my shoulder and I feel its softness with my fingertips. I give her a light squeeze and order a whiskey on the rocks.
I've met her friends before. They are nice and fun, just like she is. They all seem to abide by the same philosophy: work hard, play harder.
After years of school, they are used to very little sleep and long shifts at the hospital don't stop them from enjoying themselves for a few brief hours when they get off work.
When we first met, I was still day trading and my hours were flexible. Hers aren't. She has to get to the hospital at the same time every day, depending on the shifts and sometimes she works doubles.
If I were her, I’d probably be in bed sleeping it off, but she seems to be energized by the pace.
“So, how's everything going at the marina?” Rachel asks in a slightly elevated voice. “He bought a marina. Did you guys know that?” she tells her friends.
“No, really? Which one?”
“Elliott Marina and Hotel,” I say after taking a sip.
“Seriously?” Michael says. He’s a tall guy with rough features, blue eyes and a boyish grin.
I nod.
“You made all that money with trading? You have to show me how to do it. The salary I get here isn't exactly making me a millionaire.”
Michael is Rachel's ex-boyfriend. They had dated on and off for a while and then decided to remain friends.
He's a pediatrician who runs marathons, has skied semi-professionally, and is always looking for a new project to fill his hours.
He's friendly and nice, but it's not lost on me the way that he looks at Rachel. They dated in college and then again in medical school. Now they’re working at the same hospital.
She promises that there's nothing going on between them and that she would never consider dating him again. Michael is a womanizer and has cheated on her on more than a few occasions. Still, I have my guard up.
“There's not really a trick to day trading,” I say, getting another round for all of her friends. “It's more like a lot of research and analysis of companies. You track what they do, who's in charge, and their prospects for the future. Then you make bets and you hope that they pay off.”
“So, you're saying it’s like gambling?” Michael asks.
“It's a little like gambling. The only thing is that if you do actually lose a lot of money one day, you don't have to realize that loss and you can just hope that it picks up tomorrow, next week, next month.”
“Why are you asking him all of this?” Rachel asks Michael. Her tone of voice is friendly but skeptical.
“Well, Oliver has made a lot of money doing this. Enough to buy a fucking marina.”
“With a hotel and two restaurants,” Rachel points out, sticking her index finger in the air.
Everyone laughs except for Michael.
“I was looking for a new hobby and this might be just the right thing.”
“Well, you do have all that time off,” Rachel says, tilting her head back and laughing.
“The hospital must not be working you hard enough,” someone else says.
It's an ongoing joke that is not particularly funny about how understaffed the hospital is. They need more doctors and nurses so the few people that work there get stuck with all the shifts. Since there's not enough personnel, people tend to leave and look for work elsewhere, leaving even more work for the ones that are left behind.
Rachel and I have not been together very long, but we’ve already had a few conversations about the amount of work that she does and how unsustainable it is in the long run. She enjoys it now and she likes the experience, but she doesn't know how she would handle it in the future.
She's of course talking about our future.
Marriage.
Children.
She's hinting at something, but I haven't acknowledged her hints just yet. I'm not ready.
I haven’t told her yet, but I doubt that I’ll ever be.
She doesn't know that I have already been married and I have already tried to have children with someone. She knows nothing about my old life because that was not Oliver's old life.
Oliver is an orphan without much family or many friends. Oliver graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz, instead of the University of Pennsylvania.
Oliver has never been to the East Coast.
Oliver likes numbers, facts, and stocks only because Tyler used to. There are parts of me that are parts of Tyler, but mostly Oliver is a