by Camryn Eyde
“Not really,” I said.
“Why not?”
“It never came up.”
We were silent for a moment. Olivia passed me the sandwich and I sneered at it. Wholemeal bread with what looked like too much green stuff between it. “What is that?”
“A salad sandwich.”
“It looks worse that whatever that is,” I said, pointing at the goop in the bowl.
“It’s lettuce, sprouts and egg. It’s good for you.”
I grimaced.
“Fine. Give it back. Go hungry.”
“No.” I clutched the clear plastic container to my chest and my stomach growled.
Olivia shook her head at me and excused herself to get the discharge papers the nurse said she’d have ready for her.
“Do you two have anything in common?”
“I guess so.” Participating in fraudulent relationships came to mind.
“Would you mind if I stayed with you while I’m here?”
“I don’t mind at all. I’m sure Olivia won’t either.”
“Won’t mind what?” Olivia asked, returning with a form.
“If I stay with you while I’m in town?” Taylor said.
Olivia shrugged. “That’s fine. You can have the spare room.”
Spare room? What spare room? “Huh?”
“You’re with me so I can continue to monitor you,” Olivia said. Taylor sniggered and earned herself a glare. “For complications,” she added.
Taylor kept sniggering anyway.
Olivia left Taylor and I alone after that. She told us she needed to collect groceries and do a load of washing. Knowing she shopped yesterday and did her laundry then, I assumed she was readying the apartment to give Taylor the spare room. When I was released from hospital that evening, I was proved right.
Olivia, who had wrapped her arm around my waist and left it there since leaving my hospital bed, guided me into her room. I discovered a great deal of my personal items in the room, and some of my clothes crammed into the closet. Would it continue to look like this when Taylor returned home?
Olivia settled me into the double bed and kissed my forehead.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
Olivia smiled. She had done that a lot this past twenty-four hours. “You’re welcome.”
Taylor, who had been hovering in the doorway, left. Since we left the hospital, she’d become a little weird and quiet. “Is it just me, or does Taylor look, I don’t know, bothered or something?”
Olivia’s smile abruptly vanished and she walked out of the room without a word.
“Was it something I said?”
It took another day before I was able to get out of bed and gingerly walk around. Olivia had cited an overload of studying she needed to do at the library, and had left Taylor and I alone for a considerable part of the day. She had even slept on the couch the night before. Where I once craved the company of Taylor, I couldn’t help but feel a little antsy that Olivia had abandoned me during my recovery. I mean, aren’t we supposed to be together now? For real. I was confused.
“Why didn’t you tell me about Kara?”
“Umm…” I shrugged, not knowing how to answer that. Taylor huffed and took her dinner plate to the kitchen. It dawned on me that that must be why she seemed so snippy. We told each other everything, with the exception of her sleeping with Charli, so me not telling her something big about having a girlfriend, twice, must have been gnawing at her. “I’m sorry,” I said when she returned and fell into the sofa beside me.
“For what?”
“Not telling you about Kara.”
Taylor sniffed and shifted in her chair. “Yeah…well…I figured it was something you should have mentioned.”
“I know.” Sighing, I said, “I was…clueless. I don’t know how this dating stuff works. Olivia said she’s been flirting with me all year, but honestly, I had no idea.”
“Olivia said so?”
I scratched at my head before nodding. “Yeah. Kara has been interested since New Year, and Olivia noticed.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me about this woman?”
“Umm…”
Taylor huffed. “I could have helped you figure it out. I mean, that’s what best friends are for, isn’t it?”
“Yes?”
“Exactly. I feel like I barely know you at the moment. You have women flirting with you, Olivia looking after you, and me, well, I have no idea what my role is anymore.”
I knitted my eyebrows together. Taylor thought I had superseded her with Olivia? This was why she was snippy? I let out a breath of relief. She was jealous again, but for an entirely different reason. “I love you.”
She pursed her lips and sniffed.
“I’ve known you since birth. You know all my secrets. You’re my best friend and you’re important to my life. Without you, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t have met Olivia, who, by the way, is pissed off at me for reasons I don’t understand.”
“What do you mean, pissed off?”
I shrugged and winced as the movement made my stomach pull. “I said you looked bothered last night and she up and stormed off. What’s that about?”
Taylor narrowed her eyes. “Bothered?”
“Yeah. You looked kinda jealous, I guess.”
“And you said that to Olivia after just having some weird conversation about dating each other? And, not to mention, after your ridiculous pretend relationship designed to make me jealous?”
“Umm.”
Taylor shook her head and started to laugh at me. “For someone that’s never been in a relationship before, you do a stunning job at making it look like a soap opera.”
I grimaced. “Thank you.”
“Idiot.”
I pouted at that.
“You can figure your relationship problems out all on your own.”
My face fell.
Taylor relaxed into the chair and said, “For what it’s worth, I think you two make a good, if odd, couple. I’m happy for you. I hope you realize what you’ve got there and stop crushing on other people, or pretending to crush on other people.”
“Yeah, me too.”
Taylor leaned over and kissed my cheek. “I’m going to go wash up.”
“Okay.” Leaning back into the sofa, I woke up there several hours later with a groan. I hadn’t meant to fall asleep.
“You’re awake.”
I blinked and twisted my head. Olivia was sitting at her desk. “Hi. I didn’t hear you come in.”
“You were snoring, so I’m not surprised.”
Gingerly, I sat up. “Where’s Taylor?”
“Bed,” Olivia said with a huff.
“What time is it?”
“Midnight.”
I frowned and stood from the sofa. “Why are you still up?”
Olivia shrugged. “You were sleeping in my spot.”
“Your spot?” She didn’t answer. Shuffling over, I put a hand on her shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go to bed.”
“Go ahead.”
“No, you’re coming, too.”
Olivia stood and confronted me with a hiss. “Why? So we can make Taylor jealous in the morning? Are we leaving the door open so she can see us spooning?”
“What? No.”
Olivia bared her teeth at me making me wonder what the hell I’d done wrong this time. I racked my brain for ideas and came up empty. Grabbing her by the elbow, I shuffled us to the bedroom and shut the door.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked.
“I’m tired of being a pawn in your twisted little game.”
“A pawn in what game?”
“I think you missed your calling, your acting skills back at the hospital were phenomenal. An Oscar-winning performance.”
“Performance? I wasn’t performing.”
Olivia crossed her arms and glared at me. “So your comment about how Taylor looked bothered when we returned to the apartment was what? You not tryin
g to win her affections again?”
“What?” I played the moment over again as well as the conversation with Taylor. I gasped. Taylor was right, I’m an idiot. “No. Taylor and I are friends. She was pissed I hadn’t told her about your best buddy, Kara, and she thought I was replacing her. I wasn’t lying at the hospital. I want to be your girlfriend.” A shiver of excitement ran through me at stating those words so boldly. Sighing, I said on the outgoing air, “I really like you. I think.” Olivia rolled her eyes so I scowled at her. “I don’t really know what it is I feel, but it’s new, it’s scary, and kind of exciting.”
Olivia narrowed her eyes at me before relaxing her posture. “So this is real?”
I nodded.
“Huh,” she said, contemplating the notion.
“Do you…” I swallowed, suddenly unsure. “Still like me back? Or something?”
Olivia huffed. “Against my better judgment, yes.”
I grinned.
“Don’t look so smug.”
I scoffed a little too hard, and put my hand protectively over my incisions. “Says you. You looked like the cat that got the cream in the bar that night. Damn, that dress…” I trailed off shaking my head.
“I was simply trying to prove a point.”
“What point?”
“This one,” she said, cradling my cheeks gently and pulling me in for a kiss. Sighing as our mouths touched, she imparted gentle kisses on my lips.
“That’s a good point,” I said quietly as she pulled away to rest her forehead against mine.
She laughed softly and shook her head against mine. “This is such a bad idea.”
So true.
Chapter Ten
I had a medical note that excused me from Monday’s classes, and Taylor and I spent the day wisely. We had a Sandra Bullock movie marathon. I should have been studying, considering I’d lost my weekend to hospital and bedroom confinement, but since Taylor was leaving the next the morning, I figured Olivia would make me catch up.
I smiled. Since sharing that kiss last night, I’d felt giddy. I woke to Olivia bustling about the room getting ready for school. I was saddened to miss how she woke. Did we cuddle? Did she drool in her sleep? Did she snore? Hell. Did I snore?
“What are you panicking about?” Olivia asked, pausing in her clothes gathering task when she noticed I was awake.
“Snoring. Did I?”
Olivia smiled. “No, you didn’t.”
I sighed a breath of relief.
“You do fidget a lot.”
“You try and get comfortable sleeping on your back. I prefer my side.”
“I prefer my back.”
I smiled. That meant I got to cuddle up against her, head resting on her shoulder, arm wrapped around her waist, her neck just there to kiss. I stopped my internal rambling and tried to look innocent.
“Now what?” Olivia asked, narrowing her eyes at me suspiciously.
“Nothing.”
“Hmm.”
Deciding against interrogating me, she got ready for school with practiced efficiency and left, leaving me to lay in for a little longer.
“On a scale of one to ten, how attractive do you think she is?” Taylor asked me through a mouthful of popcorn deep into The Proposal.
I looked at Sandra Bullock and bit my lip. “Eight. You?”
“Nine and a half.”
“What about Betty White?”
“Oh, definitely a ten. Anyone that looks that good at that age earns top points in my book.”
Taylor nodded. “True. And Olivia?”
“Eleven.”
Taylor chuckled. “You’ve got it bad, haven’t you?”
I sighed. “Very.”
Just how bad I had it for Olivia proved itself after Taylor left the next day. After waving her off at the bus stop, Olivia and I walked to school together. She had decided to chaperone my recovering body to school just in case. Knowing she had taken time out of her precise schedule to escort me made my stomach feel gooey and warm. It was the first time we had walked together to classes. Olivia liked to arrive fifteen minutes before classes started, and I often ran in at the last minute. I couldn’t stop smiling that she was beside me, or wondering whether I should hold her hand or not.
“What is it?” Olivia asked me after we crossed the busiest road between us and Harvard Medical.
“What is what?”
“You keep looking at me strangely. It’s making me uncomfortable.”
“Oh. Sorry.” My happy bubble popped and I shifted away from her a little.
“Are you feeling okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine. More than fine, actually.” I scratched at my neck.
Olivia stopped and raised an eyebrow at me. “Then what’s making you act stranger than usual?”
I shifted my bag on my shoulder and shrugged casually. “I’m not strange.”
“Hmm,” Olivia said after a moment before she continued walking.
I stopped looking at her hand and wondering how warm it would feel in mine, and instead watched the world go by. A few minutes later, we walked into the auditorium and I followed Olivia to her seat.
“What are you doing?” she asked me with a frown as I sat beside her.
“Umm…getting ready for the lecture?”
“I prefer to sit alone.”
“Seriously?” What happened to the like stuff and the girlfriend agreement?
Olivia gave me a smile and took my hand, giving it a squeeze. “I’m sorry, but you distract me.”
“Oh.” I put my best wounded puppy look on my face.
“Nice try,” she said, shaking her head at me. “Now scoot. Dr. Deakins is about to start.”
Pouting and muttering under my breath, I moved out of her row and went to my usual chair. Kara glared at me as I passed her. I gave her a little finger wave. There was nothing wrong with being friendly, was there? Kara relaxed and shot me a tight-lipped smile. I noticed Olivia’s stern look before I sat in my seat. I blew her a kiss before tuning in on Dr. Deakins’ presentation on cellular, molecular and biochemical processes in the respiratory system. The morning flew past in a flurry of case studies and discussions.
“Lunch?” I asked Olivia as I caught her hurrying from the auditorium later.
“Sorry. Can’t.” She checked her watch and extended her stride.
“Where are you going?” I said, jogging after her and wincing as the movement tore at my surgery wounds.
“A seminar on natural antibodies on inflammatory and autoimmune diseases at the Forsyth Institute.”
“But that’s across the river.”
“Which is why I need to hurry. The bus leaves in a minute. Do you want to come?”
I nodded.
“Right.” Olivia began a jog, which I thought was highly unfair. There was no way I could keep up. I settled for striding along behind her with my much shorter legs. She reached the bus, one foot on the step, and talked to the bus driver before smiling back at me. “Come on, slow poke.”
“You try running with three holes in your belly,” I grumbled as I stepped past her into the bus.
When Olivia sat beside me, my efforts were rewarded as she took my hand and kissed my cheek. Transported back into the giddy girl with a hopeless infatuation, I followed Olivia around for the remainder of the day like a lost puppy. I was pathetic.
I was also a little lost that night.
With Taylor gone, I no longer had an excuse to sleep in Olivia’s bed, but that didn’t stop me from continuing my puppy-dog routine and standing beside what had become my side of the bed, staring down at it hopefully. Olivia was currently showering, and having dressed in her room considering all my clothes were still in there, I was uncertain about what to do next. Am I allowed to just climb in? Would Olivia march me out? I had no idea, and with no previous relationship experience to fall back on, I sighed and started to shuffle from the room.
“Where are you going?” Olivia asked when she eyed me an
d my pillow walking past the bathroom door she just opened.
“Bed?”
“We haven’t changed the sheets.”
About to argue that Taylor was hardly going to dirty them inside two days, I clamped my lips shut. “You’re right. So…umm…I’m sleeping in your bed again?”
Olivia smirked at me. “There is the couch.”
Damn. I nodded and made my way to the lounge.
“Wait.” Olivia hooked her arm around my elbow. “I was kidding. You’re welcome to share my bed.”
“Oh. Cool. Thanks.”
I lay on her bed like a board. Stiff, unmoving and I think I stopped breathing just in case I snored. The past few nights, sleeping in Olivia’s bed was easier. She had waited until I fell asleep before climbing in beside me, so I didn’t have to go through the torture of bed etiquette of a newly established relationship. And really, what was the relationship anyway but a couple of kisses, a few stitches in my stomach and some hand holding. Back in my bed in Minnesota, I was too busy plotting ways to get Taylor to fall for me to worry about the woman lying in the dark beside me. Now I was as nervous as a wild rabbit. Wait…were wild rabbit’s even nervous creatures? Maybe a squirrel would be a better analogy? I hummed to myself.
“Darcy?”
“Hmm?”
“Why are you muttering about squirrels?”
Oh, crap. I’m about to sound crazy. “Umm…they’re nervous creatures, aren’t they?”
Olivia turned her head to look at me. I could just make out her form in the darkened room. “Not as nervous as you.”
“Hey. I’m not nervous.”
“Then why are you hugging the edge of the bed and trying your best to impersonate a log?”
“Umm…” Olivia shifted onto her side as I continued staring at the ceiling. I yelped and slapped at whatever touched my cheek. I ended up slapping Olivia’s hand. I could feel the bed moving with her silent chuckles as my heart rate tried to slow. “That’s unfair. I thought you were a spider or something.”
“Darcy?”
“Yes.”
“Breathe.”
I took a deep breath and heaved it out. “Now what?”
Olivia found one of my hands where it was currently pressed against my sternum. “Relax.”
I nodded and continued to take deep breaths, concentrating on the way her thumb caressed my knuckles. It was really nice and also really new. Smiling, I enjoyed the sensation and let my eyes drift closed.
