You Looked Down on Me Once Now You Look Up (Patricia and Oliver) novel Chapter 912

“Why are you back so late?”

Patricia was standing by the bushes in the Cloud Peak courtyard, watching as Sara popped open a can of cat food and fed the cats. She heard the hum of a car in the distance and glanced up, relaxing a bit when she saw it was Oliver. She walked over to greet him.

“I got caught up with some things. Why are you out here? Aren’t you cold?” Oliver asked.

“I’m fine,” Patricia replied. It was already spring and the air felt almost perfect.

Oliver reached for her hand and tugged her gently toward the house. “Come inside.”

Patricia called out to Sara, then followed Oliver into the house. As soon as they stepped inside, Oliver slipped off his coat. While he’d been wearing it, she hadn’t noticed anything, but once he took it off, a faint scent hit her.

“You smell like disinfectant. Were you at the hospital? Did something happen?” Patricia asked.

Oliver looked a little surprised. “How did you guess?”

She lifted her eyebrows. “It’s the smell.”

Oliver hesitated, then handed the coat to Johns instead of her. “I don’t want you to have to smell it.”

He still remembered her morning sickness from early pregnancy like it was yesterday. He wasn’t sure if Patricia had any lingering trauma, but he definitely did.

“Have you had dinner?” Oliver asked.

“Not yet. What about you?”

“I already ate,” he said.

Patricia nodded. “Why don’t you go take a shower? I’ll ask Marian to whip up something for you.”

Even when he hadn’t done anything wrong, he always seemed to feel bad for not picking up on her meaning right away. For Oliver, missing a beat with Patricia felt like letting her down.

“It’s taken care of. Your uncle handled it,” he told her.

Patricia frowned. “How did he handle it?” She knew Atticus. Even if Hector and Chelsea thought their relationship was nothing serious, Atticus was old-school, and seeing his daughter involved in something like this probably wouldn’t sit right with him. He’d spent decades being strict. Now, faced with all these new ideas about relationships, especially when it came to his own daughter, there was no way he’d just accept it easily.

She just hoped he wouldn’t come down on Hector the same way he once did with Oliver.

“I don’t really know. I wasn’t there,” Oliver admitted.

“You didn’t ask?”

“It just didn’t feel right to ask,” Oliver said quietly. “I don’t think it’s my place.”