Before Jamaica Lane (3 page)

Every week my dad, Jo, Cam, Cole, and I tried to meet up for a dinner together, and that night we were at my favorite Italian restaurant, D’Alessandro’s, on India Street, right around the corner from my flat. Cam and Dad often fought over the bill, but Dad had height and age over Cam, so he usually won.

I loved these dinners. Not just because I loved the food at D’Alessandro’s, but because Jo, Cam, and Cole had really become family for me and Dad, and us for them. Especially Cole. From everything I’d learned about his life before Cam, Cole really had only Jo. Now he had this makeshift family. A family he deserved. Jo had said Cole’s instant camaraderie with me was a rare thing indeed, a camaraderie we all knew had turned into a bit of a crush. Cole was too cool to ever make the crush awkward, and I always pretended to be completely unaware of it. To the outside observer Cole could have passed for eighteen. He’d grown another few inches these past nine months, taking him to six feet at fifteen years old. His broad shoulders had filled out from training with Cam and Nate at judo, and his upbringing had given him this air of maturity that most kids his age didn’t have. However, to me, and I knew to
Jo, because we’d talked about it, he was just this little kid we adored. That could drive him crazy sometimes, since most people treated him like the young adult he appeared to be.

‘Have you read any new books I might like?’ the object of my musings asked as I took a sip of wine.

‘Yes, I have actually. Angus recommended this sci-fi novel about this dystopian underground society. You’ll love it.’

‘Cool. Can I get it in e-book?’

‘Yup. I’ll send you the link.’

‘Okay, cheers. By the way I finished
War of the Worlds
.’

I raised an eyebrow. ‘Elaborate? What did you think?’

He shrugged. ‘I thought it was quite realistic for what it was and when it was written. It was pretty bleak. I liked it.’

Catching my eye across the table, Cam smiled at Cole’s review. ‘Keep coming with the bleak.’

I put two fingers to my forehead and saluted him. ‘Gotcha.’

Cole rolled his eyes at us. ‘It’s not an emo thing or anything. Books with unhappy or grim endings just … make you … I don’t know. Feel more, or something …’

He seemed embarrassed to have admitted that he had feelings (the horror!), and I felt the need to reassure him. ‘I understand. Unhappy and bittersweet endings have a tendency to stay with you, affect you long after you’ve finished the story.’

‘Ellie might argue with you on that,’ Jo murmured, exchanging a cheeky grin with Dad.

‘No might about it,’ I cracked. ‘Still, I’d have to stand my ground on it. Although I love a good romance with a happy ending, I have to admit that unhappy endings have more of an impact on me.’

I felt my dad’s stare and turned to find him frowning at me.

‘Put that away.’ I scowled, gesturing to the furrow between his brows. ‘I am perfectly okay.’

‘You prefer unhappy endings to happy endings,’ he argued.

‘In literature. Not life. Lit-er-a-ture.’

Dad leaned across the table to me. ‘You’d tell me if there was something the matter.’

‘Oh, my God.’ I shot a pleading look Jo’s way.

‘Of course she’s okay,’ Jo said, rescuing me. ‘She’s successful, she’s gorgeous, she has her own flat, lots of friends, and an overbearing dad who loves her. Now leave her alone.’

Dad was glowering as Jo teased him. After a few seconds he appeared to process her words and his shoulders relaxed. He turned to me. ‘I worry about you in that flat all by yourself, that’s all.’

‘I’m rarely in it alone. Nate relocated his office there.’

For some reason this made my dad scowl. That was immediately followed by Jo choking on laughter. I turned a swift glare on her and she choked harder.

Honestly, I didn’t know what it would take to make
her realize that Nate and I were completely platonic. When we’d first met, we’d hit it off. Sometimes you meet people who you’re just comfortable with, and Nate was one of those people. We both felt free to be who we were around each other, and we’d bonded over two things. One was our sense of humor. We were both a little nutty. Second was our inner geek. We both embraced our inner geek.

Nate was a freelance photojournalist, but he made a nice second income as a film and video game reviewer for an international film and entertainment magazine. Whereas a lot of people would look at him and think movie star, in actuality he was closer to my species – geek. He’d started a blog when he was nineteen, reviewing movies, books, and video games. This blog grew so big over the years that by the time he turned twenty-five he had thousands of followers. This and his intelligent, funny, personality-infused reviews caught the eye of the magazine and they offered him a job. Luckily for me he’d taken to bringing the movies over to my flat to watch, and he could be pretty hilarious. I was known to have my moments too. Some of my commentary had even made its way into his reviews.

‘So, Olivia, any funny library stories this week?’ Cam asked, changing the subject for me.

I smiled gratefully. ‘I had to kick another couple of lovebirds out of the accessible rooms.’

‘Jesus, they really …’

But I didn’t hear the rest of what Cam had to say
because the door to D’Alessandro’s opened and the world faded around me as
he
walked in.

Benjamin Livingston.

My breath caught as he walked to the host’s podium with an older couple beside him. His parents maybe?

I didn’t know. Frankly, I didn’t care. All I cared about was that he was there and he might see me. If he saw me, he might recognize me and try to talk to me. Then again he might see me and not recognize me. I didn’t know which was worse. All I did know was that I did not want my family and friends to witness the horrifying meltdown of Olivia Holloway Bumping into Handsome Man.

‘Liv, are you really okay?’ Jo asked, pulling my gaze from Benjamin to her. Her beautiful green eyes were wide with concern. ‘You look … buzzed.’

‘I’m sorry, Cam.’ I apologized quickly for blanking on him, my gaze flicking back over to Benjamin.

Shit! The hostess was taking him past our table.

‘I must have –’ I deliberately swiped my elbow across the table, knocking my dessert spoon onto the floor. ‘Oops. Excuse me.’ I pushed my chair back and dropped heavily to the floor, ducking my head under the tablecloth. Heart pounding in my chest, I stayed there, watching familiar walking boots stride past the table.

He
was out of range. Or, more precisely, I was.

The tablecloth lifted and my dad’s rugged face appeared in front of me. ‘Have you been smoking the wacky-backy?’

I pressed my lips tight to stop myself from bursting out laughing. Shaking my head, I reached out a trembling hand for my dessert spoon. I was going to need a replacement, since there was no way I wasn’t having dessert. The tiramisu at D’Alessandro’s was to die for. Of course I might die of embarrassment before I got the chance to charge to my death for dessert. ‘Just retrieving fallen cutlery.’

‘You’re acting stranger than usual.’

I huffed and the movement caused me to bump my head against the table. ‘Can we not have this conversation under here?’

His head disappeared and I quickly scrambled out after him, craning my neck to look for Benjamin. There was no sign of him as I pulled myself back onto my seat, and I slumped with relief as I realized the hostess had taken them into the other dining room.

I settled quite happily now that he was gone, smiling as I raised my spoon to a passing waitress. ‘Can I have a clean spoon, please?’

When she nodded, I grinned and turned back to my companions.

They were all staring at me. I flinched at their appraisal. ‘What?’

‘Mick’s right.’ Cam raised a speculative eyebrow. ‘You’re weirder than usual.’

I looked at Cole for help, but he just shrugged, and I took that to mean he agreed with them. Not wanting anyone ever to find out about my hopeless crush on
Library Guy, I searched for an explanation. Finally I chose the creatively lacking ‘I had three Red Bulls today.’

Creatively lacking it might have been, but it worked, and soon conversation was diverted from me and my absurdness.

To my chagrin, before dessert arrived disaster struck.

I needed to pee and I needed to pee badly.

Unfortunately, the toilets were down the corridor and opposite the other dining room, putting me in the possible path of Benjamin.

When my bladder couldn’t take it anymore, however, I had to throw off my concerns and bolt for relief.

By the time I reached the restroom I wondered what I’d been freaking out about. I was moving so fast to get to the toilet in time that I was a blur. Benjamin would never recognize my bursting-bladder-induced blur.
Hmm, say that five times fast
.

Despite my growing calm, I had every intention of becoming a blur on my trip back to my table. Regrettably, I didn’t factor in a collision with a wall as I came out of the restroom.

I stumbled back, blinking fast, as my eyes took in the dark blue wall. My brain very quickly processed that it wasn’t in fact a wall … but a chest. A man’s wide chest.

My heart began to thud in my own chest as my eyes drifted upward, my heartbeat escalating, sweat prickling my palms as the familiar and masculine beauty of Benjamin Livingston dwarfed my world.

I was pretty sure my mouth was hanging open unattractively as he grinned, his eyes alight with recognition.

Oh, balls
.

‘You work at the university library, right?’

Swallowing, I rehearsed my answer in my head. Then I managed a nod. ‘Assistant desk help.’
No, that wasn’t right
. ‘I mean help desk assistant.’

So much for rehearsal.

His smile widened and he stepped a little closer, shutting off the oxygen supply to my already gasping brain. ‘Well, you’re always very helpful.’

And then somehow Maggie Smith possessed me. ‘It’s what I do,’ I answered solemnly with a Scottish accent.

A freakin’ Scottish accent.

Thankfully a pretty good one.

But that wasn’t the point.

My cheeks burned with embarrassment as Benjamin chuckled softly. ‘Right.’

I had to get out of there. I had to get out of there now! ‘Well, my table is waiting for me at the family.’

Giving him a tight smile and ignoring his lip-twitching amusement, I shot past him, down the corridor, and into the other dining room. Plates and glasses tinkled as I collapsed gracelessly in my chair and announced loudly, ‘I think we should take dessert to go and hang out at my place. Like right now.’ I nodded encouragingly. ‘Yes?’

I was frustrated.

It was a few days later and I still hadn’t quite recovered from my mortification. The object of my crush had made an appearance at the library, and as soon as I saw his blond head bobbing through the main reception area, I scurried into the admin office and persuaded my colleague Rachel that, yes, I would, in fact, prefer updating the Web site html and answering e-mail complaints instead of hanging out at the fun help desk.

Suffice it to say I was not in a great mood when I finished work that day, but as I turned the corner onto Jamaica Lane and saw a familiar figure leaning against the door to my building, my step lightened along with my mood.

Nate grinned, his dimples appearing as he lifted a white plastic carrier bag. ‘Chinese food and an alien invasion flick with some pretty-boy actor who will probably make me want to stick a pen in my eye.’

I smiled at him in confusion, the smell of the takeout causing the greedy little growlers in my stomach to wake up. ‘Didn’t you have a date tonight?’ I asked as I shoved my key in the lock and led us into the dark, dank stairwell.

‘She phoned me this afternoon to ask if I’d be okay with us going to her sister’s engagement party instead of dinner. Apparently the party was “impromptu.” ’ His unimpressed expression told me he didn’t believe it for a second. So did the air quotes.

‘A family event on the first date?’ I gasped in mock horror. ‘How dare she?’

‘You’re funny.’

‘I know.’ I flashed him a quick grin and let us into my tiny one-bedroom flat. Tiny though it was, I loved it.

The kitchen and living room were one room. The kitchen was shaped like an L and took up most of the room, leaving space for a couch, an armchair, and a television. Fortunately, the bedroom was a good size and I could fit in a couple of bookshelves, but most of my books were scattered around the apartment. Also, I didn’t have a bathroom. I had a toilet/shower room.

It worked for me.

It was cozy.

Shrugging out of my coat, I watched as Nate sauntered into the kitchen and began getting plates out and arranging our dinner for us. ‘Got you orange chicken, babe. That okay?’

He called me ‘babe’ in that rumbly, rich voice of his all the time. I tried not to shiver each time. I failed. A lot.

‘My favorite,’ I called to him as I headed into my bedroom to dump my coat and kick off my shoes. ‘There’s beer in the fridge if you want one.’

‘Got it. Do you want one or will I pour you a glass of wine?’

‘Wine, please.’

‘I picked you up a tub of Rocky Road too for later. I’ll just stick it in the freezer.’

Seriously, I could marry this guy. Strolling back out into the main room, I smiled gratefully at him. ‘I’m promoting you to best friend.’

He frowned as he poured me a glass of Rosé. ‘I thought I got that promotion ages ago.’

‘You were promoted to best friend with equal friend status to Ellie and Joss. You’ve just graduated to Jo’s level.’

‘Which is higher?’

‘Yes.’

Nate seemed to consider this. ‘Are there perks to this promotion?’

I answered gravely. ‘Yes. You get to bring me Chinese food and Rocky Road ice cream all the time.’

He looked at me blankly.

‘Don’t worry. You can handle it. You’re doing so well already.’ I rubbed his shoulder affectionately as I rounded the kitchen counter. ‘Do you want a coffee first?’

‘I’ll get it.’

‘No, no, go sit down, set up the movie. I’ll bring it over.’

Nate arranged my plate on the coffee table next to him and went about putting the movie on. He’d just
relaxed back on the couch with plate in hand when I came out of the kitchen with his coffee.

‘Would you rather die after being experimented upon by aliens, or be eaten by cannibals?’ Nate asked casually, lifting a forkful of beef and rice to his mouth, his eyes never leaving the television screen.

I pondered his question as I placed his mug on the table and then curled up on the corner of the couch with my own plate. ‘Have I been given anesthesia?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Well, yeah. If I’ve been given anesthesia then it doesn’t matter which one I choose because I won’t be aware it’s happening to me.’

Nate shook his head. ‘Not true. It does matter. If aliens experiment upon you they might find something from their research that they could use to destroy the entire human race. Or infiltrate us like in
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
. Cannibals, on the other hand … well, I’m guessing all they want is … to just eat you.’

I couldn’t fault his logic. I waved my fork at him in a gesture of agreement. ‘Good point.’

‘So? Aliens or cannibals?’

‘Aliens.’

‘Me too. Fuck the human race – cannibals are creepy bastards.’

I burst out laughing, almost choking on rice as I inhaled sharply with amusement.

Nate chuckled at me, his dark eyes bright with affection. ‘You’ve got a great laugh, you know that?’

I had a very unladylike cackle of a laugh, but if he thought it was great I wasn’t going to argue. I shrugged somewhat shyly, as I always did when he threw out a random compliment, and then gestured to his bag to change the subject. ‘Aren’t you going to get your pen and paper out?’

Nodding at his phone on the coffee table, Nate answered, ‘Voice recording.’

He was recording our conversation? ‘I better shake out my sharpest wit, then.’

‘Just the usual commentary will do fine.’

Ignoring the slight insinuation that I wasn’t witty, I took another bite of chicken and moaned around it. ‘God, this is good.’

‘Yeah?’

‘So good.’

‘You like that, baby?’

‘Oh, yeah.’

‘How good is it?’

‘I think this is the best I’ve ever had, actually.’

‘That good?’

‘My God, yes.’ The chicken was so tender and the orange sauce was just that perfect balance of sweet and tangy. ‘Mmm.’

‘That’s right. Take it, baby.’

I’d closed my eyes to savor my dinner, but now they popped open to find Nate shaking with silent laughter. My eyes darted to his phone and I mentally replayed what we’d just said and how it would sound on the recording.

Grimacing, I held my plate in one hand and launched a sofa cushion at him. ‘Very funny.’

Nate laughed out loud now, batting the cushion away while holding his plate well out of range. ‘You make it too easy.’

‘You’re a bastard.’ I shoved his hip with my foot. ‘You better delete it.’

He looked back at the screen, still smiling. ‘No way. That one’s a keeper.’

It turned out Nate was right. The pretty-boy actor really did make you want to stick a pen in your eye. ‘That sucked,’ I opined as he took the DVD out of the player. ‘But I guess not every movie can be
The Wizard of Oz
.’ My favorite movie. ‘Or
The Godfather
.’ Nate’s favorite movie.

His lip curled up at the corners. ‘Is that your expert opinion? Remember, you’re on tape.’

‘That is my expert opinion.’ I yawned and tipped my head back against the couch. ‘I came up with some choice phrases throughout that movie. You hereby have my permission to steal them.’

‘Well, when discussing the acting skills of the kid playing the hero’s dying brother I think I’ll definitely be using, “Dying is supposed to be sad. I feel as sad as a high school virgin in a Japanese love hotel with a prostitute and a wad of cash.” ’

Nate had almost choked on a prawn cracker when I said that. I wrinkled my nose as he quoted me. ‘I really
need to work on my editing. “Virgin with a prostitute” would have sufficed.’

‘And yet not been nearly so funny. Your waffling is what makes you funny.’

‘I do not waffle.’

‘You waffle, babe.’

Deciding to let it go, I smiled wearily at him. ‘Are you really going to write that in your review?’

‘What? That you waffle?’

I rewarded his deliberate obtuseness with a blank expression and he shook his head, his gorgeous soft, dark locks shifting with the movement. His hair was longer than usual, but it looked good. Really good. Great, even. ‘A lot of teens read the magazine.’

As he pulled his jacket on, I eased myself up off the couch and handed his cell to him. ‘Did you get everything you need for it?’

‘Enough to annihilate it with words.’ He leaned over and pressed a kiss to my cheek, the warm, spicy scent of his cologne comforting. ‘ ’Night, Liv.’

I smiled and stepped back to let him pass, then followed him to the door. ‘Thanks for dinner and my Rocky Road.’

Nate grinned back at me. ‘Thanks for the quotes.’

The door was almost closing behind him when I suddenly grabbed the handle. ‘Nate.’

Turning on the second step of my stairwell, he raised two questioning eyebrows at me.

Looking at his hair, I shrugged and leaned against the door. ‘Don’t cut your hair, okay?’

His smile was slow, cheeky, and incredibly cute, and I totally pretended not to feel it in my long-neglected woman parts. ‘Like what you see, do you?’

Laughing, I leaned back, readying to close the door. ‘Just helping a bud out. I know you like to look your best for the ladies.’

I’d almost closed the door when he said, ‘Liv.’

I peeked back out at him.

His eyes were bright with mischief. ‘Don’t stop leaving your red, wet underwear around the flat when you have a man around. We like that. Just helping a bud out, you know.’

What?

My eyes bugged out in horror as I turned to look around my apartment. Red caught my eye and mortification sank in. My lacy bra and panties were draped over the radiator, drying.

How did I not notice this?

‘Kill me, kill me now,’ I moaned, my cheeks blazing with embarrassment as I winced at the sound of Nate’s laughter echoing down the stairwell.

After I’d locked my front door I started to clean up, sporadically shooting lethal glares at the drying underwear, as if somehow it was the underwear’s fault I was stewing over the fact that Nate now knew I had a taste for sexy lingerie.

Finally I rolled my eyes and told myself to buy a sense of humor.

As I undressed in my room, pulling my gray jersey pajamas out of the dresser, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I was wearing my favorite emerald green satin lingerie set today. In the bottom of my dresser and in a wicker box in my closet, there was plenty more where it came from. I liked nice underwear, but I didn’t like looking at myself in it. I just liked the feel of it.

Frozen, I took in my wide-eyed expression as I indulged in a long look in the mirror. What I saw made me want to hunch my shoulders over. What I saw stole away the good mood Nate had put me in, and it reminded me why I would never end up with a guy like Benjamin Livingston.

It’s not that I was ugly – I knew that. It was just that when I looked in the mirror I didn’t see anything particularly special. I saw a plain face, with the exception of the high cheekbones Mom gave me and my dad’s unusual golden eyes. I saw flabby arms. I hated those flabby arms of mine. At five seven I wasn’t short, but I wasn’t tall enough for my height to carry my ever-widening hips, pretty huge ass, and little rounded stomach. Thankfully I didn’t have a thick waist, but you couldn’t tell that to the little pouch on my lower belly that refused to be flat.

After losing my mother to cancer, I knew and I
believed that having a healthy body was far more important than having a skinny, fashion-friendly one. I knew that.

I knew that
.

Yet somehow I still didn’t feel sexy or attractive. It was more than frustrating – it was painful – to
know
what was right but
feel
what was wrong.

Saddened that I, a smart, semi-funny, nutty, loyal, good woman, could feel so negative about myself under all the smiling and humor, I felt the sting of tears in my eyes. The way I felt about my physical appearance was
bad
. Really freakin’ bad.

My fists clenched at my sides as I stared at my average figure.

I was so taking up Pilates in the morning.

The smell of dinner wafting into the room was causing overproduction of saliva under my tongue. After three days of cutting out food that was bad for me and painfully enduring a Pilates instructional DVD, I was more than ready to chow down on Elodie Nichols’s hearty Sunday roast.

‘I swear to God I’m going to gnaw off a finger,’ I muttered, examining my hand.

‘Pardon?’ Ellie asked absentmindedly as she looked at photographs of the flower arrangements Braden and Joss had chosen for their wedding. The arrangements had been selected months ago, as was everything else. After a disastrous start with Ellie as wedding planner
(not because she couldn’t do it, but because she and Joss had such different tastes), Braden had taken over organizing the wedding and Joss had helped with the decision making.

‘Why are you staring at those photos? Again?’

‘I would have gone with roses.’

‘Well, I went with lilies,’ Joss butted in from across the room where she was sitting on the arm of the chair where Braden was relaxing. He was talking about something with Adam. Clark was in the other armchair by the television, somehow managing to grade papers among all our chatter. His son, Declan, a twelve-and-a-half-year-old computer geek, was huddled on the floor with Cole, playing a Nintendo DS, while Mick and Cam sat on the other end of the sofa that Ellie and I were on. Jo had disappeared upstairs with Ellie’s sixteen-year-old half sister, Hannah. They were really close and tended to disappear to Hannah’s room for a chat before dinner.

Ellie smiled at Joss. ‘They’re still really pretty. I’ll just go with roses in my wedding.’

‘Do you like roses, Adam?’ Joss asked, grinning mischievously at Ellie.

Adam blinked as he was drawn out of his discussion with Braden. ‘Sorry?’

‘Roses? For your wedding? Ellie wants them.’

‘Ellie can have what she wants.’

Looking a little nonplussed, Joss asked, ‘You don’t have a say in it?’

He frowned. ‘Nope. My only job is to turn up and say “I do.” ’

Joss made a face at Braden, who looked as though he was trying really hard not to laugh. ‘How come Adam gets the job I wanted in
our
wedding?’