For You

03. basketball and lonely nights

➴ O L I V E R

There were nights when Oliver missed the bus ride home on purpose after his evening shift at the Book Cellar. On those star filled nights, he stayed late not because the bookstore was overflowing with customers, but because Leo Wilson had left a sealed white envelope next to his paycheck by the register.

The first time Oliver stepped into Leo's secondhand bookstore, he was fifteen years old with a severe case of acne, a heart made of dreams, and a wrinkled school uniform that was too tight in all the wrong places. He stumbled across the Book Cellar by accident one fall day, his eyes merely gliding over the pinstriped letters on the window front. Colored leaves scattered the cracked sidewalks outside, the October air swirling around him brisk like a passing stranger.

While Leo was talking to a young customer who learned her English from listening to American rap music, fifteen-year-old Oliver borrowed a copy of Catcher In the Rye without asking. He barely made it down the street before he succumbed to the guilt gnawing at his chest. When he turned himself in, Leo didn't hand Oliver over to the authorities, only told the timid boy in a wrinkled school uniform to come back to his store anytime he wanted to discuss the book.

Six years later, Oliver found himself standing in the same book store. Fate always had a peculiar way of introducing itself at the front door.

Oliver was leaning against one of the bookshelves when Leo walked out from the back room, his hips swaying to the beat of the lyrics brushing along his lips in hums and whispers. With thinning white hair and eyes as blue as the ocean on a midsummer day, Leo had a laugh that could fill a room instantly and a voice that only knew one volume. He wouldn't need a microphone if he were speaking to a room with a thousand people on his worst days.

"What are you still doing here, Bradshaw?" Leo lifted his head from the floor, curiosity woven into the curve of his crinkled eyes. His voice was rough, laced with a Southern accent that stuck to him like glue even after he moved up north.

Oliver ran his finger along the fold of the envelope as the autumn wind whistled for attention outside. "Sir—"

"What did I tell you about calling me Sir?"

"Leo," Oliver started over again, sliding the envelope along the edge of the counter. "You know I can't possibly take this from you. I missed two days last week and you're paying me for an extra day?"

"Why don't you keep it for now," Leo insisted with a generous smile, his heart swelling too large for his chest. "Take a pretty girl out to dinner or something, Oliver. You can always put in some extra hours later."

As Leo limped from one side of the room to the other with a broom and dustpan in hand, Oliver's frown deepened. Leo's back always gave him trouble when the seasons changed, the temperature outside damaging the nerve endings in his spine. Oliver's eyes drifted to his scuffed up pair of black Chucks, a lousy excuse for sneakers. He gripped the envelope in his hand tightly as he reached for his jacket behind the counter, feeling the weight of a fifty dollar bill in his hands.

A lump formed in the back of his throat when Leo said, "Go home, Oliver."

Instead of hopping on the city bus, Oliver walked to the Chinese restaurant across the street as oncoming traffic slowed. After three years of working for Leo Wilson, Oliver knew that Leo spent too many nights eating dinner alone. Leo didn't have a wife or children waiting for him at home. The Book Cellar was all he had in this lonely town—it was his home. Leo had hired a high school student for the weekends and holidays, but on most days, it was just Oliver, Leo, and the books that surrounded them. Oliver was Leo's family.