FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12
You didn’t have to walk me home,” Naomi said, pulling the collar of her jacket up around her ears and shoving her hands into her pockets.
“Probably not,” Oliver said, tilting his head up slightly to look at the night sky.
She let out a startled laugh. “I guess we’re past the point of nice platitudes?”
“Naomi, you haven’t given me anything close to a nice platitude in the time I’ve known you.”
“Well, that’s true.” Her shoulders hunched slightly. “So why did you?”
“Why did I what?”
“Offer to walk with me.”
“Did I offer?” he mused. “Or did your friends point out eight hundred times that we were headed the same direction?”
Naomi laughed. “Yeah, sorry about that. I thought it was just Audrey, but Claire seems to have joined her in the matchmaking efforts.”
“Yeah. Well, that and we sort of made a pact.”
“A pact?” He glanced down at her.
“So, you know that we were all . . . involved with Brayden?”
He nodded.
“We didn’t know it. Obviously. Not until the day of the funeral.”
Jesus. Oliver winced. “You met at his funeral?”
“Sort of. We all meant to go to the funeral, but instead we found ourselves in Central Park. We had the same shoes, and, well, whatever, that doesn’t matter. We were all a little adrift after realizing how thoroughly Brayden had used us, and we agreed to help each other avoid falling into the same trap.”
“That seems like an anti-matchmaking scheme. Claire and Audrey all but linked our hands before shoving us out the door.”
“Don’t flatter yourself—I suspect that’s more steering me away from Dylan than it is steering me toward you.”
That bugged him more than he cared to admit, but her friends were right. Dylan was no good for her. Oliver nearly told her as much, but she spoke first.
“Who’s with your father tonight?” Naomi asked.
Oliver inhaled as reality settled back down around him. As he realized he was in no position to enter a relationship. Not with Lilah. Not with Claire. Definitely not with Naomi.
He’d tried, once, to balance a woman and his father. It had worked for a while. His ex had been sweet, mild mannered . . . and completely uninterested in being with a man who had a sick father.
“Janice,” he replied, answering her question. “She usually takes weekends off, but every now and then I’ll pay her extra for a weekend night.”
He looked down at her as they walked, surprised at the question. “Why do you ask?”
Her shoulders lifted. “Just seems like it must be hard. Giving up all your nights and weekends.”
They were close to their building, and though not quite ready for the night to end, he was equally confident that she’d dart away from him the second she got close to the safety of her apartment, so Oliver slowed to a stop on the quiet sidewalk.
She stopped as well, giving him a questioning look.
Oliver shoved his hands into his pockets, matching her posture in a protective stance against the brisk fall wind.
“It’s not always easy,” he admitted. “I never pictured that my weekend nights at thirty would be spent picking up hard-boiled eggs from the floor and answering my father’s repeated questions as to whether or not his son—me—is home from soccer practice yet. But . . .”
He looked over her shoulder for a moment, gathering his thoughts. “What can you do, you know? He’s my dad.”
“Do you miss him? I mean, how he was before?”
Oliver blew out a breath at the question, and she quickly brushed aside the question. “I’m sorry. We don’t have to—”
“He was an asshole,” Oliver blurted out.
He’d gotten plenty of platitudes since Walter’s diagnosis, but even the Cunninghams’ closest friends hadn’t dared speak of the real truth.
That maybe it wasn’t the worst thing in the world that the old Walter Cunningham was mostly lost to the world.
“He was difficult,” Oliver amended slightly. “Cold. Demanding. Selfish.”
Naomi blinked. “Wow. That’s—”
“Honest?” he said with a quick laugh.
“Unusual,” she said softly. “Most people I know idolize their parents, at least a little.”
“I used to. When I was a kid, I wanted to be him.”
“What happened?”
Oliver’s shoulders lifted and fell. “I grew up. Started to develop as my own person and realized who I wanted to be.”
And it sure as hell hadn’t been a womanizing workaholic who’d carried on more affairs than Oliver could even remember, often right under his wife’s nose.
“And yet, you’re still taking care of him,” Naomi said, a note of question in her voice.
“Yeah, well. The person I decided to be wasn’t one who’d walk away from a family member who needed him.”
“Noble.”
He smiled and stepped toward her. “That almost sounded like a compliment.”
“Did it?” she asked, pursing her lips. “You must have heard it wrong.”
He stepped even closer, wanting to pump his fist in victory when she didn’t step back. “Why?” he asked.
“Why what?”
“Why are you so determined to remind yourself that you don’t like me?” He searched her face, struck again by the fact that it seemed familiar, though he knew he didn’t know her. Men didn’t forget women with faces like this one.
Naomi met his gaze steadily. “I have reasons. I’m working on them.”
He let out a surprised laugh at her honesty. “May I know the reasons?”
She lifted her chin and answered his question with a question. “Why did you push me through to the next round? Of the co-op board. I was rude to you, and you pushed for me to live in the building anyway. Why?”
Oliver smiled and stepped even closer, just inches separating them now. “I have reasons.” His gaze dropped to her full mouth. “I’m working on them.”
Naomi’s face tilted to his, and for a moment Oliver’s breath caught with an unfamiliar sensation. Want, yes. Desire, sure. But this moment was different. Fuller somehow, as though this woman belonged to him not just for right now, not just for a night, but for always.
She felt it, too. He knew she did, because for a moment her eyes widened in surprise and then narrowed slightly in wariness.
Don’t, he thought in frustration. Don’t turn away from this.
“He’s no good for you,” Oliver blurted out, because it was either speak his mind or kiss her, and though the latter was a hell of a lot more appealing, instinct told him this wasn’t the moment.
“Who?”
He gave her a look. She pulled to a stop and glared at him. “You don’t even know Dylan.”
“Neither do you.”
“I—”
“He spent half the evening pumping your friends for information about you. And then when he didn’t get what he wanted, he left for the airport instead of seeing you home,” Oliver pointed out.
“He has a shoot in Dallas tomorrow afternoon.”
“So he could have flown out tomorrow morning.”
“I’d never ask a man to change flight plans for me.”
You shouldn’t have to ask. Still, her admission was another piece of the puzzle. Not a corner piece, but an important one. It told him that she wasn’t accustomed to men making her a priority.
“Why’d you ask him to come with you tonight?”
Her shoulders lifted. “Audrey told me to bring a date.”
Damn it, Naomi, open your eyes. I’ve been right here.
“He still trying to get you to sign on for the TV series?”
“Yeah.”
“You thinking about it?”
She nodded, but the moment of hesitation spoke volumes.
Normally, Oliver would have bit his tongue, but she just . . . pissed him off. And it’s not like he had anything to lose—even when he was the perfect gentleman, he hadn’t won her over.
“You’re scared,” he said.
She stiffened. “What?”
Oliver didn’t back off. “You’re a chicken. It’s why you’re even entertaining the idea of dating someone like Dylan Day, while at the same time hesitating on the TV show.”
“What are you talking about?” She started to walk away, but he reached out and grabbed her arm, pulling her gently around.
“That guy won’t demand anything from you. Not your brain, not your heart. He’s easy, and it’s what you think you want. Conversely, the TV show the guy is pushing for is the very opposite of easy. It’s a risk. It’s putting yourself all the way out there. Not just your work. You. It terrifies you.”
Naomi had gone very still, watching him through wide, unreadable blue eyes. Then she shook her head. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t even know me.”
“And he does?”
“You don’t know me,” she repeated, enunciating each word clearly as she jerked her arm free of his grip. “So stay the hell out of my business.”
Naomi started to storm away but turned back with one last parting shot. “I will do that TV series. And in case there was any doubt, you’ll have no part in my life story.”