Olivia had captured a piece of him.
But there was too much time left on his clock before his free agency kicked in to let it just run out now. He needed to stay in the game that needed the most attention.
And that was on the ice, not off it.
No matter how much it burned him to find out how that other universe and time might have played out.
Sonder was such an odd word. Some people even debated whether it was a real word or not. Yet the word set every fiber of Olivia’s body alight. And as she walked along the crowded Denver sidewalk on the way back to her apartment from the coffee shop, she focused on the realization that often hit her in a gloriously profound way that always made her feel better. That every single person she passed on this murky afternoon lived a life that was just as complex and nuanced and difficult and fabulous as her own. Certainly, they were lives that belonged to people she would never get to know. She walked past the lady in her sixties with fabulous pink hair. And the stoner in acid wash jeans and a hoodie that had frayed at the edges.
Somehow, knowing this gave Olivia comfort that her life was not unique. That she hadn’t been singled out to live a life that felt half-mast at its best. There was no special reason why she no longer had any living parents. Plenty of others had experienced that. And depression hadn’t peered through the looking glass and picked her out of a lineup. Knowing that the man rushing toward her with his cellphone to his ear, or the woman eating a late lunch in the deli, had a life as challenging as her own helped her keep her own monsters at bay.
She took a sip of her coffee and entered her apartment building, pausing to hold the door open for a delivery guy holding a large bouquet of red roses. While Olivia rolled her eyes at the lack of originality, deep in her heart was a pulse of envy. Nobody would be sending her anything today.
Valentine’s Day sucked.
It sucked giant chunks of cold, wet fish.
She pressed the button to the elevator, thinking of the work she’d been able to get done at the distillery. Sundays were a little quieter than during the week. Emerson had been in her office, and Jake had been running Dyer’s Medallion, their medal-winning gin, on all three stills. They had a deal on the weekends to pretty much leave each other alone.
Weekdays were fair game. Requests could be made, meetings could be held. Business was business. But weekend work was for getting ahead, for planning for the coming week, for getting some focus and quiet to work on their own parts of the business.
Beyond eating her salad with Emerson, when they’d discussed the latest episodes of their favorite podcasts, she’d spent the day alone with her work.
Once at her floor, Olivia walked to her apartment and opened the door. “Hello, lover,” she said loudly.
Natalie, her longtime friend and new roommate of six weeks, waved her spatula. “Making the sauce for lasagna for dinner. Want some?”
Pasta. Meat sauce. Melty blobs of mozzarella. Olivia knew she shouldn’t, but there was only so much willpower a girl could be expected to hold on to. “That would be amazing. Thank you. How was night shift?”
Natalie was a neonatal intensive care nurse. “Depressing. One of my babies is really struggling. I didn’t want to leave. Just in case, you know? That’s why I’m making comfort food.”
Yeah. And that was why Olivia was being indulgent, complaining about being stuck when there were such sick babies needing her friend’s care. Things could be so much worse.
Natalie was one of the friends she’d withdrawn from and one of the first she’d contacted when she’d felt a little better. Olivia had been living downtown when she’d gotten sick. Moving in with her father had helped keep her sane, but after his death, her siblings needed to sell his house, and by then, Olivia had felt the flickering of need to get back on her own two feet.
They’d met in high school and had clicked immediately, initially over the liberal use of color in both of their wardrobes, and later over decorating Natalie’s small but cheerful two-bedroom apartment. As adults, they shared a love of travel books and murder mysteries.
“You know what we need?” Natalie said, taking the pot off the heat. “A night out.”
Olivia groaned. “It’s Valentine’s Day. Everywhere is going to be full of loved-up people. It’ll be hard to get in anywhere.”
Natalie began to assemble the lasagna. “My brother’s best friend runs security at a club in LoDo, just off Larimer. He can put us on the guest list. We can just ignore the lovebirds and dance. And look at it this way, if the club is filled with couples, we won’t need to fight off as many gropey hands.”
Olivia laughed. “Wow. You make it sound like it will be so much fun.”
“It will be. Come on, we don’t need to stay out late. But I just finished nights, and staying up will help me right my schedule.”
“Fine. But just for a little while.”
It was nearly eleven when Olivia and Natalie stumbled into the club. A bottle of wine at home and a late departure had kept them from getting there sooner. A wall of warmth and a pounding bass hit Olivia’s chest as she felt the music flow through her. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d ventured into a night club, certainly not since the summer, and she was glad Natalie had talked her into stepping out.
“Do you want another drink?” Natalie shouted.
Olivia shook her head. Perhaps she’d already had one more than she should have, given it was Sunday night, but thankfully there were no events at the distillery tomorrow. She needed to stick to water for the rest of the evening unless she wanted a raging hangover.
“Let’s dance,” she said.
Almost immediately as they hit the dance floor, Natalie was dancing with a giant of a man . . . all beard and flannel. Hands the size of pizzas gripped Natalie’s hips. For all her comments about gropey hands, Natalie was a heat-seeking missile when it came to men who looked like lumberjacks.
Buoyed by the crowd, Olivia lifted her arms and swayed her hips in time to the music. It felt liberating. Nobody knew her. No one knew her story. She was just Olivia.
She glanced around the room, at couples dancing, guys laughing over a beer, girls watching from the balcony. There was obviously a private party going on upstairs . . .men in suits and women in . . .well, not a lot. She envied them for their easy body confidence and wished she could just as simply turn her own confidence back on.
Her wardrobe was filled with cute outfits she couldn’t comfortably fasten but fully intended to get back into. Tonight, she’d kept it simple. Dark jeans, heeled boots, and a black top that was sexy enough in the way it flattered her cleavage but covered her arms.
One woman in the shadows of the balcony wore a miniskirt and a top that was nothing more than a square of fabric with a complex assortment of strings across her back. She was long and lean with red hair that flowed like molten lava.
A man’s hand played casually with the strings. A broad hand. It was teasing, bordering on erotic, and Olivia suddenly became aware she was staring.
Just as she was about to tear her gaze away, the man stepped out of the shadows.
Anders.
Goddamn, if her heart didn’t splinter. She felt the pain as if he’d reached into her chest and squeezed the damn thing. He was just as handsome as she remembered. And the pair looked like the golden couple, the kind of couple she saw on the front page of a celebrity magazine when she waited in line to pay at the grocery store.