Oliver: Walking Disaster Book 2 by E. M. Denning

Author:E. M. Denning [Denning, E. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Paper Gold Publishing
Published: 2023-12-05T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

Oliver

Blocking Garrett’s number turned out to be the best thing Oliver had done recently. Cutting off the option of Garrett contacting him helped Oliver realize Garrett had never been an option to begin with. It made it clear as day how much of his energy he’d spent waiting for Garrett to call and hoping he wouldn’t.

The first few seconds after Oliver blocked the number, he’d expected to feel a sharp pain, like the knife in his chest when he’d realized Garrett had been married, or the empty space in his life that felt like a missing limb until he’d crawled home to lick his wounds.

Instead, where he expected to feel knives and broken glass, there was nothing. Then he felt small and foolish, to have given so much of his time and happiness away to someone who’d made him so miserable in the end.

And then there was Jordan, whose friendship had been unexpected and invaluable in equal measure. Oliver hid the hint of his smile behind his coffee cup as he strolled toward the corner where he was meeting Benji. They were going tuxedo shopping, and Oliver found he looked forward to it. A week ago, he’d have hated the idea, but now he’d shaken off some of his sadness and could start enjoying things again.

Benji appeared down the street and Oliver waited at the corner, watching him approach. Part of Oliver wanted to tell Benji about Jordan, but the other, more selfish part of him wanted to keep Jordan all to himself for a while longer. He wasn’t sure what they were doing or where they were going, and he used that as an excuse to keep Jordan a secret from his best friend.

“Hey, Benji.” Oliver slung his arms around Benji when he approached and pulled him into a hug.

“Hey, yourself.” Benji did a shit job at hiding how surprised he was. “You’re in a good mood.”

“I am.” Oliver let him go and he fell into step next to Benji. The shop they were going to stood a few storefronts down. Oliver finished the last swallow of his coffee and tossed the cup into the trash can on his way past.

“That’s good.” Benji seemed to be holding back a lot of things from Oliver recently, and he hated that they weren’t as open with each other as they had been before. But then again, he was also keeping things from Benji.

“I wanted to thank you for what you did. I don’t know if I said it the other day, but you really helped me, Benji.” Oliver’s cheeks flamed as he remembered the absolute pit of despair he’d been living in. Literally.

Benji bumped his shoulder against Oliver’s. “You’d do the same for me. Hell, remember that time when my car got towed, and I’d been living in it? Then I got fired, and I thought I was going to have to live on the streets, so I called you even though you were an entire ocean away and you still helped me?”

“I hated not being there for you.

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