Boldly by Elise Faber

Chapter Twelve

Hazel

“No, Mom,”she said, “it’s fine. I totally have time to talk, as long as you don’t mind listening to me pack up as I do so.”

“Hazel Abigail Reid, do not tell me that you’re still at work.”

Uh-oh.

Mom Voice had come out.

It was always best to head this off in the beginning.

“It’s Wednesday, Mom. It’s my late-start day.”

“It’s nearly nine o’clock at night.”

She winced. Because it was that. But she’d started late and then Oliver had been in her office and they’d discussed all that desktop fucking (and other things she supposed). Then they’d gone to Rage, the wreck room she’d discovered by chance, and she’d thought that Oliver might have some anger to let go of, too, and she had some herself, and, truthfully, she just wanted to spend more time with him.

Say what they want, she liked the man.

A lot.

Which was why the hour spent tearing through that room and culminating in Oliver showing off his stick skills had been a blast.

Laughter and activity.

Breaking shit, and she hoped, putting just a few of the pieces back together.

Not that she saw him as a project—or a client any longer because clearly that ship had sailed about two minutes after he’d walked into her office for their first session—but she liked helping people, and she liked Oliver.

But she especially liked the smile that had come onto his face when she’d launched plastic and foam fruit at him and demanded he hit the targets she pointed out.

He had, without fail.

And that smile had stayed.

So, she had asked if he had time for lunch—he had—and they’d gone down to a little place near the waterfront, and they’d had soup and sandwiches, huddled together on a bench. Because the sun might have been out, but it was still winter in Baltimore (though almost spring). So while there wasn’t snow on the ground, when the breeze picked up, especially off the water, she’d felt like she was turning into a popsicle.

Even with her heavy coat and scarf.

But oddly enough (Ha! There was nothing odd about it), she’d felt much warmer when Oliver had slid an arm around her and tugged her so her body was pressed to his.

Which meant they’d stayed there for a while.

Long enough that she was working until nine at night.

“I repeat, I had a late start,” she said when her mom continued to rant and rave about her working herself to the bone (she was too thin apparently), and being too tired to function properly (apparently her mom could see her dark circles through the airwaves), and needing proper rest or else her face would be full of wrinkles (oh, and by the way, had Hazel been using her eye cream?).

“Weren’t you the one who told me that wrinkles are just God’s way of telling me you lived properly?” she asked.

A scoff. “Well, I’m old, Peanut Brittle Princess—”

Hazel smiled. That was a new one.

“—which means I have to make excuses for my wrinkles. You, on the other hand, are young and beautiful and not married—”

“Oh lord, here we go,” Hazel muttered. “You realize that I only broke up with Trevor six months ago.”

“Seven, my Strawberry Daiquiri Darling. That means it’s time to move on and get me those grandbabies.”

“You do realize you already have grandbabies, don’t you?”

“From my son.”

Hazel hit the button for speakerphone because she was getting a crick in her neck trying to hold it as she gathered her things. And while she loved her job and had loved her day with Oliver, she was tired and ready to go home. “And your oldest daughter,” she pointed out, feeling like it was her duty as the youngest child to remind her mother that grandbaby duty didn’t fall solely to her.

There was a soft knock at the door, and she glanced up in time to see Oliver poke his head in.

And…fuck, he was pretty.

Just the sight of him made her heart beat a little faster, her fingers clench with the need to touch, her feet ache, wanting to carry her body over to his and pick up where they left off cuddling on that bench.

She waved him in, right as her mom said, “But I don’t have grandbabies from you, Pecan Pie Pumpkin. I want a little girl with curls and your brown eyes.”

Oliver jerked his head to the door, silently asking if she wanted him to go.

But since his eyes were dancing and his lips were twitching (rather than him running off screaming for the hills because her mom mentioned grandbabies), she shook her head and pointed to the couch. “I’m not sure Pecan Pie Pumpkin makes sense, Mom,” she said.

A sniff.

“And I want kids, but I don’t know when that’s going to happen, okay? I thought things were going a different way”—she saw Oliver stiffen and forced herself to bring her gaze to his—“but I’m glad things ended before I had kids with Trevor. It’s just…kids aren’t exactly priority number one right now for me.”

His face gentled.

Her mom’s voice didn’t. “Well, it’s priority one for me, Darling Donut, and you know what that means.”

Hazel groaned. “You’re not fixing me up, Mom. I’m—”

“He’s a perfectly nice man, Hazelnut. He’s got a good job and is nice. Plus, I saw him with his shirt off at Suzy Duncan’s hot tub and let me tell you, that man works out. Hell, I haven’t seen abs like that on a man since—”

“You streamed Thor: Ragnarok last week?”

A pause, probably because Hazel had guessed right.

Her mom had—rightfully so—an obsession with all things Hemsworth.

“You make a good point,” her mom said, “but he also doesn’t have a movie studio’s budget or a personal trainer, professional chef, and whatever other services those fancy actors have to help him get that body. So, trust me, Muffin Mop, you would be doing the world a service to get up close and personal with those abs, let alone if you managed to get Eddie into a pair of gray sweats—”

There was a lot there, and a lot of it that sent her brows high up on her forehead, but first and foremost was wondering how her mom knew about gray sweats.

Then again, she got most of her book recs from her mom.

Actually thinking about it, Hazel had probably learned about the gloriousness of tight sweatpants from her mom and not on her own.

But she didn’t have a chance to fully process all things sweats or to say anything to cut off the hard sell of Eddie and his glorious abs. Which, face it, wouldn’t be a hard sell if the man who she’d lusted after for ages wasn’t currently in her office looking like he was either going to burst into laughter or track down Eddie and make sure he never got within five hundred feet of Hazel. The first she liked a whole lot and was why she wasn’t turning her phone off speaker.

Because her mom was her mom, and if he couldn’t hack her mom on the phone, then there was no way he’d be able to hack her in person.

The second—the glimpse of jealous and protective—she supposed she should hate, but truthfully, it made her belly feel a little squishy.

Hand in her feminist card immediately.

But, ah well, a girl had to live in fantasy everyone once in a while.

While she was thinking that—and it must be said, while her mother was waxing poetic about abs and sweatpants and hot tubs—Oliver was moving.

Toward her.

Oh. She liked that.

His knuckles trailed down her cheek. She sighed and shifted closer, winding her arms around his neck, suddenly needing to taste him.

What Mom on the phone?

But as she’d reached for him, her hand hit the cell and knocked it from the desk.

It clattered on the floor.

“What was that?” her mom demanded. “Hazelnut Puff, are you there?”

Oliver grinned, unwound her arms and bent. This time she did watch him, mostly because his ass in those pants was chef’s kiss. A moment later, he’d snagged the cell (much faster than that morning with the folders, so maybe he’d figured out how to make that movement easier on himself) and set it on the desk. “We’re here, Hazel’s mom.”

He snaked an arm around her waist and tugged her close, lips brushing her cheek.

“We’re?” her mom asked.

Hazel rushed in. “Mom, meet Oliver.” It was weird doing an introduction this way. “Oliver, my mom, Toni. Mom, sorry you’re on speakerphone, obviously and Oliver is a coworker.”

“Hi, Mrs. Reid,” he said. “It’s lovely to meet you.”

Charming.

Genuine.

Her mom felt it, Hazel could tell, even as she asked, “Coworker?”

“Yes,” he said simply, not biting—good strategy. “But also, the man hoping to score a fourth date with your daughter,” he said, so silkily that she didn’t immediately process what he’d said.

Then she did.

Then…she swatted him.

Right about the time her mom screeched, “Fourth?”

Because seriously?

“He’s teasing, Mom,” she said, reaching for the phone, intending to take it off speaker. “I haven’t agreed to go out with him yet.”

He moved the cell out of her reach. “What was today if not a date?”

“Today?” her mom squawked.

“I miscounted,” Oliver said, still silkily, still charming. “I’m trying to get your daughter to agree to a fifth date.”

“Hmm.” A pause, and Hazel braced herself for what would next come out of her mom’s mouth. “How’re his abs, Honey Cakes?”

Without missing a beat, Oliver tugged up the edge of his shirt, revealing…

“Holy hell,” she breathed.

“Oh, I wish I was FaceTiming right now, Strawberry Shortcake. Please, tell me he’s showing them to you right now and they’re glorious.”

“Hngah.” She didn’t know exactly what kind of sound she made, only that it was instinctual and paired with an intense urge to go all grabby hands—grabby tongue—all over his torso.

“Queen Croissantia? Are you alive?”

She blinked, managed to squeeze out, “Barely.”

“I’ll keep Eddie’s number just in case,” her mom murmured.

“I—”

“Oliver?”

The man was grinning, but he slowly lowered his shirt. “Yes, Mrs. Reid?”

A pause, and fuck the man was charming the shit out of her mom. Seriously, how was he this good? Then her mom got it together (easier because she didn’t have the mental imprint of Oliver’s abs on her eyelids). “Hazel’s coming to our house next Sunday. I’ll expect you to join her for dinner.”

“Mom—” Hazel began.

“You’d better have secured dates six through eight in the meantime.”

Oliver smiled. “On it.”

“Mom!”

“Good,” her mom said, completely ignoring Hazel’s protest. “Love you, Banana Bread Baby. Talk soon.” A beat. “Oh, I sent you a couple of books to your Kindle!”

Then she hung up.

In like a hurricane.

Leaving…something that was silent and begrudgingly charmed (Hazel) while the person on the other end of the line was running to gleefully dish all the details of her daughter’s five non-dates and Oliver’s abs (her mom, obviously)—which she hadn’t seen but based on her daughter’s reaction were fantastic (a rightful assessment).

Knuckles on her cheek. An amused voice saying, “I guess I’d better keep working on my abs.”

“Umm…”

Not the most intelligent statement.

But there was a lot to process.

The best, perhaps, was the sight of those glorious abs.