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I didn’t want someone who wouldn’t stay faithful no matter the situation. In that, I was resolute. But I couldn’t help the immediate reaction, hard as I tried.
Aaron, who had moved onto the couch beside me, tightened his arms around me, supporting me as I crumpled in on myself. “I’m going to kill him,” he seethed.
“No,” I repeated, shaking my head and clearing the thoughts. What I’d said to Viv earlier still had merit. Oliver’s choices were his own, and it wasn’t up to me to put a chokehold on him to keep him for myself. “I need to get out of here. I won’t end the date, but I also don’t need to watch this.”
I extricated myself from Aaron’s arms, stepping over the spilled popcorn and discarded bowls as I rounded the couches and headed upstairs to bed. Our bed. The one he and Diego had crafted to house all of us during the storm.
I climbed onto the chair and over the divider, content to pretend, at least for a little while longer, that my heart was still whole.
Advantageous camera angles. That’s what I’d used to justify Zander and Nicoletta’s closeness to Viv. It had to be the same for Oliver, right? Perhaps Julie had something stuck in her hair. Maybe that was someone else entirely.
But, then again, what if it was an Occam’s razor-type situation—in which the simplest explanation was the correct one?
I buried my face in the pillow to muffle my groan. Viv was being so brave downstairs, and here I was, falling apart at the first hint of somethingmorebetween the two former lovers.
I was in this thing far deeper than I’d thought. I adored Oliver, and this reaction proved that the lust and like I’d been feeling had spread its tendrils over my heart, taking root as our connection blossomed.
There was a commotion at the door, and I lifted my face from the pillow. Popping up, I wiped the few errant tears that had fallen out of frustration. I found Ryan and Aaron shoving Diego into the room.
“What happened?” I asked in a hiccupped voice.
“He tried to end the date,” Ryan said. “We’ll kick Oliver’s ass when he gets home, but that wasn’t Diego’s call to make.”
The irony wasn’t lost on me that Ryan was standing up for my choices and respecting them.
His icy-blue eyes held mine, and he nodded just once. A signal that he, too, understood that he had fucked up and was trying to make it right.
“Thank you,” I told him and Aaron.
“Can I stay too?” Aaron asked.
“Get in here, you two.” I peeled the sheet away, and they climbed into bed, Diego on my right and Aaron on my left.
“You tried to end the date?” I asked.
Diego rubbed a hand over his brow. “Yeah. They said anyone could call to end them. I reacted, so you wouldn’t have to.”
I pulled his hand away, staring into his dark eyes. “Thank you for trying to stand up for me. But Oliver, and the two of you, are free to make whatever choices you want. I am not your keeper, but I want to keep you.”
It made sense in my head, but I was sure I sounded like a rambling mess.
“We want you to keep us, too,” Aaron said from behind me. “And you”—he punched Diego in the arm—“that was a ballsy move, but check with Sophie girl before you go off and try to white-knight her again.”
“Fair,” Diego said, rubbing his shoulder. He ran a hand along my jaw, his thumb skimming my bottom lip. “I’m sorry. It was a reflex. And, Aaron, I don’t think white-knight can be used as a verb.”
“Watch me. I’m also working on making BPE a thing.”
I laughed because he had explained his Big Peacock Energy campaign earlier, and I’d found it hilarious. “It’s okay. I’m glad they stopped you, though. It would have been a waste of money. And I’d rather hear from him and Julie what happened instead of trusting the producers not to fuck with things. They’ve been gunning for our relationship, and I won’t let them win if this was just another ploy by them.”
Between Aaron and Diego, I fell into a fitful sleep plagued with dreams of Oliver and Julie. In the dreamscape, I was sitting alone in my living room in LA, watching every moment of their relationship unfold on my TV.
It was one of the worst nights of my life.
CHAPTERTWENTY-NINE
Oliver
The house wassilent as Julie, Zander, Nicoletta, and I walked up the pathway from the lawn where the helicopter had dropped us off.
