“What you shared—it brought some stuff up.” She sipped her wine and gave a little shrug of her shoulders as she set the glass down. “I’ve known for a while now I paid a price in getting so tightly locked into a relationship as young as I did. I had friends, of course. But there was always somebody else in the picture who took precedence over them. Not that I blame him. I blame me. But whatever the case, the last six months I’ve enjoyed just answering to myself and—this might sound a bit lame—figuring out what it really means to be Olivia Graham.”

“That’s not lame. Trust me. I went through that while deciding to enter vet school. In my family, college was pretty much for other people. Everyone calls my dad ‘Doc’ because of everything he knows about cars, but he’s entirely self-taught. I took a lot of jabs from all of them when I decided to go for it and applied. I think I’m the only one on either side of the family to have gone further in school than a bachelor’s, and honestly there are only a couple of us who’ve earned those. It took trusting myself and shutting down a lot of voices inside shouting that I was a Wentworth and wasn’t going to cut it.”

“How are they now?” Olivia twisted in her chair and slid her hand up the length of his forearm. Her touch was tender and affectionate but still warmed Gabe’s blood.

“The voices or my family?” he winked.

“Your family,” Olivia said, laughing. “I’m hoping those voices got quiet when you did it.”

He smiled. “Quieter anyway. And my family’s good. I’m ‘Doc Junior’ now to all my cousins, but since most of them are bringing their pets to me now, I’m okay with that.”

“Good for you.”

Gabe swallowed the last of his wine as the server approached, offering a polite reminder that the kitchen would soon be shutting down for the evening.

“You in the mood for anything else?” he asked as the server pulled out her order pad.

Olivia gave an emphatic shake of her head. “I couldn’t eat another bite. I honestly could’ve gone without this, even as good as it was.”

When Gabe asked for the bill, Olivia fished through her purse and pulled out a card. “This one’s on me, remember?”

He fought back the urge to debate her. “So long as you let me get it next time.”

“Deal.”

Looking relieved when ownership of the bill didn’t escalate any further, the server took off with Olivia’s card.

“I’m just glad we’re both in agreement about there being a next time,” Olivia added once they were alone, a smile tugging at her lips.