Waking Olivia (28 page)

I
suppose
it’s because Will and I have spent so much time together at his mother’s house that there isn’t anything awkward about staying with him. About waking up in his apartment. Drinking coffee in his bed. Telling him I have a final in an hour so he’d better get undressed fast.

No, all the
awkward
has been saved for outside of his apartment, for the time when word about the two of us gets out.

And it
will
get out, eventually. The track team is a little too close-knit and a little too gossipy for it to escape everyone’s attention.

Our biggest concern, of course, is Jessica—a problem Peter solves with a single phone call to her boss. It turns out that threatening to make the university look bad when you work in the public relations department is frowned upon. Jessica could still tell one day when she no longer cares about keeping her job, but the whole thing is not much of a story, given that Will has already quit.

So while our secret is safe for a while, I do tell a few people, and Evan is one of them. Even though we barely dated, I knew from Will that he’d been worried when I disappeared. It only seems fair that he know the truth. Not the part where I slept with Will during the banquet I attended with
him
, just the rest of it. And he isn’t surprised.

“I kind of guessed it around the time you disappeared and Will went batshit crazy,” he admits.

I also tell Erin and Nicole. Erin, because she already kind of knows, and Nicole because she’s way too nosy not to figure it out on her own.

“I want
all
the dirt,” Nicole says, slightly too eagerly.

“You’re not actually saying you want me to talk about, like, physical stuff, right?” I ask.

She looks at me blankly. “Of course I am. You think I want to know what he eats for dinner? You’ve at least got to tell me how big his d—”

“I’m sure you can guess,” I say, cutting her off. “And that’s the very last detail you’ll request, ever. Understand?”

She ignores me entirely, turning to Erin. “I told you he’d be huge, didn’t I?” she crows.

T
he day
that I officially become an adult coincides with the day I officially stop living alone. On December 21st, we return the furniture Will borrowed from various people and take the last of my meager possessions to his apartment. Erin and Brendan both come to help, though Brendan’s version of “help” involves a lot more lying around than you might imagine.

“I still can’t believe you’re doing this,” Erin says in wonder as we enter Will’s apartment together. Brendan is, at the moment, “helping” by watching TV. “I mean it’s weird, right? Isn’t it weird?”

“How so?” It doesn’t feel weird to me at all. Now that we’re together it feels as if it was always inevitable.

“It’s just so random. I mean, I knew you guys were tight but it’s like finding out that Brofton is sleeping with the woman who scans our IDs at the cafeteria.”

I choke on a laugh. “In what possible way is this like Brofton sleeping with an obese Polish woman?”

“That was a bad analogy,” she concedes. “Okay, it’s like finding out Brofton is moving in with Angelina Jolie. It’s just, you know, he’s
Will
…”

“Yeah.” I smile. “I know.” Sometimes I look over at him, when he’s in the kitchen or getting dressed or stretched out on the couch waiting for me to lie beside him, and I can’t really believe it either.

She throws her arms around me before I can back away. “This is the first decent break you’ve ever gotten, Finn. Don’t fuck it up, okay?”

I promise her I won’t, and though I’m not much good at keeping promises, I feel pretty good about this one.

T
here is
a small birthday dinner at Dorothy’s later that night. Will had wanted to take me out but I insisted we go to his mom’s. “But we eat there all the time,” he objected.

“I
like
going to the farm.”

“You do realize that it’s supposed to be me pushing you to go visit my mom and you
reluctantly
agreeing, not the reverse?” he asked. “You’re turning 21. It should be something special.”

“Maybe,” I suggested, “you can focus on making it
special
when we get home.”

Surprising no one, he liked that idea.

P
eter
, Brendan and Erin all join us that night at the farm, where Dorothy has made every food she knows I like. I don’t mention it to them, but it’s the first time anyone’s celebrated my birthday since I was 10, which makes even a small gathering feel a little overwhelming. I swallow hard and dig my nails into my hands to avoid tears when Dorothy comes out of the kitchen carrying a cake with my name on it, singing “Happy Birthday.” Sure, maybe I can cry now, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to start crying when I’m
happy
. Dorothy gives me another dress, and Will gives me my favorite gift ever—new racing flats.

“How did you know?” I ask. I hate the shoes the school provides, but it’s something I’ve never mentioned to him.

He laughs. “You scowled every time you put them on. It was hard to miss.”

Much later, after we’ve come home and celebrated in other ways, he lies, sated and sleepy while I trace small circles on his back. His back fascinates me, still tan and all muscle. I’ve seen guys pose in a gym and look less cut than he does at rest.

“We just moved in together,” he says out of nowhere, turning to face me, “and we’ve never actually been on a date.”

I shrug. “We’ve eaten in a restaurant together.”

“With my
mom
. Usually fighting.”

“It doesn’t bother me,” I say, studying him. “Does it bother you?”

He rises up on his forearm, lips brushing one temple, and then the other. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“You remember that dress you wore on Thanksgiving?” he asks. “I spent the entire meal imagining you in that dress on a date with Brendan and it made me crazy that it couldn’t be me. And now it can be.”

I smile at him. “I’ll put the dress on right now if it means that much to you.”

He grins. “It’s not just the dress. It’s also that you haven’t ever really dated—”

“I’ve been on dates.”

“With someone you
liked
?” he asks. “Someone you planned to keep seeing?”

“No,” I sigh.

“Then you should probably try it while you have the chance, Olivia,” he says softly, his mouth pressed to my ear, “because I’m going to be the last guy you ever date.”

I want to not smile at that but I can’t help myself. “The
last
, huh? Pretty sure of yourself.”

He rolls us over until I’m on my back and looms over me, clearly no longer
sleepy
. “Yes,” he says. “I’ve never been more sure about anything.”

A
nd I’m
sure about him too. But the very next day, when he tells me he’s going to the farm and doesn’t ask me to come with him, I grow a little less certain.

I sit up, pulling the sheet around me. The days leading to the move were crazy because I had so much catching up to do at school, which makes this only our second full day together. Does he already need
space
? It hurts.

Part of me, the old me, wants to say “Fine,
asshole
. Go.”

But the other part of me, the newer one, trusts him enough to ask the question. “You don’t want me to come with you?” I venture hesitantly.

“Yes, I do,” he says, sitting on the bed beside me. “But you can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m taking you out tonight and I want it to feel like a real date, not one where we’re in the bathroom at the same time while we get ready, and then end up having sex and never leaving.”

“Why?” I ask. “I like staying in with you.” It’s comfortable. It’s what I know.

“Because I’m wooing you.”

“I’m already wooed,” I say. “Take off those jeans and I’ll show you just how wooed I am.”

For a single second he glances at me, his resolve faltering a bit, but then he grabs his T-shirt and pulls it over his head. “I’ll pick you up at 5:30.”

I climb out of bed resignedly. “5:30? Isn’t that kind of early for a date?”

“Yeah,” he says with a grin, pulling me between his legs, “but I don’t think I can stay away longer than that.”

I lean my head on top of his. “Argh,” I groan. “Do we really have to?”

He laughs. “You’ve got to be the only female I’ve ever met who would argue about this. And wear a dress, okay? Maybe the one you wore on Thanksgiving?”

“Okay,” I say, feeling suddenly shy, which couldn’t make less sense. Not 20 minutes earlier he had his face buried between my legs but
this
I find awkward?

After he leaves, I go for a run, eager to try out my new racing flats, which are easily the nicest running shoes I’ve ever owned. Will and I still haven’t run together outside of team practices, and I’m not sure we ever will. Some transitions have been easy to make—being together, living together, sleeping together. But when I run I think he’ll still feel like my coach, someone judging me, someone I have to prove myself to. And given my temper and his, that seems like a recipe for disaster.

When I get back, I shower and straighten my hair. I’ve got a few hours to kill, so I go to the grocery store but have no clue what to buy. We eat at Dorothy’s a lot but when we don’t, Will actually
cooks
—I mean, cooks real things that don’t come in cellophane. He has shit like arugula in his refrigerator and some fancy salt that comes in a green box. Maybe I could convince him to bag this whole thing tonight and stay in, but what the hell would I even cook? I know how how to make garbage like tacos and spaghetti, which I’m guessing won’t fit the bill for Mr. Seared Ahi Tuna.

I give up and return to the apartment, putting on makeup for the first time since the banquet. I feel excited in a small way, but mostly I feel ridiculous. He knows I don’t look like this normally. He knows I couldn’t care less about food, aside from Dorothy’s pie. And we’ve now gone a full seven hours without sex, so I guarantee that when he walks in I won’t be thinking about dinner.

There’s a knock on the door just as I’m finishing up and when I open it, I find him there, freshly showered, in suit pants and a button-down shirt without a tie. I should be used to this by now—I’ve seen him dressed up before—but God he wears his clothes well.

He steps in, his eyes lingering on my mouth. “You’re wearing lipstick.”

“Is that bad?” I ask, stepping closer, sliding my hands up his arms, wanting very much to reach for that top button.

“No,” he groans. “It’s really, really good.” He pulls me closer, his mouth ghosting over mine, making my skin prickle as it might if I were chilled, or scared, but in the best possible way. I want more, but he puts his hands on my hips and removes himself carefully, like one of us might break. “We should go.”

“Will,” I sigh, “you don’t have to do this.”

“I don’t have to have a really good meal with my beautiful girlfriend?” he asks dryly. “Thanks for letting me off the hook.”

“We’re broke. We shouldn’t be going out to dinner.” The lease for the farm is a done deal, and Peter is covering Brendan’s tuition, but that doesn’t mean we’re flush. At the moment our only cash is my stipend and savings from the summer plus his last paycheck.

“Is that what this is about?” he asks.

“No,” I reply truthfully, though it should have occurred to me much sooner than it has. I’ve lived hand-to-mouth for years, and worrying about money is so ingrained that I can’t believe, for a moment, I forgot.

He smiles. “I was going to tell you over dinner, but I got a job today.”

“You did?” I gasp. “Doing what?”

His eyes are so blue right now they don’t seem real. “I’m going to lead small group excursions for a company in town.”

A smile spreads across my face. “You’re going to climb again.”

He reminds me, at this moment, of that picture in Dorothy’s room—he looks unencumbered and excited and
free
. “It won’t be anything major, but it’s something.”

I step up, wrapping my arms around his neck, pressing my mouth to his cheek. “It’s a big something, Will. You’re good at it and it makes you happy.”

His buries his nose in my hair. “
You
make me happy,” he says. “The rest is irrelevant. So tell me why you’re so desperate not to do this tonight.”

“I don’t know,” I sigh. “It’s just something I don’t have much experience with and I guess I don’t like feeling unsure about things.”

He stares at me for a second as if he thinks I’m joking, and then he starts to laugh, which I can’t say I appreciate. “So the same girl who threatened to feed Piersal his own balls and put another guy in the hospital is scared to go out to
eat
?”

I roll my eyes. “It sounds stupid when you put it like that.”

“That’s because it
is
stupid,” he replies.

I glare at him, and this makes him laugh as well. I really need to come up with a more effective way to convey anger.

“Do you trust me?” he asks. His face is earnest as he waits for my reply.

It’s a question I don’t even need to
contemplate
. I trust him more than anyone alive. More than I trust myself. “Yes.”

“Then come on,” he says, lacing his fingers through mine. “Let’s go eat.”

We drive into town and he parks beside a restaurant I’ve seen before but never dreamed I’d one day enter. It looks expensive, and I want to dig my heels in and refuse, but I bite my lip and take his hand instead.

We walk in the door, the warm air in the lobby whipping around us like a blanket, and I take everything in: the dark paneled walls, the white linen tablecloths already set with wine glasses, which shimmer under the glow of candlelight. Will squeezes my hand, knowing instinctively that my anxiety just grew by a mile.

The hostess is a girl about my age, maybe a little older, pretty and showing way too much cleavage. She sees us—or, I should say, she sees my
boyfriend
. She’s looking at him like he’s her winning lottery ticket. Will asks for a table and she gives him her widest smile, grabbing menus while she licks her lips and tugs her low-cut dress even lower.