by Lainey Davis
“Get your things and get out,” he says at last. “You’re fired.”
“What?” The word falls out of my mouth unintentionally, and I see a vein tick in Justin’s neck.
“I said you’re fucking fired, Olive. Get. Out.”
I’m proud of myself for not crying in front of him, or even when Emily hugs me in the hall as she hands me my bag and a note card with her cell number on it. I don’t start crying and shaking until I get out of the building. Losing my position was not even something I considered when I jumped into action while Tim was hurting. But now, faced with the reality of losing my work study job, I realize that I’m a third of the way into my senior year and have no way to cover costs. My scholarship depends on keeping this job.
Three years and change are about to have been wasted if I can’t figure out what the hell to do. Ok, I tell myself as I cry while I’m walking. We need to figure out a plan.
When I get back to my dorm, I see that Tia and Elyse are in their room with their door open, and I practically fall into their room, relieved to see people who care about me. “Oh,” I sob, as they spring up to hug me.
“Olive!” Tia shouts, rubbing my back. “What happened? Come here!” They pull me in and wrap me up tight and I tell them everything.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Bax
THWACK. I FEEL a sting on my leg as someone flicks me, and I crack open one eye as I’m lying on the table getting my deep tissue massage. “Kev, dude, if we’re going to be friends you have to stop fucking flicking me.” He interrupted me daydreaming about my night with Olive.
He stands next to the table looking exhausted, like he sat up all night. The hospital, I realize. “Oh shit,” I say, sitting up. “Hey, can we end a few minutes early.” I raise my eyebrows to the trainer who smiles and pats my leg.
“Sure,” she says. “Everything looks great, Bax.”
“Thank you,” I say, walking to the hall with Kevan, who proceeds to slump against the wall. “How’s Tim?”
“He’s home,” Kevan says. “Looped up on oxy. His family knows everything, by the way. It went about as well as he feared…”
I run my hands across my chin. “That fucking sucks, dude.” I think about how my family treats me like shit, too, and my mom in fact drove right out of my life forever. “Does he know this is on them, and not about anything he did?” I always try to remember Olive’s words to me about my parents making their own choices, about them not dealing with their own shit. It feels like the right thing to say.
Kevan shakes his head. “I don’t know. But listen, that’s not why I got you out of your massage.” He looks around the hall and lifts up on tip toes to see something in the training room office. “Olive got fired this morning,” he whispers. “Word is she’s pretty upset.”
I run directly to Olive’s dorm. This is such bullshit. I can’t even believe this is happening after the best night of my life. I have to sign in as a damn guest and wait for someone to escort me to Olive’s room since she’s evidently not in there to open the window and she locked it before the banquet last night.
“Are you Baxter?” A girl I’ve seen around Olive’s dorm stands in the hall. “I’m Tia,” she says. She nods her head at the doorman. “He’s with me.” I walk over to her and she takes my arm. “Olive’s pretty torn up,” she says. “But she keeps pausing to apologize about my clothes getting ruined. Seriously, tell her to stop worrying about the clothes, ok?”
I smile. I like this girl already. When we get down the hall I see Olive curled up on a bed in their room across the hall from her own. “Hey,” I say, crouching down beside her. “It’s going to be ok, baby. We’re going to fix this, ok?”
“Oh, Bax,” she sobs. I haven’t seen her this upset in years. Not since her huge fight with her parents when they tried to prevent her from coming to school in the first place.
“Hey,” I tell her, scooping her off the bed and into my lap. I just keep repeating the only truth I know. “We’re going to fix this. You’re going to be ok, because I love you and I’m not going to let anything happen to you, all right?”
I feel her nodding and I let her cry for a bit. Tia and Elyse are staring at us with wide eyes, like this is some breaking news. Whatever. I know they knew I loved Olive this whole time. Her breathing slows after awhile and I look down. “I think she fell asleep,” I whisper to the girls. “I’m just going to take her across the hall.”
They nod and help me get the door open. I carry Olive to the couch and sink into it with her on top of me. I run my fingers through Olive’s hair as she sleeps. I should be exhausted after everything that’s happened, but I feel a sense of calm.
It felt like the biggest risk of my life and simultaneously the easiest thing I ever did when I kissed Olive in that shower, when I told her I love her.
I spent so many years feeling scared of letting her know how I felt. So long worried that making this leap would mean the beginning of the end of having someone I can rely on. I guess it might be too early to know that things are going to be all right, but her getting fired? This is just going to be a blip.
I wish I knew what I could do to fix it, though, because I know Olive being here at college is tied to that job—she got her tuition paid for partly from a federal work study program. I never had to learn anything about that shit because me and all the guys are here on a full ride.
She’s really out, which makes sense because I fucked the hell out of her last night after we had a huge ordeal. I smile, happy I wore her out enough that she can get some sleep.
I lean my head back on the couch and shift Olive so I can reach my phone in my pants pocket. Keeping her tucked in one arm, I scroll through my contacts until I get an idea.
“Finnegan,” I whisper into my the phone when he picks up. “Weren’t you banging some chick who worked in the financial aid office?”
“Shouldn’t you be here in the weight room?” He grunts and I can tell he’s trying to lift while he talks to me.
“Something came up. But listen. I need you to help me out. We gotta find Olive another work study job.”
I hear the sound of weights hitting the floor. “Doesn’t she already stretch out the fencing team?”
“Swimmers, dude. But she got fired today.”
Olive stirs and I rub my hand along her jaw. God, this feels so right. I can’t believe I haven’t just been doing this all the years I felt the urge. I convince Finnegan to send me his girl’s number and, working my other hand out from beneath Olive, I start to put together the most important text introduction of my entire life.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Bax
OLIVE SLEEPS ON my lap for a few hours and when she finally stirs, I reach down and greet her with a kiss. It just feels so right to press my lips against hers and let her know she’s my everything. “I love you,” I tell her.
“Even though I’m penniless and will probably have to drop out?”
“Hey, Livvy, you can’t talk that way. We’re going to figure out something, ok?”
She shakes her head and stretches. “I’m sorry. I love you, but I just need, like, a few days to wallow about this.”
Olive never wallows. To an outsider, it might seem like hiding in the forsythia bush in the backyard was her burying her head in the proverbial sand, but I think it’s amazing that Olive found that escape, a way to get away from her parents screaming. She definitely used her time in there to create solutions for me. Helping her find a new job is the least I can do.
I open my mouth to tell her about the text I was sending with Finnegan’s girl Leslie, but I’m interrupted by a rap on Olive’s window. “What the hell?”
I look over my shoulder and see Kevan and Tim standing outside smiling and waving. Olive raises an eyebrow and gets up to open the window. “Hey? Tim, should you be up and around?”
Kevan drops an arm around Tim’s shoulder. “He’s great. Got him on the good pain meds. Let us in?”
I open the window
and lean out to give Kevan a hand, but he swats my arm away. “Dude. Tim had a dislocated shoulder. He can’t climb through the fucking window. I meant meet us at the front door.”
Kev shakes his head at me and starts walking around the building. Olive giggles and heads down the hall to get them. I guess it’s at least good to see her mood lighten. I fiddle around with her remote while I wait for them all to get back. It’s a tight squeeze with 2 football players and a lanky swimmer in Olive’s dorm room.
I sit back and wait for Kev to tell us what the hell he’s doing here, which he proceeds to do, but not until he drops a kiss on Tim’s cheek. The intimacy of the kiss makes me blush, I’m not going to lie. Kev’s love for Tim is so palpable. I can just feel it, and I reach for Olive as if by reflex, needing to be in contact with her.
Kevan says, “We wanted to thank you again, Olive. The doctor said moving fast like that, you prevented Tim from having to have surgery.”
Tim nods. “You protected my rotator cuff. I might even be doing the butterfly by spring semester if I push it in PT.”
Olive’s smile brightens her whole face, and I reach over to tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear so I can see her glowing. She should be basking in this happiness. Not sad that some dick-wad on a power trip yelled at her. “You should tell all this shit to Olive’s former boss,” I mutter, squeezing Olive’s leg in support.
Kev whips his head my way. “What do you think we’ve been doing this afternoon?”
Tim nods. “It’s true. First stop I made after I got discharged. I told everyone who would listen—Emily says hey, by the way, Olive.” He takes a swig of water and then struggles to get the cap back on his water bottle one-handed. Kevan reaches for it and closes it for him. “Anyway, Justin was a total jerk to me and I didn’t want to stick around and deal with him today, but I wanted to let you know I’m doing all that I can for you, Olive, to get you back in there.”
Olive’s eyes well up with tears and she grabs for his hand. Gently, I guess. “You have so much on your plate, Tim. You don’t have to worry about me. Tell me what happened with your family?”
Kevin’s jaw tightens while Tim tells us about his dad yelling a bunch of unpleasant, backwards shit, but Tim’s been texting with his mom and sister. “I think it’ll be ok, eventually,” he says. “Honestly, my mom says she sort of knew but it scared her.” Kevan tells us that his mom actually called Tim’s mom, and it sounds like that was helpful since Kev and his family are literal poster children for happiness.
“Anyway,” I say, clearing my throat. “What I was going to say was Finnegan and I might have a solution for you, Olive.”
“Really? Because Justin hates you almost as much as he hates me.”
“Fuck that guy. No, I think I got you another work study gig. Still in the athletic department, even.”
Olive’s eyes widen and I rub a thumb along her knuckles. “I mean, it’s not anything really using your skills like the training room, but Fin’s girl Leslie says the pay is the same. You’d be in the laundry room…”
I watch Olive’s face work through a series of emotions. Tim coughs. “The laundry room?” She nods her head and starts to whisper. “Eye on the prize, right? I can stay in school at least. Right?”
“Right, baby.” I drop a kiss on her forehead and wonder if Kevan can feel me loving on her, if that shit makes him uncomfortable, but I get the strong sense that he doesn’t give a shit because he’s rubbing Tim’s leg.
Tim shakes his head. “No. That’s ridiculous. Olive cannot fold sweat towels. I’m going to fix this, Olive, I promise. This is my fuck up. If I’d just been open about myself years ago, this would never have happened…”
“Hey,” I interrupt. “First of all, nobody in this room can fault you for not being honest and open. Look at me and Olive. She wouldn’t have been at that banquet with you if I’d been honest with her sooner, right?” Tim rolls his eyes. “And second, I appreciate you wanting to help. I do. But I’m going to take care of my girl. There’s no reason she can’t enroll in the graduate program she’s looking at while she folds towels. Right?” Kevan’s eyes go wide. Olive stiffens a bit. “Babe?”
She swallows and shakes her head. “I just don’t see a way, Bax. Without a recommendation from Justin, with getting fired…no references…what program would take me?”
The air is heavy and quiet for a few minutes until Kevan clears his throat and declares it time for him to get Tim home for ice and stim.
“Gross, Kev,” I say, flicking him. He pulls me in for a hug and they take off down the hall.
I eye up the ladder to Olive’s loft bed and I know there’s no way in hell my ass is getting up there. “Come on,” I say to her. “You’re sleeping at my place.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Olive
BAX AND I walk to his suite hand in hand, him carrying my overnight bag. This feels so much the same as before, and yet so different. There’s a huge weight lifted, even though my life is crashing down right now. I told Bax I love him. He loves me back. He found me a replacement job…even if it does kind of suck. I can never say that out loud to him.
I sigh and lean my head against his shoulder. I’ll fold towels for a few months if I need to. I can finish my degree. Who knows? Maybe I can get a job in a clinic or something and put off grad school for a year. That will give me more time to figure out where Bax gets drafted anyway. After the game he had this week, it seems pretty certain he will go in the first round. I heard Scotty and Coach talking about it.
“I love that you found me a new job,” I tell him, kissing his shoulder. We get to Bax’s suite and he waves at his roommates, who all sort of grunt without turning away from their video game. Bax tugs me into his room and, shutting the door, pulls me into his arms.
“I’ll do anything to keep you by my side,” he says, kissing my neck.
“That feels really nice.”
“Which part?” He asks, kissing again, dragging his tongue up my throat.
I let my hands explore his shoulders, tickling down his chest. “All of it,” I tell him. “Knowing you care. Feeling your kisses. All of it.”
“I want you to feel all my kisses,” he tells me, and warmth blooms throughout my body, pulsing in my center as he tugs me closer.
I stretch up to meet his mouth with mine, groaning into his kiss. Everything about last night was so perfect. Even if I have a tinge of soreness today, I know it will fade and Bax will make me forget it by delivering waves of pleasure again. “I want to feel all of you,” I tell him. “I want to figure out my favorite way to be close to you.”
He smiles and rubs his stubble against my cheek. “I’ve got some ideas to test out,” he says, and for the next few hours, we work on some experiments.
My alarm goes off at the same time as Baxter’s, but I realize I don’t actually need to be up at this hour. I am not going to the training room today. I’m not going to stretch anyone’s sore muscles, tape any ankles, or heal anyone’s injuries. I untangle my limbs from Baxter’s and try to roll to the side of his bed.
He tugs me back closer. “Oh no you don’t,” he says, spinning me to face him. I see his brown eyes twinkle in the morning light. “No feeling sorry for yourself today.”
“You said I could have a day…”
“I don’t remember agreeing to that,” he says, swatting my back side. I yelp from the sting of his palm, and then I moan when he starts to rub the spot he smacked. “Mmm,” he says. “I wish I had time.” He crawls under the covers and bites me on the ass, making me shriek. “I gotta get to the weight room, Livvy. But I’m marking this spot for later so I can pick up where we left off.”
I hear someone pound on the door. “Morgan,” Scotty yells. “Get your shit together. Finnegan’s driving in five.”
Baxter kisses me one more time and springs up, pulling on sweats and a pair of sneakers from his closet. “I’ll find you later, ok?” I nod. “Leslie is supposed to call you today from financial aid. Be read
y.”
I smile again, watching him walk away. Eventually, I get up and make myself a coffee in Baxter’s kitchen before heading to class. My phone rings, and I start to think that Leslie is pretty damn efficient to be calling before nine on a Monday, but when I look at my phone, I see an out of state number.
“Hello?”
“Olive Hampton? Bradford Clark. We met at the athletic banquet.”
Bradford Clark? I rack my brains and come up empty. I’m about to mutter some excuse, when he carries on. “I know there was some excitement there toward the end. That’s what I’m calling about. I just spoke with Tim Peterson.”
Bradford is the kinesiology professor from Ann Arbor. I remember meeting him at the banquet, before everything erupted. “I’m sorry I didn’t have a chance to email, sir…”
“Well, from the sound of things, you’ve been a busy lady,” he says. “Look, I won’t keep you from class. I just wanted to let you know that I’ve got my eye on you. Anyone who can pull off a Boss-Holzach Matter technique in heels at a banquet is someone I want in my program.”
“I, um…I don’t know what to say,” I manage to mutter as my insides swirl with possibilities.
“I’ve known the Peterson family for a long time,” he continues. “Tim’s dad and I go way back.” He pauses, and I wonder if he’s aware of Tim’s falling out with his family after the events of this past weekend. “Anyway, between this hero move and your excellent work getting Tim into butterfly shape after the back spasms, I think it’s safe to say we have room for you. Have you done much work with baseball?”
“Baseball?” This is all moving so quickly. I can’t quite keep up and I feel like I should be taking notes. Bradford explains that he’s going to be the principal investigator on a shoulder study for the pitchers on the top-ranked Ann Arbor baseball team as soon as his grant comes through, which should be next fall. “It’ll be good to have my research team in place,” he says. “Have you applied for our program yet?”
