Page 54 of Beautiful Place By the Sea

“It’s okay. I get it. It’s a tale as old as time. Tourists are the necessary evil, right?”

Oliver gives me a surprisingly earnest look. “No, it isn’t that. I shouldn’t have…it’s about me, not you.”

I’ve never heard him flustered before. “Well, your hatred of me certainly seemed to be about you, and not anything I did. I know I’m annoying, but no way am I that bad.” I grin.

He shakes his head. “How many times do I have to tell you I don’t hate you?”

I take in his bright eyes, stark against the somber expression he’s now wearing. “Maybe just one more,” I say quietly.

“I don't hate you,” he repeats, his arm tightening against my back.

“Okay,” I nod, suddenly feeling a little dizzy, like there’s not enough oxygen in the room.

“And I don’t hate tourists.”

I start to interrupt, to remind him that he definitely does, but he shakes his head. “I think we might have miscommunicated a bit, that day in the bookstore. It’s just that I love Maisie, and I hate to see her investing in someone who’s going to bail as soon as summer ends. She works so hard already. I worry about her, you know?”

“I do,” I nod. “She said she was hoping to scale back quite a bit.”

“Exactly,” Oliver says. “I promise, if you read anything in my reaction as derision because you’re from out of town, that was never my intention.”

He’s looking down at me with a tenderness that is making my heart skitter about wildly. I scramble to take a clarifying breath. “And here I was, thinking you just couldn’t stand Massholes.”

Oliver snorts. “It’s true that I’m not a fan of the drivers on I-90 outside Boston,” he admits.

“That’s more than fair.”

“I also might have been a little grumpy when we first met,” he adds, a thoughtful look on his face. “I was dealing with a family matter that was pissing me off.”

I raise a curious brow. “Oh?”

“You’re not the only one who has issues with their mother,” he says with a wry grin.

“Want to talk about it?” I try to sound interested rather than pushy.

He takes a deep breath. “My mom wanted to let me know that she’s getting remarried. She asked if I’d like to come to the ceremony.”

“And would you?” I can barely handle how dejected he looks right now.

“I told her no. I just don’t want to deal with her, you know? She left when I was five. Moved to Boston to climb the corporate ladder. Promised she’d make it big and then come back for us.” He looks down. “But she never did.”

I stare at him in stunned silence. I certainly wasn’t expecting this.

“And my parents tried to make it work for a while, long-distance. But my dad grew up in a lobstering family, and he couldn’t up and leave to go work somewhere else. He loved what he did, and he didn’t want to give it up, either. Eventually, the conflict became too big to overcome, and they just gave up on each other.”

“I’m really sorry, Oliver.”

He purses his lips. “They dragged it out for years. It was hard, growing up like that. It only ended for good when my dad got us a hotel room in the city for Christmas week so we could surprise her, and we caught her kissing another man on the front step of her brownstone when we got there.”

My eyebrows go up. “Jesus. That’s horrible.”

“It wasn’t great,” he acknowledges with a grim smile. “They had it out right there in the street. She admitted she’d been sleeping with Brody—that was his name, Brody—for three years. My dad filed for divorce the next day.”

“Wow. That’s incredibly shitty.” I think back over how I felt when I found out about Kyle’s philandering. Marital infidelity is even worse, especially when children are impacted. I squeeze the hand he’s holding in solidarity. “No kid should have to deal with that.” I think of my own parents’ separation, which shook the foundation of who I am. And I was 28 when it happened. The instability Oliver’s describing would have made life extremely challenging for a child.

“I haven’t seen her since that Christmas,” he admits. “We talk on the phone from time to time, but that’s been it. And to be honest, I haven’t missed her at all; I’m too angry. The only time I wished she would come back was when my dad hurt his back.”

My eyes go wide. “This story gets worse?”