“I’m totally content and happy but are you okay?”
“What's okay?” She gasped honestly. I could tell she was annoyed with herself but sort of resigned to it. “Nothing is certain… That’s my whole problem. I can’t control anything.”
“Yeah, lacking control sucks. We don’t seem to have much of that in life. I guess we have to live with it though.”
She used her hand to grab a bit of her hair from one side of her head and flip it over to the other.
“Content and happy…” She repeated my earlier words and sighed. I could tell she was thinking about them. She always did that, got a little lost in the things that I’d say.
She leaned her lips into my forehead and kissed me as her hand came to hold at my neck.
“You’re tired aren’t you...” Olivia asked, knowing it. “You didn’t have to babysit me tonight. Maybe we should’ve done this the old fashion way. Spent the night apart…”
“Why? Then I wouldn’t be able to sleep at all.”
“I dunno if I can sleep tonight,” she said. “But, you’re right and I’d rather be here if that’s true…” I felt her hand come up into my hair as she pulled the side of my face in to hold it against her nose and lips. Her thumb brushed my cheek.
I smiled, eyes closed and enjoying her. “Exactly. All I’d be doing if we were apart would be pining and wondering what you were doing and probably text stalking you.”
“You wouldn’t have had to see me all dumb though… That would’ve been nice.”
She got up off of me and walked back to the piano to get the nachos. When she ate one now she was slower. The alcohol might’ve been wearing off. Either that or she was just sort of sad. She picked up the plate and brought it over to me. “You didn’t really eat,” she said, holding it out.
I took a chip and held it. “I don’t want to miss anything and it wasn’t stupid so much as understandable issues. We both have our baggage. Everyone does.”
I ate the nacho and went on thinking about how glad I was that we hadn’t spent the night apart. She would have been having these fears and doubts all on her own. I needed to see them and hear what she had to say.
“Still,” she said. “It would’ve been nice to just show up at the altar in my dress knowing I didn’t spend all night showing you how insecure I felt. That way when you got to me and saw me you could actually feel like I was strong enough… I dunno…” She shook it off. “That probably sounds weird…”
“No, it doesn’t. It sounds pretty normal actually. That’s hard. To show yourself to someone like that. Even if you trust and love them. You don’t want them to see the parts of yourself that you hate.” I sighed. “Not that I have any experience with that feeling.”
“You’re not just someone,” she said, leaning back and looking down on me, teasing. “I wouldn’t care if anyone else saw me before. Just you.”
“Then that would make it worse for you and it’s even more understandable.”
“What?”
“Me seeing your insecurities the night before we get married.”
I finally ate the nacho and wiped my hands, done with eating. Unless she started handing me more food. I didn’t feel like I needed it.
“When was the time you’ve gotten the most mad at me?” I asked.
I wanted to revisit our relationship. I wanted to know things.
She laughed. Whatever thoughts came to her, they pleased her. “When do you think?” She asked.
“I dunno. Maybe when I ran off into a fence and ended up by the side of the road?”
“You always think I’m mad when I’m actually just scared,” she laughed. “It was that day though. But it wasn’t the fence. It was the proposal.”
“Oh, yeah.” I blinked a few times, head awash with memory.
“That did piss you off a lot.”
“You just had the worst timing,” she burst out laughing.
“Story of my fucking life,” I grumbled and sighed.
There were more questions I wanted to ask but I hesitated. We were to be married tomorrow. That’s why I wanted to know. It hadn’t seemed like such a huge deal before, just us going on as we had been but legally bound. Now, I was getting excited.
“And when have I made you the most happy?”
“Oh, fuck, baby… That’s too hard,” she calmed, musing. “You make me happy every day,” she said, calming. “Napa probably though… Napa. Definitely Napa…” Her heart was heavy now, I could tell. “I think I was starved before Napa. Everything felt too good to be true. Still does,” she said soberly.
“Well, believe it. For better or for worse you’re stuck with me staring at you, loving you, and ogling, for the next fifty years or so,” I pointed out. I tipped my head to the side with a bit of deviousness in my eyes.
“I like that you think that’s a threat or something undesirable to me. Shows how little you know,” Olivia smiled.
“I’m just being cute and you know it. I like this feeling. Like I could jump you at any second. It’s an air of unpredictability. This is a good mood for me,” I said.
“I really like being yours,” she said solemnly, locking her eyes with mine.
“Good because you are. Sometimes I get all worked up and protective and I want to possess you and growl at people but in more of a fun way. I trust you but I like knowing you’re mine and showing it.”
“Anytime you want me, just take me. Please,” she added on. “Just pick me up and carry me away. I’d like it. I really would. I might pretend to be upset but I wouldn’t be not really.”
“I will. I want you all the time. Not just sexually. I just want you. Does that make sense?”
“Of course,” she said, eyes flickering as she scanned my face. “I’m too hard on you, huh?” She asked sadly.
“No, you’re not.” I leaned forward and motioned for her to come nearer. When she was within my grasp I took her wrist and pulled her in. “You’re amazing and I love that you have these things that trouble you. Sounds weird but I just feel like we fit better. If you were different I don’t know how I’d feel.”
“I could be easier,” she said knowingly. “A lot of people are easier.”
“I don’t like easy. I do everything backwards and upside down. Easy isn’t for me. There’s no interest in easy. I could love someone easy farther away but not like this. I couldn’t want anyone but you to always be in me.”
“I don’t think one lifetime’s enough for me to really explore,” she confessed.
“I don’t think it’s been one and I don’t think it will end with this one.”
Reincarnation hadn’t been something I’d ever thought about before Olivia. Now, I felt like it was probably true. Somewhere, somehow, I’d known her for generations.
“What do you believe?” She wondered.
“I’ve known you before,” I said. “I’ll know you again. I love you in this life but in all the other ones too. I feel that, like some kind of knowledge only brought up when I met you. It started to come then but it wasn’t until I knew I loved you that I let it through completely.”
“I’ve always sort of felt like an old soul… People have always told me that and it’s an odd thing to hear but I never felt like I’d been here before. Not really… I dunno…” I’d gotten her thinking. “I’d like to think that was true,” Olivia said. “More often I think we might only have this life if I seriously put thought into everything. But I romanticize all the ways in which it could be… An afterlife, a cycle, a heaven… Destiny...”
“When I met you though…” Her voice trailed off. “That was like suddenly having a reason to exist in this place.”
“When I met you it made sense to be alive. It’s sort of the same. I know you’re an old soul. I love that. You are so very different from most eighteen year old girls.”
I touched her lips and sighed.
“You are utterly yourself.”
“Yea, what do you know about eighteen year old girls?” Olivia teased m
e.
“I am about to be one and I’ve been around quite a few,” I teased back. “Maybe one too many.”
“Natalie’s nineteen if you're talking about her.”
“I was not talking about Natalie.” I shook my head, eyes closed in teasing admonishment.
“So I'm a bad influence?!” Olivia scoffed.
“I wasn’t thinking about you either but now that you mention it. You do turn me into a sex-crazed maniac.”
“Pretty sure I found you like that,” she said. “You never told me your rave stories…”
“Oh, those aren’t stories so much as insanity best left in the shadows. I’ll tell you if you want to know though.”
I shrugged and gave her a little smile. They were just me trying to find some way to feel. That’s all it was about. That and a healthy dose of anger.
“You’re the only person I would tell about all of that.”
“Of course I want to know,” she said. Her mood was light and high. It was a good thing.
“Well, most of it consisted of me being a dumbass. I would go out to raves and clubs on the weekends. I’d see the same people all the time. We would just dance. These are people whose names I probably couldn’t tell you but I would know them if I saw them. We took drugs sometimes. We did other things. I was trying to feel, trying to escape. I wanted to burn and break and know how far I could push my body before I died. I was looking to be alive instead of in limbo.”
“How long did you do that for?” Olivia asked.
“I don’t know. Almost as soon as I got here and started school. I just knew I couldn’t be myself with anyone. I told Holland at first but she yelled at me. So, I stopped telling her but I’m sure she knew I was still doing it.”
Olivia grew quiet and I would kill to know what was going on in her head but I just let her think.
“Do you miss it?” She wondered.
“No, it wasn’t fun so much as it was a release and a way to feel. I wasn’t happy. That didn’t make me happy at all. What I replaced it with was even worse. I thought it had to be that way and that no one could ever really make me feel love or could love me.”
“Sweetie…”
“I don’t miss it. I guess, I might have when things got really bad. Just in the way that I knew it was less dangerous than what I was doing. I wasn’t ever really scared when I went out. It was like standing in traffic and waiting to get hit. Trying to feel fear. I did. Later.”
“I like concerts,” Olivia said. “All kinds. Anything where it’s okay to watch or dance or just be.”
“That’s what I like about them too.” I kissed her nose and rubbed the spot where my lips had been. “What concerts will you take me to?”
“I’ll go wherever you go,” she said, playing at licking my fingers. “Nat took me to a club last night. Did I tell you that?”
“Ahh, no you didn’t. What kind of club?”
I was grinning, imagining them dancing it up. Nat would have taken her somewhere good.
“Was it fun?”
“It was perfect. Well… Almost perfect,” she confessed.
“What would have made it perfect?”
“You,” she said.
“I thought that’s what you would say. It would have been wonderful. I love dancing with you.”
“I was sort of stuck between Nat and this guy,” Olivia explained. “We danced a long time… All I wanted to do was kiss you.”
“I wish I’d been there. Then you would have been stuck between me and Natalie. We would probably still attract some attention though.”
“I would’ve died,” Olivia laughed, blushing.
“Doubtful. I think you would have felt very alive,” I said, smiling at her.
She would have been so turned on. Shit. All three of us would have been made of sexual thoughts that night.
“I would’ve gotten completely lost in you,” she said adorably.
“We would have had to find somewhere to go. I don’t think I could stop if we were in that kind of place.”
Thinking about it made me shiver. That could be fun after graduation. Grab Natalie and Skylar and go clubbing. Yes, that would make for an interesting night.
“If you had been there I wouldn’t care who was watching. I was in that sort of mood. I probably would’ve had sex with you right there.”
“Even Nat?” My eyebrows rose as I watched her.
“Nat wouldn’t be bothered. She’d help.”
“Mmmm, I’m sure she would.” I couldn’t break my smile. The whole scenario was playing out in my mind. Even if we were in a dark corner there was a chance we’d be discovered. I wouldn’t mind until we realized what was going on. That there was a crowd. Then I would have just shrugged and walked out with Olivia and Natalie.
“She was really good last night,” Olivia said. “She didn’t try anything weird. We just danced and did fun things. She did take me to this old western burlesque though. And she danced,” she started laughing. “She knew I’d think it was hilarious. But yeah, I kinda ruined that whole night… Then I ruined your night. And now it’s today...” She looked off to the side. It was 12:01. “The day,” she said. “Finally.”
“Oh god, I would have loved to see her dance like that,” I mused.
Her self-flagellation made me frown. It was unnecessary.
“You didn’t ruin tonight and if we ask Nat I know she will say that you didn’t ruin that night either.”
She had moved on but I had to address it before I could be happy about the time.
“I’m legal. Damn, now I can’t tease you about that anymore. I guess that means I’ll have to marry you.” I winked at her, hoping that my dorkiness would be a positive for once.
“I thought you said we were already married?” She teased back.
“In my heart we are.” I closed my eyes and breathed in a long breath and let it out. “It’s here.”
I felt her hands on my face, pulling me in. Kissing me slowly... Perfectly...
“I want you,” she said. And I knew it was about more than just this moment. She meant always. I could tell by her kiss.
“You’ve got me,” I said, after she was done telling me with kisses.
We dwelled on each other, exchanging long kisses and looks. We were ready. I felt it.
“You want to go to bed with me or should we be crazy and stay up all night and get through the day on pure adrenaline?”
“We should sleep. I think I might be able to now. If you pet me.”
“Mmm, I’ll pet you. No worries.” I pat her head, teasing her a little.
“The second you begin to condescend I’m filing for divorce.”
“Shh, I love you. That’s all that matters.” I chuckled and kissed her frowning mouth. “Come on I’ll take you to bed almost Mrs. Holbrook.”
She growled a little but moved to stand. I took her hand and led her into the bedroom and left her at the bed, turning to look at her.
“I like you all grumpy. It makes me smile because you’re so cute.”
“Rude,” she said, staring.
“Hmm, yes. I’m being very rude to you.”
I crawled past her and into the bed. It was magnificent; a big, thick, memory foam mattress, my favorite kind. I could actually fall asleep in this.
She pulled her top off and then her bra, ignoring me a second before shimmying a little to take her skirt off too.
Without waiting or hesitating she crawled up near me and laid her body into mine.
“You’ve got the right idea,” I said, slipping of my side of the bed and getting rid of my clothes. “Better,” I said, getting back under the covers.
“Any last words as a technically single woman?”
“I’m in love with Avery Lockhart,” she sighed. “I’ll be telling everyone today. If a stranger were here right now I’d get up and tell them. Hi I’m Olivia. Have you met Avery Lockhart? She’s the love of my life and she deserves the best of everything but she’s agreed to settle for me. I g
et to marry her today. You should see her, she really is SO beautiful, words can’t describe.”
“That’s very sweet and I’d like to see that stranger’s face when you did that. Now, my last words will be. Having found the best person I could ever find to match me I am ready to tell everyone in the world that I’ll be with her forever or until she gets tired of my horrible sense of humor.”
“Oh shoot, you’re right. I forgot to put that in my vows. Avery’s really not funny. She’s a pretty thing but yea… SO not funny. I’ll have to make do.”
Paper Dolls Page 26
