I raise one eyebrow. “A smutty audiobook?” I tease.
Olivia’s forehead wrinkles for a split second, so fast I almost miss it. Then she’s all smiles, like a switch has flipped somewhere on her face. She tosses her head, swishing her ponytail from side to side.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” she answers with a flirty giggle.
So,nota smutty audiobook, then. But she wants me to think it is, and I would have if I didn’t know her so well, even after all these years.
It’s embarrassing, and honestly concerning, how easily I’ve fallen back into reading Olivia’s every expression. After spending most of high school cataloging and interpreting each look, noting every emotion, even the ones she tried to hide, I became an expert in Olivia.
She’s changed, of course, in the five years since then. Her hair is longer and lighter, her face more angular. She’s sunken deeper into the persona she cultivated in high school, the one I associate with the name she prefers—Delaney: athletic, shallow party girl who takes nothing seriously unless she’s on the pitch. Too cool to care—about her grades, about her future outside of soccer, or about the herd of guys she strung along.
I always knew better. The front she put up at school faded away when she was at our house hanging out with Annie and, by default, me. I may have been one of the many guys at school in love with Olivia Delaney, but I had a sense of satisfaction knowing I was theonlyguy at school who knew who she really was behind the facade.
Not anymore, though. Her facial expressions and body language may have stayed the same, or close enough that I can still decode them, but I’m not her safe space like I once was. I can tell she’s hiding something with that audiobook, but five years ago I would have known what, because she would have told me, and we’d probably be listening to it together.
I steer us back to safe conversation as we drive to town. “How are your parents doing? Are they enjoying being empty nesters?”
Her cheeks blaze again. “They’re doing great, but I’m still at the nest, so it’s not quite empty yet.”
Okay, maybe that topic of conversation isn’t as safe as I thought. “After the summer, I’m moving back in with my parents, too,” I tell her.
She glances at me quickly before turning her eyes back to the road. “Really? Why?”
“The school I’m going to this fall is actually right on the outskirts of our neighborhood. It didn’t make sense to get my own place and pay rent when they already have space for me so close to school.”
She bobs her head up and down. “Itisa cost savings.”
We fall into an awkward silence, which is unusual for us. Even this week, with all the weirdness of our past haunting us, conversation has come easily. I don’t know if it’s the close quarters of being in the car together or what.
Iamacutely aware that I’m sitting less than two feet away from Olivia, and it feels strangely intimate. Maybe it’s because the smell of her shampoo—a mixture of rosemary and mint—is so strong I can imagine what it would be like to bury my face in her hair, to brush my lips across the skin on her neck, to gaze deeply into her blazing green eyes—
“Stop staring at me,” Olivia orders.
I abruptly turn my head away, looking out the passenger-side window instead. “Sorry,” I mutter. “I wasn’t staring at you. I was zoned out.”
Olivia smirks knowingly. “Uh-huh.”
Soon the pastures outside my window shift into gas stations and restaurants as we drive into town. Olivia pulls into a spot in the shopping center parking lot, and we head into the store.
She makes a beeline for the craft section—four whole aisles of various paints, beads, fabric, buttons, ribbons, and glue. I have no idea where to start.
“So what’s the plan?” I ask Olivia.
“Okay, so I already found a good stick. It’s about a foot long with plenty of room for decoration. We need supplies. I was thinking bedazzled, maybe with some cute ribbons?” She puts her hand on her chin as she assesses the options in front of us.
Forty minutes later, I’m carrying a basket stuffed with rhinestones, ribbons in Camp Prairie Star colors, paints and paintbrushes, and a hot glue gun. She has a vision, she says.
“Why did you need me here, again?” I ask, though I’m not at all disappointed to be spending time with Olivia.
She levels a glare. “Your stellar company, of course,” she deadpans.
I laugh. “Glad I could help.”
As we walk toward the front of the store to check out, we pass the women’s clothing section. Right out front along the aisle are a collection of colorful muumuus and bathrobes. I stop in my tracks and step toward the display, setting the basket down at my feet.
I pull out a silky orange-and-yellow nightgown with an obnoxious pineapple pattern in the largest size available.
“Gage,” Olivia hisses, but I’m already tugging the garment on over my clothes.
