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I point to Gabriel, another new friend, working behind the cash register, and say, “Thank you, Oliver. I will pay you back.” Oliver waves me away and goes to settle up my bill.
“He’s a keeper, honey,” Sally whispers to me from the bar.
I sigh as I follow her gaze. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
Once he has paid for both my and Grant 2.0’s meals, Oliver takes my hand and guides me out of the restaurant, with me waving goodbye to my new friends and promising to come back and visit them. I settle into the front seat of Oliver’s car, leaning my head back and closing my eyes. This night has been a complete disaster.
“Lil? Are you sure you are OK? Tell me what happened.” As I fill Oliver in on the events of the night, including Grant walking out without saying goodbye, Oliver’s hand tightens on his steering wheel.
“Lilly, you shouldn’t be going out with guys like that,” he tells me like it is something I don’t know.
“I know that, Ol, but how will I know what a guy is going to be like until I meet him? This one seemed perfectly nice online. There were no indications that he was going to turn out to be a boring, bill-hopping possible kleptomaniac,” I end with a small smile.
Oliver doesn’t look amused. “You deserve so much better, Lil. You deserve to be with someone who will treat you right. Someone who is actually worthy of you.”
I stare at Oliver, knowing he doesn’t see that he is describing himself. “I am aware that I deserve better. And maybe someday I will get that,” I add in a soft, hope-filled voice. I turn my head away from Oliver to look out of the window, exhausted all of a sudden by everything that has just transpired, and notice the direction we are heading.
“Hey, where are we going?”
“I am taking you back to our house. I assume your house key was in your bag and you won’t be able to get into your apartment? And you shouldn’t be alone in that neighbourhood,” he adds under his breath, “after what you have been through tonight.” Not having the energy or the will to fight him, I give a small nod and settle in for the car ride home.
When we arrive at the Harlow house, I hoist myself out of the car, and teetering on my ridiculous shoes, I walk up the driveway, with Oliver holding my arm to steady me on the uneven surface.
“Amy will be home soon,” Oliver tells me as he opens the front door.
“Great,” I reply. “I think I need some girl talk.”
Oliver watches me from over his shoulder as we walk into the front door, while my sole focus now is to get out of this outfit and forget all about this terrible night.
“That took long enough,” a sharp voice cuts through the silence. Great. I look up to see Emma staring at me with disdain and shrink back against the wall.
“My fault, again,” I say with a little wave, feeling stupid. “Just a date gone wrong,” I add, hoping to garner her sympathy.
Emma gives me one final look of contempt and then ignores me, looking at Oliver with impatience.
“What took you so long? I’ve been here just waiting for you. We were supposed to spend the evening talking.”
I look at Oliver’s disgruntled expression and realise he left his evening with Emma to come and get me and, in my mind, let out a miserable groan.
“Once again,” I call out, my voice coming out louder than expected, “it was my fault. I kind of got mugged—well, sort of mugged, really, maybe just pickpocketed?” I ramble on. “And I didn’t have my phone or any money, so I called here looking for Amy, and Ollie here picked up and came to help me,” I finish, knowing that my tale of woe is not going to go over well with this audience.
“Oliver makes quite the habit of ‘helping’ you, Lilly,” she says—she got my name right!
“Are you completely incapable of looking after yourself?” she adds. Ouch, she’s so mean.
Before I can answer, Oliver snaps, “That’s enough, Emma! We’ll talk about this later.” He turns to look at me. “You’ve had a long night. Why don’t you rest in Amy’s room? She should be home any minute.”
I smile again at Oliver and cast an uncertain, wary look back at Emma, heading up the stairs. “Sorry again for ruining your night, guys. It won’t happen again.” I say this with a confidence I do not feel, knowing I will probably get myself into another situation that will require some sort of intervention again one day soon.
As I reach the top of the stairs and head for Amy’s room, I hear the muffled sounds of angry voices as Oliver and Emma move into the kitchen and out of earshot. I hope I haven’t gotten Oliver into too much trouble. I sit down on Amy’s bed, taking off the torture shoes, and lie back with a sigh. What a night.
When I open my eyes a little while later, Amy is lying next to me, looking at me with concern. “Oliver filled me in on what happened tonight, Lil. Are you OK?” she asks in her gentle nurse voice when she sees I am awake.
“I’m fine,” I say for what feels like the hundredth time tonight. “It is more mortifying than anything. Grant was such a loser; I should have left when he was almost an hour late.”
“An hour?” Amy exclaims in horror. “That’s terrible!”
“That’s not the worst of it,” I tell her, going on to share with her all the details, some of which I conveniently forgot to tell Oliver. “It was such a waste of time. And not only that, but I also managed to get Oliver into trouble with Emma.” I fill her in on what happened when we got home.
