Page 74 of Beautiful Place By the Sea

We stare at each other in the dark. The moment is heavily charged, and I simultaneously want to taste him and to wrap my arms around the damaged pieces of his heart and make them whole again.

Oliver breaks the tension with a grin. “So, what are my other talents?”

I laugh out loud. “Um. Well, I like your shirt,” I tentatively run my finger along the sleeve of his Henley, wondering if this is too far, but wanting it so badly. “It’s very…flattering.” I’ve been hardly able to keep my eyes off it all night. Both because of how he looks, and because of how his chest felt against mine last weekend.

I can practically see the wheels turning in his mind, but he doesn’t budge. “My shirt is not a talent,” he finally returns.

“No, but your ability to wear it just might be.” I flash him a flirtatious grin and reach out to squeeze his hand.

“Ivy,” Oliver says quietly, peeling my hand off his. “What are you doing?”

My face falls. “What do you mean?”

He looks directly into my eyes then. “You know exactly what I mean. You were very clear that this couldn’t happen.” He gestures between us, just like I had when he kissed me after Harbor Lights.

“What if I changed my mind?”

He shakes his head. “You had a lot of gin at Maisie’s tonight. On the rocks,” he adds with a twist of his lips, as if I still might not remember.

I don’t acknowledge his joke. “I changed my mind before the gin. And you’ve been flirting with me all week.”

Oliver looks more than a little sad. “There’s a difference between flirting and acting on it.”

I swallow a little harder than usual. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Look,” he begins. “Just because Maisie likes to meddle doesn't mean you need to force something you’re not comfortable with.”

“I—” I’m not sure what to say. I don’t think the molten lava flowing from my heart all the way down to between my thighs whenever Oliver’s around has anything to do with something Maisie said. Nor does the way reading his poem makes me want to learn everything there is to know about him.

But Oliver’s still just sitting there, staring at me from the shadows. Respecting my boundaries. Letting me direct the conversation. Waiting for me to decide.

And in that moment, it occurs to me that maybe he deserves a little better than my jumble of emotions. Maybe he deserves someone who knows what they want and is ready to commit. Someone who doesn’t oscillate between ready and not in the space of just a week.

Maybe I owe myself that, too.

“I’m sorry,” I say again, taking a shaky breath. I grab Simon’s pie plate and pop the handle on the truck door. “Thank you for the ride. I appreciate it.”

He looks a little surprised at how abruptly I’m backing off, but he just repeats that he was happy to do it.

“Night, Oliver.” I sneak one last glance at him as I hop down to the ground. There’s a heaviness about him now, like he’s being pulled beneath the waves by a lifetime of unspoken wants and burdens and responsibilities.

But he manages a small smile, one that makes me feel weak in the knees, it’s so tender. And when he says, “Good night, Ivy,” there’s nothing I want more than to crawl back into the truck and throw my arms around him.

Instead, I wave and walk away, the wind whipping through my hair like the violent torrent of feelings whipping around my chest. It isn’t until I get inside and close the door to Beach Haven that I allow myself to cry.

twenty

Maisie has an afternoon appointment with an orthopedist on Friday, so she opens the shop herself and asks Oliver and me to both work a closing shift.

My nerves are a wreck the entire walk from Beach Haven. I had a hard time sleeping last night, my mind full of what-ifs and regret. Oliver was right, of course, that I’m the one who put a stop to the us that seemed to be coalescing after Harbor Lights. And I think I had good reasons when I first did so.

Maybe those reasons are still valid. I haven’t heard a peep from any of the other libraries I’ve applied to, and I can’t very well quit Farnsworth with nothing to replace my salary. It’s looking increasingly like I’ll be back in my dimly lit office off the library come September, desperately hoping to be anywhere else. Hiding from Kyle and Alex and all of my erstwhile friends, wishing I could do more. Be more. Be anything.

What’s the point of pursuing Oliver if it’s just going to end in less than a month when I go back to Brookline?

But there’s his poem, and the way my skin comes alive every time we touch. How he looked at me when he bought me the latte. How his eyes rival the sunlight reflecting on the ocean when he laughs. The way he makes me feel safe. The way I desperately want to explore the possibilities of what could happen if we tried.

I have a hard time looking at him when I get to work, even though I feel starved for time with him. He’s ditched his Henleys for a white t-shirt that says, “A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.” I recognize it as a Kafka quote, and it feels oddly perfect for him. For us. And besides, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a guy wear anything I find so uniquely attractive. If it were any other day, I’d be salivating at his feet.