally conscious vehicle.”
“And I have a raging headache. The music stays off.”
Oliver stares ahead, exhaling slowly. Sixty seconds pass in blissful silence. Until he starts whistling.
It sounds like the trill of songbirds, Bing Crosby in White Christmas, whatever shit is so perfect it’s unnatural. In fact, it’s lovely. At least it would be if my head didn’t have a jackhammer rattling inside it.
“Bergman,” I snap.
“Hmm?” He glances my way. “Oh. I was whistling, wasn’t I? Sorry about that.”
I glare at him.
“Pit stop time!” he says brightly, making me wince.
“Jesus Christ.”
“Nope,” he says, turning into a coffee shop drive-through. “Just Oliver Bergman, reporting for caffeinated-beverage duty.”
“God, strike me down.”
“Good morning, Ms. Bhavna!” he says cheerily to the woman at the drive-through window. “You look radiant today. Still getting good sleep?”
The woman beams at him, warm brown skin, wide smile, black hair threaded with silver spun into a bun on her head. “Aren’t you sweet, Oliver. I am. Ever since I tried that white noise machine you recommended, my wife’s snores haven’t bothered me a bit!”
I wish I could say that was the end of the torture. But it’s not. Oliver places seventeen—seventeen—highly specific beverage orders, then, as we wait, proceeds to make incessant small talk with the cashier, Ivan—with whom Oliver is, of course, on a first-name basis—not limited to their forthcoming vacation plans, how their dog’s responding to its antibiotics, and whether or not they’ve tried the new Chinese place down the road.
I’m about to throw open my door and limp my way to work when Oliver finally rolls up the window and sets an elaborate multi-tiered beverage carrier system in my lap.
“Whew,” he says. “Thank goodness you’re here today! You should see me try to drive while keeping those puppies safe. I buckle them in, but let me tell you, the stops and starts of Los Angeles morning traffic are not conducive to spill-free passage.”
I glare at him as he finally pulls out. “Remind me never to get in a car with you ever again.”
“Aw, this isn’t that bad, is it?”
“Says the man steering a car rather than holding a beverage carrier containing seventeen coffee drinks, the bottom tier containing a disturbing medley of both hot and cold liquids that I can assure you are not a pleasant experience for my groin.”
“You love Icy Hot though,” Oliver says, throwing me a smile. “Or no, it’s that natural stuff—Tiger Balm, right?”
“How very observant.” I lift the carrier slightly to give my dick relief from the highly unpleasant sensation of being part frozen, part steamed. “However, never in a million years would I put Tiger Balm or Icy Hot on my cock.”
Oliver turns bright red as the word rings in the car, his gaze resolutely trained on traffic. That’s shut him up. And for some inexplicable reason, my gaze remains fixed on him, watching with fascination as a blush creeps up his throat and stains his cheeks. He sinks his teeth into his bottom lip, and my dick twitches.
Shit.
I glance away, out the window.
Looking at him was a bad idea. Looking at him while he blushed and bit his lip was the height of self-sabotage.
Because on the most ordinary of days, let alone when he’s blushing and sinking his teeth into that bottom lip, Oliver’s the kind of beautiful that’s undeniable—a face for sculpture. High cheekbones, strong jaw, the smallest cleft in his chin. Fair, sun-kissed skin. Hair the color of wheat at sunset, pale blue-gray eyes, cool and striking as moonlit ice.
Fuck, I’ve got to stop reading poetry. Just listen to me.
As traffic slows to a stop, Oliver glances my way. And for a moment something…snags. Like catching my toe on the curb. Hitting a pothole while in the car.
I glance away and rub my temples, which pound mercilessly.
After a light throat clear, Oliver says, “Heads up, seven up.”
Before I can make a biting remark about juvenile phrases, his arm brushes my thigh as he reaches across my lap, around the beverage carriers, and opens the glove compartment.
“Aspirin, naproxen, ibuprofen, acetaminophen,” he says, pointing to a slim black pouch with a red cross symbol on it. “Help yourself.”
“What?”
Traffic resumes. He pulls his arm back, once again brushing my thigh to navigate around the beverage carriers. “You said you’ve got a headache, and I’m assuming it’s pretty bad since you’re staring at the sun like it’s the devil itself. Oh, and this one here,” he says, eyes on the road, yet tapping a short cup in the top tray with GG written on the side. “Wash down your pain relief of choice with that. Aspirin and acetaminophen chased with caffeine will get that headache under control lickety-split.”
I swallow, desperately trying to ignore the heat blazing up my thigh after such faint contact. Clearing my throat, I unearth the cup he pointed to. “GG,” I read. “What’s that stand for? Ginger green tea? I hate that shit.”
“Nope,” he says.
“What is it, then?”