Page 57 of Based on You

"Mind your business and take your heavy bag up to your room."

She grumbled something sassy under her breath that I couldn't catch. Then she looked at Violet, the corner of her mouth pulling up into a wicked smirk, and winked. Violet burst out laughing, a full, rich sound, unprepared for the teenage audacity, and Olivia's shoulders straightened in triumph as she marched up the front steps.

I watched her disappear inside, then looked back at Violet, who was still laughing, her hand clamped over her mouth.

"I'm sorry," I sighed. "She's being ridiculous today."

"I really don't mind." She took a breath, letting the laugh settle. "We've gotten really close, Olivia and me."

"I know that."

"I don't think you know how close." She looked at me, her chin dropping in confession. "She's been rooting for us. Hard. For a while now."

I looked at her, mildly stunned. "Has she, now."

"She's a very big shipper."

"And here I was, thinking she was a private, reserved person."

"Only about herself." Violet tilted her head, curious. "If she wanted us together that badly, why didn't you just make the move yourself?"

"Why didn't you?" I countered.

She opened her mouth to argue, then closed it.

"I made a move," I defended. "I leaned in. In the kitchen. You were the one who⁠—"

"Please." She held up one hand, her chin tipping up. "Are you ever going to stop bringing that kitchen moment up?"

"No. I'll never let you live it down."

She rolled her eyes and turned toward the stone steps. I grabbed her bag from the pavement beside mine and followed behind her.

The days that followed were good.

We commuted to the office together every morning and kept the rigid professional distance the executive floor demanded, a facade neither of us found hard to hold, though both of us found it occasionally, deeply inconvenient.

In the private elevator, she'd stand a little closer to me than before, that electric weight of being too aware of a shoulder brushing yours. In the hallway outside the forty-seventh floor, she'd hand me the afternoon briefing folder, her fingers brushing mine, and she'd just keep walking.

By midweek, she'd started leaving my afternoon coffee on the corner of my desk with a sticky note stating the time of my first afternoon call. She'd always done this, except the sticky notes were longer now, and they occasionally held a handwritten sentence that had nothing to do with the schedule.

I hadn't been this happy in a relationship since I was a reckless teenager, not in this specific, ungoverned, consuming way. I'd been fond of Lara. I'd been comfortable. I'd been content, a word I was only now understanding the real definition of, now that I had something to compare it against.

The weekend came, and I let myself sleep later than usual.

I came downstairs to find total chaos. Specifically, flour.

There was white flour over the dark counter, flour coating the marble island, a fine, powdery layer of it across the hardwood floor between the two. Marta sat calmly on a high stool near the large window with her arms crossed, just watching. She looked up when I walked in.

"They wanted to try something new," she explained, before I'd even asked.

I rounded the corner to assess the damage.

Violet and Olivia stood side by side at the kitchen island with their sleeves rolled up, staring down at a huge, uneven spread of raw dough between them. There was red tomato sauce splattered near the sink. There was a block of mozzarella that had been partially and violently demolished. There were at least four separate toppings haphazardly organized in bowls I didn't immediately identify.

Violet had a streak of flour across her jaw and dusted on her left sleeve, and she grinned at me with her messy hands hidden behind her back.

"We're making homemade pizza," Olivia announced, as if the disaster were obvious.