“Yo, sorry I’m late!”
He looks up as Stella lurches forward to greet Oli, almost yanking his arm out. “Um. Why the hell are you blond?”
Their stylists bleached Oli’s hair platinum blond when the band was formed and continued to do it for years, but after they split up, Oli let his hair grow back out to its natural light brown color.
“Good to see you too, man,” Oli says, laughing as he bends down to scratch Stella behind her ears.
Trevor stands, grabbing Oli’s chocolate peanut butter concoction which is more dessert than drink and passing it to him. “No, but really,” he says as they head automatically for their usual trail.
Not that they get to do this that often. Even though Oli lives in L.A., his music career—as Oli Mak now—is going strong, so he’s not always around.
Oli takes a sip of his smoothie before he says, “I know, total throwback, right? But I felt like a change.” At Trevor’s skeptical look, he adds, “All right, so maybe Megan and I were watching some old concert footage, and she may have admitted she had a little fangirl crush on me with the platinum hair before we ever met.”
“Ah, I see.”
Oli met his fiancé, a former child actress turned independent filmmaker, when she directed one of his music videos, and he promptly fell head over heels for her. Well, that’s the story he goes with, at least. He conveniently likes to leave out the fact that when he was younger, he was obsessed with her on her Disney showMissy & Molly, and that was why he sought her out to do the music video.
Trevor pulls back a bit on Stella’s leash because she’s getting too far ahead of them. She’ll soon wear herself out and fall into step beside him. “So how is Megan?”
“Actually…” Oli turns his head toward him as they walk, a grin spreading across his face. “She’s pregnant!”
“No way! Congratulations, dude, that’s awesome!”
“Thanks. I’m terrified, but also super excited. I’ve been dying to tell you, but I was kind of worried about it, honestly.”
Trevor frowns. “Why would you be worried?”
Oli tries to shrug off the question, but when Trevor pauses his step and continues to stare at him, he says, “Come on. I didn’t want to make you think of, uh,that.”
Oh.
Yeah.
A young couple sidesteps around them, so Trevor pulls Oli off to the side of the path where they’re out of the way. Stella whines but comes to wait beside them. “Oli. It’s fine. You know that wasn’t…”
He doesn’t want to finish that sentence. Doesn’t want to relive him and Sierra and their whole ugly mess. And he doesn’t need to, because Oli’s one of the only people who knows the truth about it.
“I know,” Oli says. “But the situation still suckedfor you.”
That’s an understatement if he’s ever heard one. But Oli’s his friend—one of the only real ones he has left—so it’s easy to be happy for him. Oli’s always been everyone else’s biggest cheerleader.
“Yeah, it sucked,” Trevor says. “But you shouldn’t be afraid to share good news with me just because my life is a joke.”
“It’s not a joke.”
“Sure feels like it.” He doesn’t want the pitying look Oli gives him, so he shakes his head and steps back onto the path to resume walking. “Anyway, does this mean you’ll finally get married? You’ve been engaged, what? Like a year and a half already?”
“You know we haven’t had time to plan a wedding. But yeah, actually. We’re working on it now.”
“That’s great. I’m happy for you guys. You deserve to have your perfect wedding with your perfect bride.”
Oli takes a long pull of his smoothie, then clears his throat. “Thanks, but that’s something else I was nervous about telling you.”
“Why? I said—”
“No, I know,” Oli cuts him off. He slows down his pace as he says, “But you realize I’m going to want everyone there, right? It would feel weird for all of you not to be.”
“All of…”
