out a gruff disbelieving laugh, shaking his head at me. “I don’t know why I’m surprised. You would be this annoyingly optimistic.”
I blow out a relieved breath, glad he didn’t pry into my previous statement further. “Wrong. I’m not optimistic. I just choose to see the good in life and not dwell on the bad, because then…where will that get us?”
“That’s easy for someone like you to say. You’ve had a good life. You have a great family. You want for nothing.”
I raise my brows. “You think I’ve had an easy life, Rome? You think I want for nothing?” When he doesn’t respond, I smile sadly, searching his gaze. “What do you want?”
He looks off, with a faraway look in his eyes. I know his answer, and just like I know the man leaning against the car, he won’t say it. He won’t expose himself any more than he already has. I pat the empty bucket next to me, urging him to sit. His brows tug low, and I can see the internal battle he wages. He takes a seat, his eyes extra guarded, as he observes me.
I shift on the bucket, our knees grazing, sending a thrill down my spine. “You gotta think of it like this. Imagine you’re sick with a life-threatening illness and you never know when your final day is coming. Wouldn’t you want to live life to the fullest? Wouldn’t you want to enjoy every second you had, instead of living in a past you can’t change?”
Slowly, Rome turns to look at me, and the look in his eyes has my breath lodging in my throat. There’s so much there, so much of the man he keeps hidden from everyone else, and he’s giving me a piece of him. Right here, right now.
“Sunshine.”
My brows dip. “What?”
He smirks. “I think I’m going to call you, Sunshine, from now on. Because that’s exactly what you are, Olivia. You’re the sunshine after a hurricane. After years of living in darkness, you’re the warmth everyone wishes they had for themselves.”
My heart is pounding, my stomach somersaulting, and the smile that takes over my face…it’s foreign. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. I feel the dormant muscles in my cheeks, caving with pain from being used, and for once, I feel at home with someone. I feel at peace with myself. I feel happier than I’ve ever felt.
I’m not even afraid to admit that I might be falling for my neighbor.
“Daydream”—The Aces
I hate that I have to ask Travis, knowing how he is with the other women in the clinic, but there are no other guys on shift I can ask, and I don’t know if Rome is awake. The last thing I want to do is ring his doorbell in the middle of the night, asking for help with something else, like he hasn’t done enough already.
Despite my better judgment, I ask Travis to help me bring in the desk I bought. We haven’t talked much, even though we work together. I think there’s still a bit of tension between us from our last encounter in the break room. Not to mention, Lucy seems more frustrated with him than usual, and there’s no way I’m getting in the middle of it.
Well, until now, that is.
The cute little rustic desk I bought seemed like a neat purchase at the time, when one of the employees helped me get it into my car. The problem is now getting it out and inside the house.
After work, Travis follows me home, and I give him full rein of my car to get it out. The whole process goes smoothly, and it’s much quicker than I thought it would be. He does most of the work, while I hang on to the other end of the desk, attempting to help him bring it inside, but if we’re being honest, he’s doing all the work.
We chat outside for a bit, laughing easily about one of the incidents that happened at the office earlier. Mrs. Williams is a regular at the clinic with her cat. If it’s not one thing, he’s swallowed or gotten into, it’s another, and even though both Travis and Samuel have told Mrs. Williams countless times that she doesn’t need to bring in her cat for everything, she still does it anyway.
I freeze, pausing mid-conversation, when I hear Rome’s motorcycle pull down the street and up his driveway. My stomach dips with something that feels an awful lot like guilt, but I