Olivia Graham was twenty-two when she started a whirlwind romance with charismatic Jakob overseas.
By age twenty-five, Liv was back home and checking off the widowed box on paperwork. With zero plans, Olivia and beloved dog Snuggles find themselves...
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Liv's house is less than a ten-minute drive from my house. It's a nice, balmy morning in August. The wind rushing over the open Jeep feels fantastic.
I'm feeling hopeful. There's just no way I'm letting Olivia go like that. I exit the car quickly, hopping up the steps on her porch and rapping my knuckles on the door. I lean my forearm on the doorframe and wait, crossing my legs at the ankle.
She opens the door, trying to scowl at me, but there's a hint of a smile tugging up at the corner of her lips.
Chuckling, I lean down and kiss her intensely, pulling her tiny body into my arms. "You can't get rid of me that easily," I say against her lips between kissing her.
She kisses me back as I gently kick the door shut. Snuggles is running circles around us as we stand up entwined in the front room of her house. "Come on; we have somewhere to go."
"Where?"
"Don't you like surprises?"
"You know I don't!"
"Meet me in the car," I instruct, petting Snuggles goodbye.
When we're halfway to the vista in mind, I glance over to Liv with her hair blowing wildly as we fly down the expressway. Grabbing her hand, I kiss it and keep it squeezed in mine.
My heart surges when she instead leans her head on my shoulder and links my arm through hers.
Kelly and I dated in high school and moved in together freshman year of college. I was going through the academy, and she decided she wanted to go out of state. We tried long distance.
We did okay at first. But then she was putting me off more and more. And then she finally came clean she wanted to be free to date around. She was probably already doing that by the time she was honest with me.
She stopped calling as often as she did. Never FaceTimed me. When I confronted her on it, she texted me she wanted to see other people. But guess who her first call is when she comes home?
I was pretty bummed at first. Okay, fine, I was slightly heartbroken. Okay, fine, I cried and broke a picture frame of her.
It got easier and better. I went on a few dates as the months went by, but I mostly focused on studying and work.
Then one day, Rollins and I go on a call.
We get to the front door, and Chris realizes who he is informing their husband passed away.
My brain is catching up when he walks away to make a call. I approach her on the couch to ask the hard shit while letting him play compassionate cop, which is laughable when you step back and think about it. But you can easily decipher he has a soft spot for Livvie.
Not long after, he introduces us in a friendlier way, and I get to act more like Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard then Paul Blart. When I find out he has backed off, I go hard on the friendly, supportive friend route.
