“I know. And I’m sorry. My parents adore you, obviously. That’s why I said this wasn’t going to be easy.”
“I know. I get it now. I think I just need a minute.” She used her arm to wipe her sniffling nose and pulled the oven mitts off. When she tried to step around him to leave, he moved in front of her.
“No, Liv. Don’t run. Please. I’m right here. We’ll figure this out.”
Every nerve in her body was primed to flee from all the feelings, but Chuck, knowing exactly how she’d react to something so overwhelming, had firmly planted himself in front of her like he intended to make her stay and feel them.
“Please,” he said again.
Through a deep breath that she was sincerely trying to use to turn off her fight-or-flight response, she realized that he wasn’t forcing her to feel anything negative. What he was trying to get her to stay for, to get her to feel in her heart and mind and every inch of her body the same way he felt it, was positive emotion in its purest form.
Love.
His parents’ love.Hislove. Simply…love.
She took a shuddering breath and looked up at him. His eyes had melted into hazel pools. His mouth was soft. He looked like he wanted to give her another ten-thousand-dollar kiss, or maybe just wrap her in a hug.
“Okay,” she quietly said.
“Okay,” he said with a soft smile, then squeezed her hand where no one could see.
Her skin tingled where he’d touched her and gave herenough of a boost to return to the island and help Barb trim green beans.
“Olivia, honey, tell us about work,” Barb said. “Have you interviewed anyone exciting lately?”
She let Barb’s genuine interest settle over her like a warm blanket and found that she liked the way it felt. She also liked the way everyone eagerly listened as she talked about her job. They continued talking while the food cooked and they set the dining table. Olivia was so caught up in it—plus she’d had two glasses of wine—that she almost forgot they had to break an unpleasant truth one way or another before the night was over. She didn’t know how long the Walshes planned to stay, but at least TJ’s iPad clock wasn’t glaring angry red numbers at them and aggressively counting down the available minutes left. Based on the ease of their conversation, she wondered if Chuck planned to wait to the last second and blurt out whichever truth he chose as they shoved his parents out the door on their way.
When they eventually settled at the dining table—their first use of it since moving in—with their perfectly prepared meal laid out before them, conversation turned to Sam’s recent medical journey.
No one could tell a story like Sam Walsh. They learned every detail about his surgery, his recovery, his physical therapy regimen, all the books he’d read while resting—plot summaries included. Chuck shone like the sun while listening to him talk, but Olivia could tell the indecision over which truth to spill was tearing him up inside. She saw it in his fidgeting, the tight lines around his smile, the large gulps of wine he was taking. And she couldn’t blame him. There’d been no clear entry point into either topic. And the deeper they got into basking inthe warm glow of one another’s presence, the more Olivia felt like they were lying by omission.
As much as the truth was tearing Chuck up, it wasboilingup inside her. Chuck might have been able to do it, but she couldn’t lie to Sam and Barb Walsh. The best parents on the planet didn’t deserve to be hurt, of course not, but letting them believe that their son was thriving and playing house with her as they snowballed toward a happily-ever-after left her feeling like a villain. A hoax when they deserved honesty and respect and someone worthy of their affection and not someone who’d sit there in charade as they wove plans for the future with her included as an important thread.
“One day, I was working on stair climbing,” Sam said as he continued detailing the past several weeks. “My doctor recommended it as part of the recovery.”
“Up with the bad, down with the good!” Barb tipsily recited and lifted her wineglass.
“Other way around, Barb,” Sam said. “The saying goes ‘Up with thegood, down with thebad.’ You’re supposed to lead with your stronger leg on the way up the stairs to strengthen it, and your weaker leg on the way down.”
“Are you sure?” Barb said with a scrunch of her face.
“Yes, darling. Up, good; down, bad. I wrote it down.”
“Are you sure you didn’t write itup?” Barb said with a giggle.
Sam gave her an adoring look that pulled the truth to the tip of Olivia’s tongue. “Anyway, that day on the stairs, I was—”
“Chuck and I broke up!” she blurted, unable to take it any longer. The wine might have had something to do with it.
A stunned silence fell like a thick fog over the table, smothering all other sound. Barb’s fork was halfway to her mouth. Agreen bean tumbled from it and landed on her plate. Olivia’s heart pounded in her ears, and she felt Chuck’s eyes boring into her. But she couldn’t unring the bell.
Chuck’s gaze slowly slid from her face and aimed down at his plate.
“Charlie, is that true?” Barb asked in a thick, concerned voice.
It took a while for Chuck to meet her eyes, and when he did, his voice came out strained and full of pain. “Yes.” He glanced over at Olivia, and she subtly nodded in encouragement to continue. “We broke up a week ago, and that day, we had an argument outside my apartment building, and it ended up online—don’tgoogle it. Please. But it went viral, and the producers of this show saw it. Before we knew it, they were making us an offer to come on the show and try to win a million dollars by living here together for a month.”
Sam sucked in a sharp breath, and Barb’s mouth fell open.