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“Let me see?” Alex squinted at the tickets Olivia placed in her hand. “May 25—this Monday. Lucky.” Envy ate her up from inside.
Olivia pointed to the Club Monaco on the edge of Sloane Square. “Let’s head there and get you some jeans, maybe a dress.” She lowered her sunglasses over her eyes as they walked across the road. “You might want to tuck those tickets away somewhere safe.”
Alex scratched her temple, confused.
“In the cab, I got a text about my fundraising meeting on Monday. It will probably run late, so I won’t make it in time,” said Olivia. “Go in my place and take Tom with you. He could use a night at the theatre. Maybe it will remind him that his talent’s growing stale.”
Alex stopped in her tracks, her eyes growing misty. She grasped the tickets to her chest and crumpled Olivia in an impromptu hug. “You’re sure? You really can’t use them?”
Olivia raised her eyebrows at Alex’s embrace and pulled away, smoothing her dress. “Nope. Mustn’t let them go to waste.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Alex couldn’t stop beaming. She grinned all the way into Club Monaco, past the racks of khakis, jeans, and dresses. A play in forty-eight hours? Nothing else mattered. How bad can the world be when you have Royal Court tickets in your wallet?
The clerk at Club Monaco snipped off the tags from the jeans and the flowery blue blouse Alex purchased, so the yoga pants and Captain America t-shirt were dumped into one of her bulging carrier bags. In her new attire, she seemed to sprout up three inches—shoulders back, chin up—and she zipped about like Tinker Bell, interested in everything.
She followed Olivia into Hugo Boss and Whistles. One glance at a price tag hanging from a pretty beaded skirt in All Saints, and Alex swore her wallet flinched. Olivia, however, managed to buy several tops, two dresses, and a soft motorcycle jacket in white leather.
While ambling through the racks of bras and underwear in the Peter Jones department store, Alex decided to broach the subject of her friendship with Harry. Olivia seemed jovial and on the heels of her spur-of-the-moment generosity with the theatre tickets, the timing couldn’t be better.
“So tell me about uni in Atlanta.” Olivia beat her to it. She tilted her head to the side. “Harry said the two of you were inseparable.”
Alex let out a half-laugh, shaking her head. “I wouldn’t say we were inseparable. Our programs were in different parts of campus for the most part. I’d only see him if we planned to meet up.” Alex replayed her words in her head. Oops. That didn’t sound reassuring to a possessive girlfriend.
Olivia shoved the bra hangers along the rack two at a time, their plastic edges squealing in protest with each push. “Did you meet up a lot?” She wouldn’t look Alex in the eye.
“Once or twice a week. We both had heavy course loads, and I was doing a double major,” Alex’s hands grew clammy. “We studied together sometimes. That’s where my fondness for his sugary tea comes from. It kept me going into the night when I started to fade. You know what it’s like when you have a lot of ground to cover and only a few hours to do it? Studying and assignments owned me twenty-four-seven. A social life? What’s that like?”
Her breeziness didn’t crack Olivia’s intense facade. She pursed her perfect red lips and glared at the sexy push-up bras. Alex half-expected the lingerie and its promotional photo of model Cara Delevingne to spontaneously combust.
“Harry helped me through a heartbreaking time.” Alex rifled through a table of cotton bikini briefs.
She looked up through her bangs to gauge Olivia’s reaction.
There wasn’t one.
She slipped behind the table’s chest-high sign proclaiming Buy Two, Get the Third Free. “I missed my brother Robbie. He’s always been in my corner, a great listener. Harry filled that void. He kept my spirits up and told me not to drop out of college.” She picked at her cuticles. “If it wasn’t for him, I doubt I’d be here. I’m so grateful to Harry—to both of you—for letting me stay in the flat until I find something permanent.”
Olivia bit the inside of her cheek and looked away towards the hosiery. Alex’s stomach cramped, waiting for a response. Say something, anything.
The brunette remained silent. A toxic cloud of speechlessness filled the room. Suffocating, Alex burst out in a ramble. “Harry’s such a sweet, wonderful guy, and he loves you so much. He always talked about how he couldn’t wait to get back to London.”
Still nothing.
“He’s been a great friend…nothing more.” Why did she sound so defensive?
Olivia swallowed hard and took a step back. Alex’s worry-meter shot into the red.
“You’re right. He’s wonderful,” said Olivia. “Lots of women would love to have what I have with him. We’ve been together for four years, so I’ve seen plenty of girls try to steal him away, but that will never happen.”
She snatched two lace bras off their hangers and marched towards the customer service desk. She didn’t look back to see if Alex followed.
• • •
The girls stepped outside into the late afternoon warmth, but the air between Olivia and Alex held a chill. Alex didn’t know what more to say without shouting ‘I only slept with one guy in college and it wasn’t Harry!’ If Olivia’s freeze continued, those words might be her only ticket towards forgiveness—forgiveness for a fling that never happened.
Alex offered an olive branch as they walked away from Sloane Square. “Are you hungry? My treat as a thank you for today.”
Maybe the friendly Olivia last seen thirty-five minutes ago could be coaxed back with food. Some skinny girls get angry and weird when they’re famished. Alex tore the three-pound price tag off her new black sunglasses, waiting for an answer.
