Page 10 of Sin Deep
“I could eat bread all day.” Oliver popped some bread into the toaster. “You don’t sound like you’re into practicing. Am I pushing? I do that. I push. It makes Jackson crazy.”
“No, I just… I don’t know. It felt fabulous last night, though. You don’t wear a mask every day.”
Ollie sat with him while they waited on the toast and crossed his legs. “Here’s a hard question for you, sweetheart. Was that the mask? Or is this the mask?” Ollie raised a manicured eyebrow and drew a circle in the air in front of Harley’s face. “Something to think about. You don’t have to answer me. Just eat.”
He didn’t even know if he wanted to think about that. He wasn’t sure he wanted to think at all. So he ate, and everything tasted like it was supposed to. Comforting. Normal.
The toast popped up and Oliver brought it back to the table with the butter, then changed the subject. “I could eat eggs every meal. Is that weird?”
“Nah. Eggs are cool, cheap, and you can use them for all sorts of shit.” He was a fan, when he got right down to it. “Mine’s potatoes. I love ’em. Masked—I mean mashed, baked, French fried, tater totted, potato chipped. I am a fan.”
“Masked potatoes!” Ollie laughed. “There are no bad potatoes, but I think that one is my new favorite.”
“Shut up.” He cracked up at himself. Lord have mercy, he was a dipshit. Good thing Ollie thought he was funny too.
“One could call that a Freudian slip, hm?” Ollie waggled his eyebrows.
“I know, right? Shit marthy, good thing I’m not easy to embarrass, huh?” Because if he was, he’d have died a thousand deaths already.
Maybe three thousand deaths.
Oliver smiled. “It’s a good quality. Keep that one.”
“I’ll do my dead-level best.” He chuckled, leaning back and stretching tall, listening to his back pop. He did love a day off.
“So do you miss Texas?” Oliver took a bite of eggs and sausage and picked up his coffee.
He thought about that. Really thought. “I miss TexMex. I miss some of my buddies. I miss my pop, but he’s just a gravestone and a bit of green. I miss who my mom used to be…”Come on, try harder. “Oh! I miss Dr Pepper everywhere and bluebonnets and tubing and good barbecue.”
“Aw. Texas sounds nice. Sounds like it’s become a good place for you to visit. Are we making a New Yorker out of you?”
“Right now, I’m loving it here. I have a good place to live, a job that keeps me busy and tired, and there’s so much to do.” It wasn’t like if he lost this job, he couldn’t go get another one. There wasn’t one factory, one honkytonk, one Walmart to shop at.
Oliver narrowed his eyes. “We’ll see, Hardworking Harley. We’ll—”
Oliver’s phone rang in the living room.
“Oh. Sorry.” Oliver popped up and hurried to get it. “Hello?” That “hello” sounded curious. “Oh, itisyou.”
That was followed by a long silence before Ollie spoke again. “Well, I’ll have to ask him. I don’t know how he’s feeling right now. I think you did. I’ll ask, okay? Okay. Bye.”
Oliver walked back into the kitchen and sat slowly. “So…that was Winter Love.”
Oh. God, Winter Love? That name was getting better and better. He was praying that the middle name turned up to be spectacular. Still—it seemed weird that the man would call Ollie. “What—What did he want? Is he pissed?”
“I honestly don’t know. Why would he be pissed? He asked me for your number.” Ollie shrugged. “I told him I had to ask you first.”
“I don’t know. He just seemed so freaked out, you know?” In his experience, last night’s wigged out often became this morning’s pissed off. Angry made things way less your fault. “And sure. I mean, I wasn’t pissed or wigged.”
“Okay. I’m going to let you finish your dinner and then send it to him. I got the feeling he really wanted to talk to you. Like, soon.” Ollie chomped down his last bite of toast.
“Sure. I’m willing to make friends.” Why not? It had been part of the most fascinating night in his memory. What was incredibly unnerving and unusual last night had mellowed into fun and exciting.
“Well, I’m glad you’re good with it. I’m a little freaked. He’s never called me before.” Ollie rolled his eyes. “I mean, I see him every weekend but…wow.”
“Do you not want me to call? I mean, if you are into him, I’ll totally back away.” He didn’t play that.
Oliver’s eyes went wide and he laughed. “Oh my god. So not my type. I told you, sweetheart, I’m not into gray hair.”
