AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“How was your day off?” I asked Olivia.
“Magical. I went shopping before going down to the beach, where I saw some really hot military men running like it was straight out of a Top Gun scene.”
I laughed as I imagined Olivia calculating what the best way would be to fake something terrible happening to her so one of them would run over to help.
“That does sound magical.”
“How was yours?”
I debated telling her what exactly I had done, but part of me wanted to keep the visit with Tommy’s parents to just the two of us. Our relationship was about to be public enough for everyone to see. It didn’t feel like much to ask to keep a slice of us, the real us, to myself.
“It was relaxing,” I told her. “Tommy and I are going to a Red Cross event tonight.” I hesitated telling her about it, but I knew she would kill me if I had known I was going and she found out on social media again.
This entire fake relationship was so difficult for me. It was like I had thrown all of my normal tendencies out the window. If I had started dating some guy, I would have gone screaming to Olivia so the two of us could dissect everything I knew about him so far and spend a ridiculous amount of time searching social media to find out as much about him as we could. But with Tommy, it felt wrong doing any of that, like it was a slap to our relationship.
“You’re what?” Olivia turned completely in her seat to face me. The look on her face told me that she was about to grill me for every piece of information she could glean.
“He asked me to go with him.” Not technically a lie.
“Let me get this straight . . .” Olivia was still staring at me like I had told her I wanted to quit my job and move to the middle of the desert to sell tumbleweeds. “You are going to a black-tie event with Tommy Mikals? I thought you said it wasn’t serious!”
“I never said it wasn’t serious.” Olivia’s mouth dropped open.
“It’s serious?”
I shrugged in response, not trusting myself to sell the lie. If I couldn’t even lie to my best friend about this, how was I supposed to convince the entire world that I was in a relationship with Tommy?
Olivia leaned in closer to me and dropped her voice so no one around us could hear her. “Are you doing okay?”
I knew she wasn’t asking if I’d lost my mind with this whole situation, even though I was seriously questioning it. She was only checking in with me to make sure I was truly happy because this was the first guy since Luke that I had gone on a date with, fake or not.
“I am.” That was the truth.
Sure, I could be a nervous wreck at times around Tommy and wasn’t sure how to navigate being his girlfriend. But over the past week I’d become more comfortable with him and didn’t feel like I wanted to jump ship as quickly as possible. I’d call that progress.
“This all just seems like a lot.” Olivia’s eyes softened as she looked at me with concern. “Just over a week ago you were telling me that you didn’t want to risk your job by dating a player, and now you’re going to an event with him as his date?”
I cursed Monica as I tried to figure out how to navigate this conversation with my best friend. It was as if the Cougars’ PR team had thrown me and Tommy into the deep end without any life vests. People were going to start looking more closely at the two of us, and I was certain there would be more people questioning the validity of our relationship. Olivia knew I was a terrible liar, so the only thing I could do was give her pieces of the truth.
“The Cougars asked Tommy to do this event, and he asked me to go with him. This is all new, and I realize I’m probably way over my head. I didn’t expect the media to explode over all of this like it has and—”
“Maggie.” Olivia reached for my hand to silence me. “Who gives a shit about the media? All I care about is if you like him and that you’re happy.”
I didn’t deserve a friend like Olivia Thompson. No matter what I did—go through depressive episodes bad enough that I rarely left my apartment for weeks or threw her for a one-eighty and started dating the most eligible professional baseball player in the league—she continued to stand by my side with my best interests at heart.
“I do like him, Liv.” Between the intense way Tommy listened to everything I said to file it away for later, his dry humor that felt refreshing, or the undeniable electric pull that existed between us, I knew that was the truth.
“What has your mom said?” I wasn’t surprised that Olivia had asked about my mom. The two of them had bonded over their fierce protection of me, and she’d probably send her a text about me and Tommy after our conversation.
My mom had loved Olivia instantly when I brought her home after our game during our first season together. I hadn’t told Olivia about Luke yet, and as soon as she had walked into my parents’ home, her eyes had locked onto the photo of me and Luke on my parents’ mantel. My mom had given me a panicked look, trying to convey her apology with her eyes for having not thought about that. But in that moment, I realized I wasn’t terrified of telling Olivia the truth about what had happened to me. So I sat her down and told her the whole horrible story from start to finish. She held me when I cried, and since that day, she had been my bodyguard when it came to dating.
Dating Tommy had probably taken her by surprise because I hadn’t needed her for a pep talk or to tell me that I wasn’t selfish for moving on and being happy. The fact that I wasn’t expressing any feelings about disgracing Luke by dating someone else was probably exactly why Olivia was concerned about me.
“She told me she was happy I was putting myself back out there again.”
“I will second that statement.” Olivia reached over and squeezed my arm. “Can I help you get ready?”
My heart melted at how lucky I was to be Olivia’s friend. She was the most selfless person I knew, and at times I wondered if I deserved her. I often went radio silent, needing my alone time away from the world. But every time I would reemerge, Olivia was always there and understood why I hadn’t responded to her texts or calls. I still worried that eventually she would reach her limit with me.
