by V. T. Do
What if she didn’t like the fact that Max had a ward? Technically, I wasn’t his ward anymore. But we both knew I was still very much under his care.
Most women wanted to be the most important person in the life of the man she was dating. That couldn’t be the case here… could it?
Was I selfish not to want that?
I was the most important person in Max’s life right now. Would that change? And what did it say about me that I didn’t want it to change?
I slowly got out of the car.
The woman said something to Max, then she planted a kiss on his cheek that lingered a few seconds too long before pulling away.
She laughed at something Max said, and my gut clenched at the very feminine laughter that I would never be able to mimic. When I laughed, I laughed with gusto. I couldn’t be coy or flirtatious to save my life. The thought made me stumble in my steps. Was that the kind of woman Mason was attracted to?
I shook my head. That wasn’t important right now.
We passed each other on the driveway, and even with the low lighting, I could tell she was probably the most polished, sophisticated woman I had ever seen in my life.
Is this what an adult was supposed to look like?
I grimaced.
I didn’t think I looked like a kid in my jeans and sweater. My hair was tied up because by the end of the day, I needed to tie it up, and I had no makeup on.
But this woman? She was dress in a fitted button-up white shirt, tight black dress pants that only went to her ankles, and she had heels on, making her already long legs look longer. She was taller than me be at least a head. Her auburn hair was down, curled at the ends, and reached only midway down her back. Her face was made up, emphasizing her large blue eyes, pert nose, and full lips, painted a deep wine color that was as bold as it was elegant.
She was perfect in every way possible.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m Olivia.”
She shot a barely there smile. “Hello. I’m Lauren. I’m sorry to rush out, but I have a meeting I need to get to.”
She patted my shoulder like I was a lost little kid looking for reassurance, before walking past me and straight into the waiting Uber I didn’t even notice when I first arrived home.
I frowned after her, before turning to Max.
Max was still in his work clothes, minus the suit jacket. His sleeves were rolled up, revealing tan forearms, and his hair was a tad messy, as if someone had run their fingers through it…
Yeah, I wasn’t going to go there.
My heart pinched in my chest, and I brought my hand up to ease the uncomfortable feeling away. Max had loved my mom for as long as I could remember, I never really questioned it. But seeing him with this woman, who complemented him well, I wondered why it never occurred to me until now that he and my mom never really fit together.
Max looked up and caught my eyes then. His eyes brightened and he smiled just a little wider. I was glad he seemed happy to see me. It meant he didn’t see me as nothing more than an intrusion on his date.
“Hi, sweetheart. How as school?”
“It’s good, Max.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Come on inside. There’s a bit of a cold wind picking up.”
I nodded and followed him in.
Max acted like nothing was amiss. He didn’t explain who Lauren was, and since it seemed he didn’t think she was important enough for an explanation, I didn’t push.
I sat on the barstool by the kitchen and watched as Max grabbed some ingredients to make a quick dinner. We talked about our days, and things almost seemed normal, but there was this awkwardness between us that I was sure Max noticed. He didn’t bring it up, so I pretended it didn’t exist.
After I helped him clean up, I excused myself. I ignored the fact that Max seemed pretty relieved I was going to bed early.
Walking over to him, I kissed Max’s cheek. “Goodnight.”
“’Night, kiddo.”
I walked up the stairs and straight to the shower. This was going to be a long night.
26
Olivia
I tossed and turned in my bed for most of the night. I wasn’t a particularly good sleeper. I would wake from the lightest sound. It usually took me only a few minutes to fall asleep, but it was the staying asleep part that I had the most trouble with.
At some time, past midnight, I heard Max coming up the stairs. He opened my door just enough to look in, and when he found me in bed, pretending to sleep, he left.
That was hours ago. Max was probably asleep in his room right now, and the urge to go listen to him was strong.
Could Lauren be the reason Max leaves?
How strong were his feeling toward her, and how much of an influence would she have on him? Was I slowly losing Max without even knowing it?
I was left with two choices. I could give into the urge and check on Max. Or…
I grabbed my phone off the nightstand and checked the time. It was almost three o’clock in the morning. Would Mason still be awake at this time?
I shouldn’t call him up just because…
Just because Max might have someone new in his life.
Just because I felt insecure.
Just because I missed hearing Mason’s voice.
Just because I missed him.
There was a line I shouldn’t cross. Right?
My finger hovered over the call button by his name. I never realized how hard it was to make the first move until now. But the alternative was to go listen in on Max, and although Mason never said anything, I knew he didn’t want me to do that anymore. He wanted me to find a new way to cope with my anxiety.
I tossed my phone to the side and let out a low groan. Why was this so hard?
I moved my hand over my eyes. I read somewhere that if you laid still in bed for several minutes you would fall asleep. Maybe if I just stayed like this, I would be asleep soon.
The sudden and sharp ringing of my phone nearly had me jumping out of bed, my heart thudding against my chest, as if begging to be let free. I grabbed it quickly and silenced the phone, afraid it would wake Max up. And when I looked at the screen and saw who was calling me, my heart began to pump back up again, but for a completely different reason.
It was Mason.
“Hello?” I spoke softly into the phone.
“Olivia, is something wrong?”
“Uh, why do you say that?”
“You called me.”
“I did?” I was pretty sure it was the other way around. Although I had wanted to call him.
“Yeah,” he answered, his voice gruff. “Just moments before. I picked up, but you didn’t answer, so I hung up and called you back. Are you okay?”
“Oh, my God. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to call you at this time of night. Were you sleeping? Did I wake you?”
“That’s not important.” I take that as a yes. “Tell me what’s wrong?”
“What makes you think something is wrong?”
“The fact that you’re still awake at this time of night?”
“Maybe I’m a night owl.”
“At three o’clock in the morning?”
“Okay, so I’m not a night owl.”
I could hear the smile in his voice when he said, “I know.”
There was a moment of silence where I was trying to think of something to say, anything really, that wouldn’t make me sound so weird, but he broke it first. “Tell me what’s wrong, sweetheart.”
It wasn’t a question. “Max brought someone home today.”
He hesitated over the line. “Oh.”
“And it’s not a dog, like I’ve wanted for years, but a lady. A cold one to boot.”
Mason made a choking sound, like he was laughing on the other line, but it was hard to tell. Especially at three o’clock in the morning when not all of my brain cells were working properly.
“Did you know about her?”
“Yeah, Olivia. But I don’t think they’re all that ser
ious.”
“Well, then what are they doing with each other?”
I was met with silence. For a second, I thought the call disconnected, but a quick check told me that wasn’t the case.
“Hello? Are you still there?”
“Yeah, Olivia. I’m still here.”
“Oh. Good.” Then it occurred to me what his silence meant. “Oh, God. I don’t think I want to know about this.”
He let out another choked laugh. “I don’t know what to tell you, sweetheart.”
“How long have they been… seeing each other?” Was that the correct terminology?
“Not long. Not even a month yet.”
“She’s…” Cold. Detached. Hard to read. Probably dislikes me. “Something.”
He made that noise again, and this time, I was sure it was him laughing. I smiled. “She is that.”
“Do you like her?”
“Honestly, I don’t really know her that well. I’ve only met her a few times. I suppose you could say she didn’t leave that huge of an impression on me.”
“Why is he with her, then?”
“That is for Max to tell you. Attraction is a funny thing. I don’t think we can really say why we like someone and not others.”
His voice thickened with some unnamed emotion, and I really wanted to ask him why he sounded like that. I wasn’t brave enough to voice it, though. Instead, I said, “I know.”
And I did know. My attraction toward him was something altogether. I had never felt this way about anyone.
“Did you want to visit Max tonight?” he asked quietly.
“I thought about it.” When he didn’t say anything, I said, “Is that wrong?”
“No, it’s not, Livie. But I do think we should do something to get your mind off of that.”
“What?” It was my turn for my voice to turn thick. My heart beat erratically in my chest, and a small pressure made its way down below my belly.
“You can tell me about your day until you fall asleep.”
Oh. He meant talking. I blushed and was glad no one was around to see. “It’s late. I don’t want to keep you from your sleep.”
“Don’t worry about that. I function on way less sleep than you do. I’ll be fine. Besides, it’s Saturday. I don’t have to be in the office tomorrow.”
I smiled and settled more into my pillow. Then I told him about my day. About school and all of my classes. About how I still didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. About cakes and coffees and Lizzie and Henry.
I fell asleep halfway through my recounting, and it wasn’t until I woke up in the late morning that I realized I had stopped thinking about going to Max’s room during my talk with Mason, and I probably had one of the best nights of sleep I’ve had since the day my mom left.
There was just something about being in a room filled with students discussing our biggest play of the year that got me all tingly. It was no joke.
The small group of us was sitting in a circle so that we all faced each other, Cato’s Rapture laid out in front of us on the desk beside a notebook while we planned the production.
In the last few weeks of summer, before we started school, Lizzie submitted her play to the head of the theater department for review.
Dr Keen loved it at first read. She couldn’t get over the story and decided it should be performed by the school. It wasn’t long before we were putting together a group of people and beginning production.
Unlike a high school theater group, everyone here took our production pretty seriously. A lot of the student had dreams to make it big in the theater world. It wasn’t fun and games for them. It was their lives at stake.
We were going through the script to see if there were any changes that needed to be made, scenes that needed to cut, and whatnot. This was the part that Lizzie hated most, mainly because she’d put her heart and soul into each and every word written in the script, and she always took it personally when we had to delete something.
All eyes were on Dr Keen as she talked about a particular scene in Act 3 that I knew was Lizzie’s favorite part of the entire play.
“But what about the dream makes it so significant to the story? I don’t see how this moves things along or even how it helps us transition into the next scene.” Lizzie’s fist clenched under the table. Only I noticed.
I raised my hand and spoke up. “I think the dream is important. It’s doesn’t help transition us into the next scene, no, but it clarifies so much about his past that the audience would miss just from having seen the first two acts. At the beginning, we focus more on Cato’s physical state—the physiological effects of drugs, the impact it has on his life—and though we get a glimpse into his hallucinations, we don’t get the whole picture.
“This dream tells us about his guilt. It tells us about the mental state of a man who had everything going for him in life, and yet still manage to mess it up so thoroughly. It lets the audience sympathize with him, when before he was made out to be nothing more than an anti-hero no one really understands. I vote we keep it in.”
Several heads nodded along with my assertion, and I sat up a little taller. Lizzie shot me a small smile. Dr Keen took several moments before she answered, and I bit my lip nervously. When she smiled, I relaxed a little in my seat. “Well, you’re the director. We’ll keep it. Let’s move on to the next scene.”
I smiled and looked back down at the script. I never felt more comfortable in my own skin than I did discussing a play. If only I could find it in me to make a career out of this. But unlike Lizzie, who was willing to put everything in her dream of being a playwright, I couldn’t bring myself to do the same.
I knew what it was like to struggle with money, and being in this profession was not the most practical thing to do. I could end up a failure and would have to live with Max for the rest of my life.
At eighteen, it was alright. But if I ended up doing that at thirty… well, that was a depressing thought.
27
Olivia
After our theater discussion, Lizzie came home with me. I was surprised to see Mason’s car parked in the driveway. Surprised and excited.
Lizzie and I shared a smile when we met up at the hood of her car, parked behind mine. “Well, this should be interesting,” Lizzie said.
She had no idea. I hadn’t told anyone about the kiss Mason and I shared, and I didn’t tell her about the late-night phone calls, or even about going over to his apartment.
Usually, Lizzie and I shared everything. I knew about her crush on Max since the first time she met him, and I also knew when she fell in love with him—something I was sure wasn’t easy for Lizzie to share with me, considering Max’s position in my life. But I wanted to keep these moments with Mason to myself. Call me selfish, but those moments were so few and far between, I wanted to cherish them in the only way I knew how.
She bumped my shoulder and I smiled. “Don’t blush. You make it obvious that you like him every time you blush when he so much as looks at you.”
I stumbled in my steps. “What are you talking about. I don’t make it obvious, do I?”
“Ah, it’s okay, Olivia. You just have one of those faces, you know?”
“Faces?”
“Yeah, you know. Those really-easy-to-read faces?”
“What? You’re one to talk. You get all serious and silent whenever Max is in the room!”
“What? I do not?”
I raised one eyebrow while shooting her a sideward glance, as if to say, Really?
“Oh, my God. I do, don’t I?”
I nodded and laughed. “Yeah. You do.”
“What should I do?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe pretend you’re talking to me when you’re interacting with Max? You always say some pretty interesting things when it’s just the two of us.”
“How can I pretend Max is you?”
I really couldn’t answer that, so I said nothing. Lizzie let out a sigh. When I opened the door and wa
lked inside, I could hear Max and Mason talking in the kitchen. Max laughed at something Mason said, and Lizzie and I shared a smile.
When the men came into view, I paused in my steps, taking in the sight of Mason. The last time I saw him, I was sitting in his apartment, sharing a meal with him. But that was over a week ago, and that was just too long for me to have gone without seeing him. And now that he was here, all I wanted to do was run to him.
But that would be weird.
And Max was here.
Lizzie nudged my shoulder when I stopped walking and pulled me further into the house. Mason saw us first. His eyes briefly went to Lizzie before meeting mine and holding. I smiled and he smiled back at me.
Unlike Max, who was still in his work clothes—minus the suit jacket—Mason was dressed in casual wear. Dark jeans, leather boots, and a black t-shirt. I licked my suddenly dry lips. He looked good enough to eat.
Then Max finally noticed us, and the connection was broken. “Hey, girls. How was school? Was today your first rehearsal for the school play?”
“It was good. And no, there wasn’t a rehearsal. We haven’t even auditioned for parts yet. Today, we were just going through the script and planning. And it’s going well. Lizzie wrote a brilliant play.”
It was my turn to nudge Lizzie’s shoulder, and when she looked at me, her cheeks were a little red. My smile widened. “Thanks, but we both know the play still needs a ton of revision.”
“Well, from what I’ve read so far, I think Olivia is right. It’s brilliant, Lizzie.”
She looked up in surprised and met Max’s gaze. “You’ve read it?”
“Yes. Olivia showed it to me a few months back. I stayed up most of the nights reading it. I couldn’t put it down. I think this might be your best work yet.”
She seemed pleased with his compliment and I hid my smile. “T-thank you.”
“Of course.” Max turned to Mason then. “Did I mention both Olivia and Lizzie are in the theater club at school?”
Mason nodded. “Yeah. You have. I would love to see the play opening night. Olivia is the director, right?”