Boldly by Elise Faber

Chapter Nine

Oliver

He sipped the broth,not hot like he would get at a restaurant since it had been sitting for a bit now, but still delicious, especially with the noodles and veggies.

Seriously, one of his favorites ever since Lexi had turned him on to it.

Hazel was similarly engaged in her food, after she’d stared at the kitchen with the candle, dimmed lights, and music playing like it was a rattlesnake and she was just about to step on it, fangs exposed, rattle shaking.

Which had made him wonder if it was because she read into the effort for what it was.

Because he had tried to bring a little romance, considering they weren’t in either one of their houses and they were alone, but he and Hazel’s boss and coworker were currently sleeping off their fatigue only rooms away.

But it had also made him wonder if the lights and candle and music had surprised her in a way that wasn’t because he was trying for romance, but because no one had done it for her before.

Thatwas what he had read from her reaction, from the wide eyes and stuttered steps, from the way her face went soft, her eyes warmed.

Had her asshole of an ex not given her any romance?

They’d been engaged, for God’s sake.

And this was one three-wick candle, a Spotify playlist, and a dimmer switch slid halfway down.

“Babe?”

“Hmm?” Her eyes stayed on her spoon, on the noodle she was carefully piling onto it using her chopsticks.

“Was your ex a bigger asshole than I already suspect he was?”

The noodle plopped into her bowl. “Um, what?”

“I lit a candle and put a playlist on, Haze. I flicked a light switch. And you came in looking around like you’d never had that before.”

She set down the spoon. “I—”

“Don’t bullshit me.”

A frown gathered on her features. “I don’t owe you an explanation of my life.”

“No, you don’t,” he agreed. “But I want to hear all about it anyway.”

Her shoulders rose and fell on a breath. “Pushy.”

He shrugged.

A sigh. Then, “You’re right,” she said very, very softly. “I haven’t had…that. Stupid, really. It’s small, but it was sweet, and it…surprised me, I guess, especially when you just invited me to eat and know that you can’t get anything out of it.”

There was a lot to unpack there.

Starting with him only doing something so he could get something in return.

And ending with her not having had candles and music. What the fuck kind of man had her ex been?

Considering that he’d left her after fucking around on her at his bachelor party, Oliver supposed he already knew, and it made him want to get the fucker’s name and address and then show him a little of what he used to give guys on the ice.

But instead, he asked the question he thought was more important.

Which was, “How do you know I can’t get anything out of it?”

Her brows lifted. “Because we’re in Luc and Lexi’s house.”

“If you think for a second any man wouldn’t take the opportunity to fuck you senseless, just because his boss was sleeping in the next room, that tells me you have no clue what your appeal is.” She gaped. He reached over and brushed his knuckles on her cheek. “But, you’re right, it’s not a first date thing.” Certainly, not with a woman like Hazel. “Though, I can’t commit to not stealing another kiss tonight because that is a first date thing,” he added, just because he wanted to see if she would get befuddled and what she would say.

Or more befuddled, anyway, because she’d gotten that adorable frown between her eyes, rosy pink cheeks, and parted lips when he had talked about fucking her senseless.

“Another kiss?”

“You said you liked it, baby.”

She shook herself, and fuck, if he didn’t like her, didn’t like the way she made him feel. Like a man. Whole and untarnished with none of the past drawing him down. Like he could look forward and build a future and…

Just be.

A beat of hesitation. Then she lifted her chin and said, “I did.”

“Well then.” He reached across the table and handed her the spoon. “Eat up, and we’ll see how the future goes.”

After they’d finishedtheir udon,Noah had woken up, not because he was hungry but because he needed to be in someone’s arms to sleep.

So, they were standing on the back patio taking turns holding the munchkin and talking about nothing.

Different from the conversations they’d had in her office.

She was relaxed and open and a lot of fun.

They discussed the usual pop culture stuff, movies and TV shows, and what streaming service they couldn’t live without, but then she surprised him and asked, “When did you get into computers?”

She hadn’t mentioned him fixing her laptop the previous week, and he’d thought that since she’d been trying to kick that headache and hadn’t been feeling a hundred percent herself, that she might have forgotten all about it.

But now she was walking Noah back and forth, bouncing him and trying to settle his little, colicky soul and waiting for Oliver to answer.

“I like taking things apart and putting them back together.” His lips twitched.

“What’s that for?” Hazel drifted closer, touched the corner of his mouth. “You’re smiling.”

“I was thinking about Teresa. She and Alex bought me a computer one Christmas because I had begged and begged for it. They thought I was too young—God, I had to have been thirteen, fourteen? And we had a family desktop. But I wanted my own, and I was going to get it. So, I started saving money and doing extra chores, determined to buy it myself.” His heart squeezed. “And then I opened my present on Christmas morning, and they’d gotten me my own computer.”

“That’s sweet.”

It had been.

“They told me to use my money to buy all the cool things a teenager was desperate for—the light-up cooling fan, the keyboard that had built-in LEDs, the mouse that was red and black and had fancy buttons.” Fuck, he’d been so proud of his keyboard. “So, I did, but I also had enough money left over to buy some books on computers. Which also meant that I was curious about the inner components and took apart the computer.” Hazel gasped. “Teresa nearly lost her shit.”

“Did you put it back together?”

“What do you think?”

A pause then her pretty brown eyes drifted to his, studying him closely. “I think yes.”

He grinned, pushed off the rail, snagged Noah (because it seemed like Hazel couldn’t help herself from coming close when he did that), and returned to the railing because his thigh was aching. His evil genius plan worked because Hazel trailed him, leaning next to him, her hand smoothing up and down Noah’s tummy.

Which meant that she was pressed into his side.

But he wasn’t going to say anything.

Not when he got that sweet and floral scent of her. Not when he got her breast grazing his arm and sending tendrils of desire snaking through his body.

“Well?” she prompted, studying Noah.

“I put it back together.”

She smirked, fist-pumped with her free hand. “I knew it.” A beat. “Teresa was your adopted mom?”

He nodded, heart pulsing again. “Yeah.”

“What was she like?”

“A lot like your mom, I think. Or at least, how you’ve described her. She was warm and funny and didn’t care that I was a ten-year-old boy who’d never been shown love or affection. She gave it to me without reservation. She gave it even when I’d convinced myself I didn’t want it.”

“That sounds wonderful.”

“It was an adjustment,” he said. “After being on my own for so long, I wasn’t used to relying on other people.”

“Still aren’t, I’d wager.” It was a murmur, but not one he could ignore.

“No,” he agreed. “I’m definitely not used to people taking care of me or looking out for me. I’m still…I don’t know, not open in that way. When you grew up the way I did, you learn to protect yourself. You bury the things that hurt and move on because there isn’t any time for you to process it. Survival is most important.”

“I can understand why you needed that.” A squeeze of his arm. “Even if it makes me sad that you had to go through that.”

No judgment.

No pity.

Just empathy and understanding.

He fell right there for her. Just a little bit. Okay, maybe more than that considering he’d pulled out romance in the form of a candle, music, and dimmed lights in his boss’s house.

But how couldn’t he?

She was incredible.

And because of that, he found himself still talking. “Teresa basically bullied her way into loving me, dragging Alex behind her—he wasn’t the bullying type. He was quiet and patient and could out-wait the fuck out of me.”

Hazel giggled, and it wasn’t lost on him that she still had her hand on his arm.

“My dad is like that, too,” she said. “He’s so chill that it seems like he’s just letting everything go and then bam, you find yourself on the other side of his piercing stare, and you just blabber like you’re a seven-year-old trying to pretend you didn’t eat the last cookie.”

Amusement hit him hard, building in his gut, filling his chest, bubbling in his veins. Funny and smart and sweet.

Perfect.

“And Luc and Lexi?” she asked. “They seem to get through the protective barriers.” A comment, albeit a gentle probing one. But since it wasn’t filled with pity or—too much—pressure, he found it easy to answer.

“Have you met those two? They’re as stubborn as they are pig-headed. I couldn’t not let them in. Even if I tried, they would have barreled their way right through any protective barriers after my injury.”

“Says the man who keeps stealing the baby from me because he’s worried my arms are going to get tired.”

He pretended to flex, as much as he could do so with a baby in his arms. “Look at these muscles compared to your puny biceps.”

“Hey!” She tugged up the short sleeve of her blouse and flexed, showing off a surprisingly toned upper arm. “I do pilates four days a week! I’m strong enough to cart around that little one.” Her body drifted to his, her head dropping to his shoulder for a moment, and Oliver’s breath caught at the sheer intimacy of having her that close while cuddling a baby. She seemed to realize the same because she stepped back and before he could process the loss of her against him, she asked, “Did you expect anything different of Luc and Lexi? Or the team?”

“No.” He shook his head. “I’d be there, doing the same if it was any of the other guys. But because it was me…”

Gentle brown eyes on his. “Weird?”

A snort. “Weirder than anything I’ve experienced. Made harder by everyone expecting me to freak out.”

“I think it would be normal to freak out.”

His pulse sped. “And what would that get me?”

Her voice was even. “Closure? An emotional release? Acceptance?”

Anger coiled in his stomach, pushing out the humor and sensation of falling hard and happily. “And how will that change anything?”

“I’m not saying this as a therapist,” she said softly. Carefully. And he was brought back into her office earlier that day, to him losing his shit, to the guilt that he’d carried until he’d seen her that evening. Because she wasn’t a punching bag, and this wasn’t her fault.

Neither was the conversation.

She’d been open.

He was doing the same.

“I’m saying it as your friend,” she went on, just as soft, just as careful, and Oliver tempered his reaction, “as the woman who really, really enjoyed that kiss in the kitchen. Not that you’re going to get another one,” she added quickly, and a curl of amusement wrapped around him—bare feet walking along the shore, a wave dancing up the sand and just barely washing over his toes. But it was there, and the urge to lash out and push her away, to keep himself safe, dissipated. “I think there could be something helpful in a freak-out. I…had my fair share of them after Trevor decided to end things, and it released some of the fury that was tearing me up inside.”

He reached out, rubbed one of her curls between his fingers. “I wish you didn’t have to go through that.”

She rested her hand on his chest, leaned a little heavier into his side, still careful of the baby. “Right back at ya, big guy. And I think that’s why Luc, Lexi, and company are so worried. Luc especially, since he had that injury that ended his career. It threw him for a loop in a way that couldn’t have been easy to come back from, and for all intents and purposes, your injury was worse, you know?”

He processed that, still rubbing that curl, back and forth, back and forth.

He knew.

He understood that.

So, he nodded.

“But what they need to understand, and the part I missed enumerating to them, was that your feelings are your feelings. You don’t grieve via a playbook. You do it under your own terms and timeline, and that’s why you and I never would have worked.”

“Babe,” he warned.

She softened. “I’m referring to required therapy sessions, honey.”

He pulled lightly on the curl. “And not to the fact that both of us are considering how you and I might work in other ways?”

“Oliver,” she warned. But she didn’t back away, didn’t tug her head—her curl—out of his grip. She kept her body to his, her curl between his fingers, her scent to his nose.

“Don’t give me that bullshit about me being a client and you a therapist,” he said.

“It’s not bullshit, I—”

He fixed her with a glare. “We had two sessions together, and during the first one, I fixed your computer and asked you questions about yourself—which you answered, by the way, and based on the therapists that came to my room while I was in the hospital was very not therapist-esque.”

She winced, hurt streaking across her beautiful face.

Fuck. Shifting, he released her hair and caught her jaw instead. “Not a comment on you or your abilities, babe. You’re talented and smart, and I know that not just because I’ve spent time with you, but because Luc wouldn’t have hired you otherwise.”

Her throat worked.

He kept going. “So, the way I see it is that our first date was in your office, me fixing your laptop, you telling me about yourself. Our second date was this morning, and I almost blew it, but I redeemed myself with udon, dimmed lights, a candle, and music for our third date.” His thumb brushed her bottom lip. “And I waited until the third date for a kiss, even though I was desperate to do it from the moment I first saw you walking into the practice facility last year.”

Wide eyes on his. “You were?”

A nod. “Until I saw that diamond ring on your left hand and realized someone had got there first.” Another brush of her bottom lip before he leaned close and whispered in her ear, “And I was still desperate to do it even after I saw the ring.”

She shuddered. “So, the music wasn’t just about doing something nice?”

“Hell no.” He nipped her earlobe. “It was about you and me and making it clear to you that I am as far away from a client as I can be.” Oliver straightened, her curls clinging to the stubble on his cheek, wafting that floral and sweet scent into the air. “It wasn’t about me getting something. It was me making a point that you’re a woman I want to know better. Though what I already know about you means that you deserve the romance, the candles and music and dimmed lights and a hell of a lot more than that.” A brush of his knuckles over her skin. “It was me telling you that in no way do I consider our relationship anything resembling doctor-patient, and I hope to fuck that you don’t because I want to take you out on date four.”

The only noise was the breeze through the trees, rattling the leaves, mingling in with the sound of their breaths, the soft hoot of an owl, the occasional rumble of a car driving in the distance. For far too long that was it.

He’d laid it out there.

And she’d gone silent.

And stiff.

He couldn’t miss that either. She was still next to him, her front pressed to his side, her hand on his chest, but she might as well have become a statue instead of a living, breathing woman.

But he’d just given her a lot to process, so he waited.

Quietly.

Absorbing the noise of the busier street in the distance, the critters making themselves at home during the night, the leaves rustling, the way her breathing had been short and staccato and a bit loud, but how it was now slowing and evening out and growing quiet.

He knew she was going to speak before her soft words filled the air. He’d sensed something in her body, the way the space around her shifted, the slightest bit of easing in the tension filling her frame.

“I liked the music,” she whispered.

His breath slid from his lips on a long, slow exhale, heart pounding because some part of him had been worried she would deny it—the draw, the connection, the tractor beam pulling them together.

“I did, too.”

She relaxed. Her head came against his shoulder, and they stood there, the night sounds surrounding them all over again.

At least until he said, “So, am I going to get a date four?”

Tilting her head up brought her body away from his—which he didn’t like—but it brought her mouth in line with his—which he liked for obvious reasons. Then she smiled, and he knew he had to taste her, date four on the line or not.

He bent, felt her warm breath on his lips.

And then the sliding glass door opened behind them.

Luc stumbled out onto the patio, his hair askew, his shirt wrinkled, and if Oliver was seeing correctly, the imprint of his watch on his cheek.

“Argh,” Luc grunted, not quite human yet as he rubbed his eyes.

Hazel stepped away.

“Why don’t you go back to sleep?” she said. “We have Noah.”

Green eyes were slowly clearing. “I—”

Footsteps on the wood floor behind Luc, Lexi slipping through and shutting the door that Luc had left open. She’d been asleep for a shorter amount of time, but it appeared to have refreshed her. Either that or she just was better upon waking, because those dark circles were still there, fatigue was still written into the lines of her face. Oliver made a mental note to talk to Luc about a night nurse.

Hazel took another step back.

Lexi scooped up Noah. “My baby,” she crooned to the sleeping infant—sleeping because he appeared to have absolutely no problem with going to bed…so long as that bed was someone’s arms. Luc stumbled over, rubbed a hand over his face, and stared down at his son with such adoration on his face that it made Oliver’s heart skip a beat.

The moment thoroughly broken, Hazel bustled toward the house. “If you two won’t go back to sleep,” she said all business-like, “let’s at least get you something to eat.” She headed for the kitchen, tossing over her shoulder for them to follow, telling them about the dinner they’d missed that could be easily heated up.

Lexi stroked a finger down Noah’s nose then followed.

Luc trailed her—a ship to a tractor beam.

Just like Oliver followed Hazel, slipping into the kitchen and helping with the heating up. Because Luc and Lexi needed to eat, but also, because…Hazel.

They fed the tired parents.

They chatted for a few minutes.

Then they let the tired parents get on with their evening, Luc and Lexi walking them to the door, waving goodbye from the porch as he and Hazel got into their respective cars.

Which meant that, in the end, he didn’t get another opportunity for a second kiss.

Nor for confirmation of that “fourth” date.