He chuckled and rocked back on his heels. “I know what you meant.”
What the hell is wrong with me?My stomach felt like a hundred goddamn butterflies had been unleashed since I’d come down the stairs. It was just Ollie, for God’s sake. There wasn’t any reason to be nervous. He was the same guy I’d seen yesterday, the same one I’d had dinner and drinks with last week with Mike and Deb. But somehow he looked different to me, and I couldn’t put my finger on why.
“I thought we’d take it slow tonight. Start you off on back roads and see how you go,” he said, breaking the silence.
“Yeah, back roads are great. Good plan.”
“Cool. So”—he held up a set of keys—“you wanna do the honors?”
I stared at the keys for a second. “Ohh. You meant you want me to start us out from here. My bad.”Hello, a little slow on the uptake there, Reid.
“Unless you’d prefer I take us out first and then switch?”
“Nope, I got this,” I said, feigning confidence. I’d been so preoccupied with thoughts of Ollie all night and day that it hadbarely even occurred to me that I’d be driving for the first time since my accident all those months ago. That only made my nerves ratchet up a few hundred notches. No big deal. “Hand ’em on over.”
He placed the keys in my open palm, and as his skin grazed mine…there it was. That spark that shocked me when we touched, and this time, I could see he felt it too, because he jerked at the same time. I gulped and pulled my hand away.
“I guess we should…” I gestured to the car, and he nodded.
“Yeah, we should.”
As I climbed into the driver’s seat, I wondered if I’d ever been so on edge in my life, and it had everything to do with the man sliding in beside me. I tried not to focus on how close we were in such a small space, but that was easier said than done with the smell of his heady cologne filling my nose. I’d smelled it on him before, but never thought twice about it, and now all I could think about was what kind it was and where exactly he’d sprayed it.
Focus, Reid. Jesus.
I buckled myself in and adjusted the mirrors, and then I sat with my hands at ten and two, giving myself a quickdon’t freak the fuck outtalk.
“You ready for this?” Ollie asked, and I leaned back against the headrest and looked at him. His eyes were so intense, seeing right through my anxiety, and the compassion I found in their depths helped set my mind at ease.
My stuttering heart, however, was a different story.
“Um.” I shifted in my seat. “Is it weird that I’m nervous?”And not just about the driving.
“Not at all. Take your time. There’s no rush.”
I blew out a breath and wiped my hands on my pants. Then I adjusted the mirrors again, made sure my seat was comfortably positioned—basically, I was procrastinating. Out of the cornerof my eye, Ollie took his sunglasses off from where they’d been hanging on his shirt, but as he unfolded them, I blurted out, “Don’t put those on.”
His hand halted. “Why not?”
“Because then I can’t see your eyes.”
Ollie stared at me for a long moment, and without a word, he folded the glasses and put them in the glove compartment.
“Okay,” I said, cranking the car. “Here we go.”
I took it slow through the parking lot, getting used to the feel of the vehicle, tapping the brakes to see how much give they had. As we came out of the gated complex, I stopped before the main road.
“Let’s make a left here, and then we’ll go up Harris and make a wide loop,” he said.
“Sounds good to me.” I flipped on the blinker and waited for several cars to pass before I made the turn. Ollie sat patiently next to me, letting me take my time instead of pointing out all the missed opportunities to pull out. In that respect, he was the perfect person to take me back on the road, and I was grateful in that moment that I hadn’t been a stubborn asshole and stayed cooped up in my apartment.
Thanks, Mom…
The five o’clock traffic had simmered down, and the way we were going meant there wouldn’t be many other cars around anyway. Sitting behind the wheel again didn’t feel as strange as I thought it would, and I was surprised to find that having Ollie with me took my mind off focusing on the what-ifs—trucks T-boning me, basically.
It was so quiet, never a good thing when I had my crazy thoughts to occupy me, so I said, “Did you want to turn on the radio?”
“Nah, we probably don’t need the distraction.”