Oliver Learns to Love

By Felicia Ferguson

Author's Note: This amuse bouche was born from Andrea Leithoff's ( y_alln) request on Twitter for a fanfiction to explain Oliver's contemplation during the last scene in One in a Million (after Rita gives him the cake and before he walks over to Shane and they discuss the cake purchase and dates). As always, Martha Williamson owns all the characters. I simply have the joy of playing with them and filling in the blanks. Enjoy! And Happy Birthday, Andrea!

Timeline: Set during at the last scene of the car wreck date and into Curly's retirement party.

Oliver bid Rita and Dale goodbye as they left to replenish the punch, then glanced down to the plate in his hand. The cake did look and smell inviting. Perhaps he should try the dessert as Rita suggested. He plunged his fork into the soft texture and savored the tart combination of custard and curd. Shane was correct. The dessert was incredible.

Unfortunately, their evening together at Montaldo's was not.

He had fumbled early and badly, stepping back from obliquely labeling Shane as his love while they danced. And then he stumbled even harder when he assured Nikki they were just friends. Shane's crestfallen face sent him searching for an explanation, a definition. And finding nothing that suited such an ambiguous relationship as theirs, he fell back on excusing the word as imprecise. While true, his inadequate grasping only seemed to worsen the word's impact. With nowhere for their evening to go but up, it still managed to sink to even lower depths of misunderstanding, past pain, and current fears.

In the final minutes, Shane attempted to salvage what little she could of the evening. But her quiet, solemn vow, I only dance with you, meant to comfort, took him aback.

His reluctant response, "I imagine we could be very good," seemed to soothe her turmoil until he blundered once again after her suggestion of practicing every week.

"Every week?" he parroted. She seemed serious about improving. Serious about them together. Was he ready for that level of commitment? He had no answer. For a man so fond of words and letters, both failed him spectacularly, leaving Shane once again broken hearted.

But then, Nikki sang, If I loved you, words wouldn't come in an easy way.

Was that why they seemed to be at sixes and sevens that evening? Was it possible what he felt for Shane and what Shane felt for him was love?

Oliver had studied love in an effort to understand his marriage to Holly. The Greeks wrote of four different aspects. Eros. Philia. Storge. Agape. The words twirled through Oliver's mind like the couple on Montaldo's dance floor. Sweeping. Swaying. Coming together. Pulling apart. Amid the whirl, the words attached to faces, to the women he had loved over the course of his lifetime.

Storge. Family. Rita. She was his sweet sister, who loved owls and Norman, and saw the good first in everyone and everything around her.

Eros. Passion. Holly. Their romance flamed brightly and burned out quickly. He stoked the embers out of obligation and commitment to vows, but his advice to Norman, that "Love can only rely on swagger and charisma for so long," bore out as incontrovertible truth.

Philia. Friendship. Dale. They believed in the same God. Enjoyed the same interests. Approached issues the same way. They'd built a solid friendship over time and based in mutual respect.

Then there was agape. C.S. Lewis called agape the highest form of love. A "love that never changes regardless of circumstances." Who had Oliver loved like that?

The swirl stopped, pulling him back to the present.

His gaze found Shane. Seated with Hikaru from Sorting, she spoke with animated delight, tasting her punch then setting it aside in favor of good conversation. Hair swept up in an intricate weave, she glowed from her perch on the loveseat, once again celestial. His heart warmed with a sensation, foreign yet inviting.

Was that love? If so, what aspect?

He glanced away.

But his eyes returned to Shane, drawn as if by the siren's call. No, he couldn't deny that he loved her. That she loved him.

With a storge love. They were colleagues, teammates of a sort, and they had learned to trust each other's skills and insights as they delivered dead letters.

A philia love. It was evident in nearly every one of their interactions and began early on as they listened, comforted, and even simply sat with each other through trials and joys.

An eros love. Yes, he was indeed physically attracted to her, and she to him. During their dance practice that night in the DLO, the air thickened around them with a heated intimacy as they brushed against each other, breathed the same air, and their lips waited inches from meeting.

But agape? A love that never changes despite circumstance? Could he dare hope?

Oliver glanced to Dale seated on an adjacent loveseat with Dad, looking lovely as well. And what of Dale? She was a much better match for him in interests and personalities. They were in sync. In step. Dancing to the same music. And yet, he only felt one aspect of love for her: philia. And after his study, he learned that like the eros with Holly, one aspect of love did not a successful relationship make.

Oliver's gaze returned to Shane. Rita said Shane had bought the cake from Montaldo's. Shane had told him earlier that day that it was incredible and had spoken of taking risks for love, affirming Nikki's choice to send her card. Was buying the cake Shane's way of taking a risk for love? Of demonstrating agape? Showing him that she loved him despite the awful evening at Montaldo's? Oliver's heart quickened.

There was no refuting the evidence that they shared three aspects of love. However, was it possible they actually had all four?

Yet after such a resounding failure at dinner, did he risk displaying an agape love for her, knowing if she didn't reciprocate it, or worse left him later, the devastation would be insurmountable?

Oliver glanced to Dad. He had said he understood both Oliver and Shane had been hurt. But that they both possessed power, love, and a sound mind and the wherewithal to try again. Oliver took in a fortifying breath and tugged at his suit jacket. It was time to find out for certain. Setting the cake plate aside, he walked to the couches and extended his hand to Shane.

"Are we dancing, Oliver?" Shane's words were filled with hopeful expectation, but tempered by caution.

Oliver studied her and accepted the truth. "No, Ms. McInerney we are not."

But I need to know if we can—and for a lifetime.