My heart races. The chance to work with him, maybe make some conversation? Yes please.
“That would be great, thank you. I’ll probably need help putting some of these up. I’m not very tall.”
His eyes drop down my body, and then he shakes his head, “No, you’re not.”
I don’t know if he said that in a good or bad way, but the way he dragged his eyes up my body, I don’t really care. It makes me feel alive, nervous, happy, and anxious, all at the same time. My skin prickles, and I swallow, running my fingers through my mousy brown hair, and straighten. Do I look okay? I wonder what he thinks of me. I’ve always found myself to be . . . too small. My petite frame barely reaches his shoulders, and my hair is long, stick straight, and I would say a fairly plain shade of brown. My eyes, blue like the sky, are my best feature without a doubt.
I was never blessed with curves, or big breasts, or a great round ass, so I often wonder if I have the assets men find attractive.
“Grab a box,” Oliver says, shaking me out of my thoughts.
I reach down, grabbing a box and lifting it into my arms, which barely go around it. I shuffle forward, and Oliver watches me, brows raised. Then, with somewhat of a sigh, he grabs the box from my arms and carries it into the hall effortlessly before reaching for another one. My cheeks flame again. Great, he probably thinks I’m useless. I can’t even hold a box. He drags the boxes over to the balcony and pulls out the fake cobwebs, staring at them with disgust.
“This isn’t goin’ to be easy.”
I stare at the tangled mess. “No, but I guess the good thing about it is that it’s supposed to look messy, so we can get away with it.”
He nods and pulls the big white clumps out. “You take one end, we’ll stretch it out as much as we can and just attach it bit by bit to the railings.”
“Okay,” I say in a soft voice, taking one end of the odd-feeling cobwebs and stretching them out. Oliver finds some string and starts tying it to the railings, and we move along slowly, attaching it as best we can.
“Have you known Kenai long?” I dare to ask, in an attempt at making conversation.
“Yeah,” Oliver murmurs. “A while now.”
Right. “It’s a great place they’ve got going on here.”
He glances at me. “It is.”
Gosh, I usually don’t talk much, and this is why. When people don’t answer me, it makes me feel silly. I close my mouth and just keep shuffling along. For a bit, the silence is incredibly uncomfortable, and I shift around trying to figure out what to do. I don’t want to make conversation if he’s not in the mood to talk, but this silence is killing me.
“You worked here long?” Oliver asks after about ten minutes, his eyes flicking in my direction.
“Ah.” Crap, now I’m nervous that he is talking to me. “Not really. I came here for the same reason everyone else does, I suppose. But I felt at home here and wanted to do more, so Marlie offered me a job. So, I’m just a bit of everything, I guess.”
“You were one of the people who came here to find peace? To get away from something?”
My eyes go to his, and he’s watching me with an intensity I can’t put my finger on. It’s almost as if he will be able to tell, just by looking at me, if I’m lying or not. I swallow and decide to just tell him the truth. My therapist told me talking about my ex would help me heal, because for so long I kept it all to myself and almost acted like he didn’t exist and what he did to me didn’t happen. Which she deemed “unhealthy.”
“I was,” I say, stretching the web out even further. “My, ah, ex-boyfriend gave me some troubles.”
“What kind of troubles?” Oliver asks, tying some more string to hold the webbing on.
I shift a little, because I’m not really used to strangers asking me questions, although I guess I can understand why he wants to know. There’s no harm in telling him. It’s my story; I can’t change it, so there is no point denying it. “He was abusive, physically and mentally. After I left, he became obsessed and stalked me for a while, threatening me. I got free of it, but it haunted me, I guess. I only had my best friend to talk to.”
“Was he always like that?”
I shake my head. “No, not always. At first, it was good. A seemingly normal relationship, but over time, he became possessive, starting over small things, like someone looking in my direction, and then it all just got worse until it blew up. Then he wasn’t the person I thought I knew. Not at all.”
I shiver, remembering what it was like living with Terry sometimes. The man I fell in love with very quickly changed, revealing layers of possessiveness, controlling behavior, and abusive tendencies. There were times I couldn’t even look at a man passing or he’d lose it. Swearing that I was trying to leave him, that I was sleeping around and cheating on him. It was an obsession that quickly turned dark.
Oliver’s jaw tics. “What’s his name?”
I blink. “Who? My ex?”
“Yes. His name?”
“Ah, Terry.”
Oliver holds my eyes. “Last name.”
Oh boy. The way his voice sounds makes my skin shiver. He’s serious right now. He wants to know, and I know exactly why he wants to know. He’s like most normal men.
