Chapter 5

Oliver

Since we have a little time before the party starts, we take some time to walk through a few of the other shops on the street, all of which are touting special Halloween activities and sales. Outside one of the small art galleries, there’s a table set up for children to create their own Halloween themed paintings. Some are painting pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns, some have painted bats, and a few are creating their own haunted house complete with ghosts and magical sparkles and all sorts of colorful decorations.

“Wow! Those look amazing,” Scarlett raves, a hint of excitement in her eyes. “You guys are pretty darn good at that.”

The kids all smile and thank her for the compliments and one boy looks at me, his jaw dropped, his little eyes bulging. “Wait…are you?” His head cocks to the side as he takes in my costume and then he smiles. “Do you play hockey?”

I give him a mischievous shrug. “Maaaaaybe.”

He gasps. “OH MY GOSH YOU’RE OLIVER MAGALLAN, AREN’T YOU?”

Scarlett beams as she watches my interaction with the kid.

“You’re rather good, kid. What’s your name?”

“Oliver.”

My brows shoot up. “No way! Your name is Oliver too? How cool is that? You an Anaheim Stars fan?”

He nods enthusiastically. “Uh huh. You’re my favorite player.”

“Well shoot, that’s so nice of you to say.” I give him a high five. “It’s not every day I meet a fan this far away from home. I wish I had something on me I could give you, but we’re on our way to a Halloween party.”

“How about a picture?” Scarlett suggests, gesturing to a woman standing behind him. “Is this your mom?”

The woman smiles. “Yep. I’m Mom.” She shakes my hand. “It’s very nice to meet you Mr. Magallan.”

“The pleasure is mine. Yeah, we can totally take a picture. Let’s do it, Oliver.” Oliver’s mom comes out from behind the table and I kneel beside him and smile for a few pictures. When we’re done, he thanks me and wishes me luck in our next game.

“Thank you so much, Bud. I’m really glad I got to meet you.”

Before we step away, Scarlett gathers the kids standing around and says, “Who wants to paint something really cool?”

Several small hands shoot into the air in hopes she chooses them and to their surprise, she picks every one of them. “Grab your paintbrushes and your favorite color because I think this dress needs a makeover.” She smirks when all the kids gasp. Scarlett raises her arms and twirls in front of them. “Thirty seconds to paint wherever you want. Ready?”

“Yeah!” they all shout, dabbing their brushes into their paint.

“Okay, ready…set…GO!”

I step back and watch in wonder as the kids create splashes of color all over the white canvas that is Scarlett’s dress. Pulling my phone from my pocket, I snap several pictures of her as the kids are painting. Her smile is sincere as she encourages each of the kids to make a colorful mess. She’s truly mesmerizing as I watch her behind the lens of my phone camera. More than once today I’ve silently thanked the Gods, or at least Ledger, for encouraging me to do this with Scarlett because so far, she’s everything I enjoy in a woman. Fun loving, adventurous, spontaneous, driven, and funny with a beauty about her that needs no filter. If she weren’t going through the pain of recently being left at the altar, I could see myself asking her out.

But timing is everything and this is not the time.

Maybe someday.

___

Under the glow of the streetlights, we pass the famous St. Louis Cemetery No. 1.

Scarlett gasps. “Oh, my gosh, I’ve heard of this place! We have to walk through here.”

I look at the sign posted near the gate and shake my head. “They closed almost four hours ago.”

Her shoulders drop in disappointment, but then she cocks her head and walks along the gate several feet before turning back. “Let’s go in anyway.”

“What?” I nearly laugh. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah.” She shrugs. “It’s not like we’ll be there to do anything bad. Just walk through. It’s dark out. Nobody will see us.”

“You know you’re in a wedding dress, right?”

“Even better!” She beams. “If anyone does see us, they’ll think I’m a ghost!” She grabs my hand. “Come on, please? Live a little with me, Oliver.”

I consider her proposal and finally see the missing bars in the gate wall she noticed where we could slide in undetected.

What’s the worst that can happen?

Ask forgiveness not permission.

If that doesn’t work, throw money at someone.

“Alright, let’s do it.”

She claps her hands excitedly. “Eeek! Yes! This is the best. Come on. We’ve got this.”

I follow her lead as she passes through the open spot in the gate. As she steps through, I hear a loud ripping sound and assume any moment now, her dress is going to fly off.

“What just happened?” I whisper.

She laughs. “My dress is caught on this broken piece on the gate. Can you help me?”

She points to where the bottom of her dress is indeed stuck on part of one of the bars that seems to be rusted away. I lift the ruffled material and can see the large rip in the dress.

“Scarlett, I’m sorry. It’s really ripped up right here.”

“Perfect! Give it a good yank. It’ll be fine.”

“Right. Trashing the dress. I forgot. So, you’re good if I just pull?”

“Yep.”

Giving the material a swift tug, it rips a little more but finally comes free and we slip through the rest of the way unscathed. Walking down the first row of graves, the place looks more like an old city. These are no tiny gravestones. Each one of them is a unique tomb or mausoleum, elaborate and crumbling from old age.

“This is the oldest cemetery in New Orleans,” I tell Scarlett. “Did you know that?”

She shakes her head. “I didn’t, but wow, I’m not surprised. This place is a wonderland for the unliving.”

“Well, that’s a different way of describing it.”

She gestures to the buildings around us, some beautifully engraved, some with their own gates surrounding them. “I mean, look at this place. When my mom heard we were planning to come to New Orleans for our honeymoon, she told me about this famous voodoo witch that’s buried here.”

“Marie Laveau.” I nod. “Your mom was right. She is buried here.”

Scarlett’s jaw drops as she glances at me. “How did you know that?”

“New Orleans is one of my favorite cities.”

“But you don’t play for their team? Why not?”

“When the agent says go where the money is, that’s what you do when you’re young. I could leave and try to get myself in over here now, but the Stars have grown on me. Now they’re stuck with me.”

She nods. “I understand that completely.”

“You know who else has a tomb here?”

“Who?”

I smirk. “Nicholas Cage.”

She halts, her brows pinching. “Wait…Nicholas Cage? But he’s not dead yet. What the fuck?”

“He bought a tomb here anyway,” I laugh with a shrug. “Some say he’s hiding his fortune in the tomb. Some say he practices voodoo magic.”

“Aaand what do you say?” she asks me.

“Meh. The guy just probably has a love for this place like I do and wants to be buried here. But who knows? I could be very wrong.”

“You’re just a treasure trove of trivia tonight, aren’t you?”

“Say that five times fast,” I dare her.

“Treasure trove of trivia. Treasure chove of chivia. Chesure chove of trivia. Chesheshure trove of chiv…yeah okay,” she giggled. “I think I failed.”

I wrap an arm around her shoulder. “Nice try through. Points for effort.”

“But seriously. How do you know so much about this place?”

“What can I say? I’m a nerd when it comes to old spooky places.”

“Ah, so you like the scary stuff, huh?”

“I’ve always loved Halloween,” I tell her. “The parties, the horror movies, the silly decorations. It’s just a fun, stress-free holiday for people of any age. I mean, who doesn’t love Halloween?”

She catches my eye and studies me for several long seconds. Enough for me to cock my head and say, “What? What is it?”

Finally, she shakes her head and passes me a faint smile. “Nothing.”

“You sure?”

“Mhmm.”

Her change in demeanor catches me off guard. Something is clearly on her mind, and she doesn’t want to share. Part of me wants to push it because I’m guessing she needs to feel like she can talk things out without judgement and she can with me. Maybe she needs this trip to heal from her ex leaving her at the altar and I honestly wouldn’t mind being that person who holds her through it. But I’m not going to push it. Whatever is on her mind right now, I can only hope she’ll talk when she’s ready.

We walk endlessly through the darkened cemetery, pointing out interesting things about each tomb, laughing about our childhood and discussing our personal triumphs and tribulations. Not once does she ask me about hockey other than what I talk about and the overwhelming appreciation I feel for her because of that is indescribable. Anybody who meets me does nothing but talk about hockey. While some days I don’t mind talking game, there are many more days I would much rather talk about anything else. Hockey is my job. Yeah, I love it, but it doesn’t have to define all of me.

On our way back toward the opening we came through, there’s a spot where the streetlights outside the cemetery seem nonexistent because of the larger sized tombs around us. Scarlett takes the opportunity to look up at the sky, the moon and stars shining brightly above us.

And then surprisingly, she lays herself down on the ground.

“Are you alright?”

“Mhmm.” She pats the spot next to her. “Come join me.”

“What are yo—”

“Come on, just do it.” She raises her hand up, but I don’t take it. Smiling at her goofy, spontaneous antics, I lower myself to the ground next to her, our shoulders almost touching.

My hand brushes up against hers as I lay next to her. “Now what?”

“Now we close our eyes and take a deep breath and just, I don’t know, feel.”

I turn my head in time to see her close her eyes beside me. She inhales and exhales deeply through her nose and then opens her eyes again to look up at the night sky.

“It’s beautiful out here.”

“It is,” I confirm, though I’m not looking at the sky.

Because I can’t stop looking at her.

“Do you ever just take a moment to drown out the world and everything around you and just marvel at the parts of our world that seem so…peaceful?”

“Like the ocean in the evening? Or first thing in the morning?”

“Yeah. Or the quietness of the mountains?”

“Sometimes I like to sit in the arena after practice once everyone has gone home. A huge vast room, and I’m the only person in it. It’s a wonderful place to sit and think. A place where I feel comfortable and safe, where nobody can bother me because they don’t know I’m there.”

“Yeah,” she whispers.

We lie in complete silence for a few minutes and then I hear the lightest sniffle. I turn my head just in time to see a tear slide down Scarlett’s cheek.

Shit.

This is all hitting her.

Because as peaceful as silence can be, it can also open doors to all our demons.

Poetic, I know, as we’re lying in a cemetery.

I could ask her if she’s okay, but she’s not talking, which tells me she doesn’t want to talk about it. So, I do the only thing I can think of to let her know I’m here and she’s not alone.

I shift my hand over a few inches until I find hers and entwine our fingers. She squeezes my hand like it’s her lifeline and for the next five minutes I don’t say a word while she cries in the quiet shadows in the city of the dead.

“Thank you, Oliver,” she finally says softly, wiping her eyes and sitting up. “I’m so sorry.”

“Hey.” I slip a finger under her chin and turn her to face me. Her beautiful moss-colored eyes glistening under the light of the moon. “You don’t need to be sorry for anything. He’s an asshole for walking away from you, Scarlett. And he has no idea what he’s lost.”

Her weakened smile tugs at my heart. “Did Ledger pay you to say nice things to me, or are you actually this perfect guy who just happens to be his friend?”

I huff a quiet laugh. “I’m not perfect. Nobody is. We all have skeletons that bother us. But you’re not alone. You’re never alone.”

“How is it that millions of people follow my life and pay attention to the things I’m passionate about, but just one man out of those millions can make me feel more alone than I’ve ever been?”

“Because he clearly never saw you the way I’ve seen you in just a few short hours.”

“Yeah. You’re right.” She bows her head. “He never saw me. He never cared. And I knew it. I felt it back on day one when he had no interest in talking about my passions, but I ignored it. Denied my own feelings of inadequacy.” Her shoulders fall. “Why the hell did I do that to myself? I knew he didn’t love me for me. I knew it the whole goddamn time.”

I inhale a big breath and release it silently. “You knew marrying the guy would make you comfortable,” I answer her not knowing one thing about her fiancé other than the fact he is a douche who has a well-paying job. Her head lifts confirming my answer. “Stability and comfort aren’t the worst reasons for marrying someone.”

“But they’re not the best by any means. I want to marry a man who loves me for who I am. Someone who listens to my pipe dreams and then encourages me to run after them. Someone who doesn’t want me just for sex but for…love. But I don’t want a husband who just loves me. I want my husband to be in love with me. Is that too much to ask?”

A few tears slip down her cheek and I wipe them away gently with the pad of my thumb. “You’re a beautiful woman, Scarlett. Stunningly sexy even,” I confess. “Any man will be lucky to have you by his side one day. And that man will love you for who you are and not force you to be someone you’re not. So no, your idea of an ideal husband is not too much to ask at all. A husband should be in love with his wife. He should want to give her the goddamn world. He should want her every happiness and she his.”

She wipes a few last tears from her eyes and then stares at me. “Yeah.” She nods. “That’s right. Thank you, Oliver.”

The way she looks at me tugs at something inside my chest. Like a lost soul in search of its companion. Like she’s hearing for the first time that someone else in this world gets her.

Understands her.

Cares for her.

Fuck, I wish I could kiss her right now and show her what it feels like to be cared for. She blinks a few times, her eyes lowering to my lips as mine do the same.

It would be so easy.

I could make this a moment for her.

For both of us.

But I don’t want to take advantage of her when she’s feeling vulnerable.

“Anytime. And listen if you don’t want to go to this par—”

“Noooope. We’re going.” She shakes the sadness away and stands up much to my surprise. “I’m good. I promise.”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely. I have you, don’t I? My hot, sexy Viking?”

After tonight, I’m pretty certain you’ll have more than I should admit.

I chuckle and take her hand. “I won’t leave your side all night if that’s what you want.”

“Good. Let’s get the fuck out of here. I need a drink.”