Salty

Sixteen | You Never Use the Ice Cream Machine. Duh.

Sixteen | Sloan

Thanksgiving-eve at Mulligan's proved to be a completely useless shift. In four hours, two customers had shared an appetizer while every other patron sat at the bar. The Mulligan family likely paid more to keep the lights on for the evening than they made the entire day. It was understandable; those that were in the building looked to be the loner type, and I found myself among my people.

The menu for the night was limited. A turkey stew and a light house salad with cranberry vinaigrette. One batch had lasted the day, and it wasn't because it was not delicious. I had a bowl for lunch and one for dinner. After my shift had ended, the remainder of the day was spent from a booth with a textbook open. The table was filled with empty water glasses that Mikah had kept supplying me with. He had left early for the day, leaving a pitcher behind instead. Mikah seemed nice enough, other than the incident on my first day when he tried to turn me away.

All the ice in the glass pitcher had melted, and the water was warm. It wasn't something that bothered me, though. My finger twirled around the circle of condensation left by my glass as I studied.

"Oof." A deep voice from above had me clutching my chest. "Baking, eh?"

I looked back at Ollie, wanting to smack him for scaring the life out of me. There was no one here, and he snuck up on me stealthily. His smirk was cheesy, playful, a little too cute for my liking. He seemed pretty proud as he rounded the booth to drop himself across from me. The book was snatched away, glanced over by a pair of crazy-blue eyes, and then smacked shut.

"Baking blows."

I completely agreed with a bobbing head. Words were failing me with the sight of casual Ollie sitting across from me. I wasn't used to seeing him without the chef jacket anymore. Jeans and a plaid shirt made of various shades of blue—to match his eyes—had taken the place of the uniform. It laid open to reveal a white tee that was clinging to his wide chest.

He looked... good.

Really good.

Okay, so maybe the day in the supermarket I had misjudged the plaid.

Since when did hick become hot?

"What?" The toothpick between his lips rolled, coinciding with a chuckle.

"Nothing." My cheeks flushed. I reached for the warm water like that would help stop it. "I thought you were sick? That's what Mikah said."

"I..." He paused for a moment while the glass was pressed to my lips. A flash of a frown was gone before I even swallowed. Ollie's head shook. "I'm not good at it either. The family shit, I mean."

He was referring to our chat yesterday—the one where he talked me down before I had one of my debilitating panic attacks. We talked. Opening up about Steve to a stranger might have been the best or worst decision I had made in a long time. Ollie was probably the last person I thought that would happen with. When we had returned to work, losing my husband wasn't fresh on my mind, but Ollie attempting to open up was. He was still guarded, like now, and that left me with a lot of follow-up questions.

And anyway, we definitely weren't talking of the term 'family shit' in the same way. Ollie obviously had a family to speak of.

"So, you're faking sick to get out of the family holiday that Mikah already left for?"

Ollie leaned into the back of the booth. "Correct."

They couldn't even share a holiday together? That seemed pretty bad. Maybe it was because I didn't have siblings or parents to go home to tomorrow, but not even a family riff would keep me from family time.