2022 Watty Award Winner ✨
In which a blind girl and a disfigured army vet attempt to find love and belonging in a big bad world.
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Olivia Harris is blind, and that's just the way it is. Naviga...
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A HORD OF shrieking kids spits by Connor as he thumbs the peeling label on the neck of his beer bottle. The sky is cloudless and bubble-gum blue. Smoke rises from the grill, and the scent of charred meat and fresh garlic bread floats through Mike's backyard. It's an August long-weekend barbeque, and it's chaos, but there's a smile on Connor's face.
That could possibly have less to do with the vaulting badminton birdies flying across the lawn and smacking him in the back of the head, and more about the fact that Olivia is cute as all hell in a pink sundress. She's sipping on lemonade, chatting with a group his work-friends' girlfriends and wives. Every time he looks at her, he wants to put his hands on her. Like, all over her, in places he shouldn't be thinking about in public, so he's helping Mike flip hamburgers instead.
Mike catches him staring and gives him a teasing nudge. "She's hot, man, but the grill is hotter and you're about to burn the crap outta those patties..."
"Ah, shit, sorry..." And then Connor remembers he's not supposed to swear around children and he curses at himself, which doesn't help the situation in the slightest.
Mike's kiddos are making googly-eyes at Benson from afar, because his wife Haley explained to them beforehand that a service dog in a harness is working, and that it's very, very bad to distract him.
Birds chirp and ketchup squelches and pop fizzes and leaves snap in the breeze.
Last summer, when he was able-bodied and pain-free and handsome, he wasn't having any more fun than he's having right now. The people were different, but the bitter tinge of cold beer tastes the same, and the wash of sunlight over his skin feels the same, and the aroma of sizzling beef smells the same.
And then, of course, there's Olivia.
It's after lunch but before watermelon-and-ice-cream when Connor finally manages to catch her alone.
He walks her back against a tall tree, his hands tucked around her slim waist. A layer of cool shade washes over them. He doesn't have anything to say, but that's okay because she doesn't either. Heat rises up inside him. She squishes her sandals into the grass and rises onto her toes, fitting her their mouths together. Her tongue tastes like lemon and sugar, and her hair is sleek and fluffy between his fingers.
"You're coming over tonight to watch a movie, right?" he grumbles into her lips.
"That's what I told my mom, anyway," she giggles, smushing the tips of their noses together. She whispers, "For some reason she didn't believe me."
His sloppy grin squiggles onto her cheek. "Well, next time don't crawl home covered in hickeys..."
She slaps him hard in the bicep, shrieking into his t-shirt, "Just wait. I'm gonna hickey you everywhere, we'll see how you like it..."
