Page 70 of Beautiful Place By the Sea

The hand-knotted rug under the table is black and white, also, with dashes of blue here and there. A cream-colored vase with blue hydrangeas that look just like the ones outside of Shoreline takes a place of honor at the center of the table.

Oliver returns with my drink a couple of minutes later. “I wasn’t sure how you took it,” he says apologetically.

I take a small sip. “This way’s fine.”

He gives me a questioning glance. “You didn’t know until just now that there were different ways to serve it, right?”

“Well, there’s a gin and tonic,” I say, hoping to convince him I know my way around a cocktail bar.

“Very good.” His mouth is tipping up. “What else?”

“Um. With ice? On the rocks?”

He fights a good-natured chuckle. “Yes, those are the same thing.”

I nod. “I knew that.” I most assuredly did not. “Then there’s neat, and um…messy?”

He raises an amused eyebrow. “Messy gin?”

“Yeah, you know. Like a dirty martini.” I grin broadly at how silly I’m being. I know nothing about drinks.

Oliver laughs out loud. “Oh, Ivy.”

“What?” I pretend to glower at him, just to make a point.

“Nothing. You make me laugh.”

Just then, Maisie hobbles back in. I notice she’s still wearing her knee brace.

“Now, who’s making who laugh?”

I’m pretty sure my face is the color of a beet.

Oliver swoops in with, “Oh, Ivy was just telling me a joke.”

“I want to hear your joke, Ivy. Shall we head to the living room to wait for the roast? It still needs a bit.”

We troop behind Maisie, Oliver hiding a snicker. I have no joke. Now I have to think of one or seem like a fool. And I don’t think well on my feet.

When we get to the living room, Maisie plops down into a blue floral armchair. “You two take the couch,” she gestures.

What she calls a couch is most definitely a loveseat. But not the kind they make in the twenty-first century; the old colonial-looking ones that are basically only big enough for one.

I stand awkwardly in front of it, waiting for Oliver to say something. Something like, “No, Maisie, we can’t both sit here, because Ivy will essentially be in my lap, and ever since I repeatedly stuck my tongue down her throat, we cannot be in close proximity to one another.”

But instead, Oliver sits down, then pats the cushion next to him. “Plenty of room for you, Ivy. Have a seat. Then you can tell Maisie your joke.”

nineteen

Maisie doesn’t stop trying to throw Oliver and me together for the rest of the night. She asks him to pull out my chair before I sit down, then shares stories of all the times he’s been a “true hero” and gotten her out of a bind at the bookshop. He entertains the stories with a blush and a smile, rolling the praise away like it’s nothing. She compliments my dress and asks what he thinks, which elicits quite the look on his end. Then, she tells me about the time he took her out on his father’s boat to lift her spirits when her vacation was cancelled.

“And you should see his writing,” Maisie is saying as we sip after-dinner tea. “He’s really got a way with words.”

Oliver’s eyes are downcast with embarrassment. “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

She nods emphatically. “It’s true! You should see the poems he writes in that notebook of his when he takes his breaks, Ivy. It’s the stuff of laureates.”

My brows go all the way to my hairline. Suddenly, the library books he secreted away make a lot more sense. “I didn’t know you were a poet, Oliver.” I try not to sound like I’m teasing him, because I’m actually shocked. But then again, there have been a lot of layers of Oliver that have surprised me as I’ve gotten to know him better.