thought I caught Olivia rolling her eyes as she got in. It was clear it bothered her that he listened to me, probably because he wasn’t quite as well behaved for her. I could give her training tips, but I didn’t think this was the time.
I started to get in and noticed something was on the seat. I bent down to move it but Olivia stopped me. “It’s for your back.”
I looked up at her.
“It’s a massaging heat pad. It’s a long drive and it’s supposed to help with back pain.”
I stared at her, totally speechless. She was obviously mad at me, and justifiably so, but she’d cleaned my house, was taking me on a field trip, and had bought me a device to make the drive easier.
“Olivia, I—”
“Just get in.” She cut me off.
My hand gripped the door frame as I gently lowered into the seat. Sweat broke out on the back of my neck as my back clenched with stabbing pain. Sitting down and standing up were difficult. So was laying down, walking, and standing still. None of it felt good these days.
I knew that it was my own fault. I’d stopped going to PT because the drive had sounded like too much. So I hadn’t gone back because the pain was too bad. It wasn’t going to get better until I started going to my appointments, but I didn’t go to my appointments because I was in too much pain. It was a vicious cycle.
I’d just settled back in the seat and shut the door when Olivia pulled something wrapped in tinfoil out of her bag and handed it to me.
“What’s this?”
“Breakfast burrito.” I hadn’t had an appetite but as soon as I started unwrapping it, my stomach growled. “Eat it.”
The next thing she pulled out was a travel mug. “Here,” she said as she set it in the drink holder. “Coffee. Drink it.”
Without saying another word, she buckled her seatbelt, turned the engine on, turned the radio up, and pulled out of the driveway.
I had no idea where we were going, or why Olivia had done any of this, or when she’d let me speak, but I did know I was the luckiest man in the world to have the woman sitting beside me in my life. The luckiest man.
Chapter 28
Olivia
“What you tell yourself every day will either tear ya down or pick ya up, choose wisely.”
~ Maggie Calhoun
I glanced beside me and saw Holden quietly looking out the window. I was glad that he hadn’t tried to talk to me during the hour and a half drive. I’d needed this time to try and get my head right and figure out what I could say to get through to him.
After yoga this morning, my plan had been to go over and check on him. But one look at the disgusting state of his living situation, and I knew that checking wasn’t enough. He needed an intervention. Even if Holden and I weren’t going to end up together, he was my friend. He always had been. And I was not going to let him waste away in self-pity.
So, I’d quickly formulated a plan and got to work. I’d gotten as far as taking him to the ranch, but I still wasn’t sure what I should say once we got there. And as we pulled under the custom steel sign that read Reed Rescue Ranch, I knew that my time was up.
I had some bullet points in my head of things I needed to address. I was going to be as matter of fact and gentle as I could, but he needed to hear that he couldn’t keep going on the way he had. I hated confrontation but I knew that this had to be done. He needed to get some perspective and if I had to push myself out of my comfort zone to give it to him, then so be it.
Channing, who had been sacked out in the back seat, perked up as we drove down the long dirt road. He started whining when he saw Lola, his favorite horse, running alongside the car in the pasture.
I parked in front of the stables and Holden shifted in his seat. “What are we doing here?”
I took a deep breath and launched into my spiel. “I’m here to teach a yoga class to those kids over there.” I pointed to the group of fourteen teens and preteens hanging out in the rec area and everything I’d planned