“Take your time, it’s okay,” Nicholas says, putting his arm around me when my breath quickens. “Whatever you have to say, just say it. It’s just me, Olive.”
That’s what I want to believe as well. It’s just Nicholas Crawford. I know him.
We’ve spent a lot of time together. We shared secrets about our past.
But the thing is that I don’t really know anything about him. At least, nothing substantial.
Except of course, that I have this insatiable drive to be with him.
“I was thinking about the offer,” I begin. “I know that I made a mistake with Kristen and Becker before and you said that we aren’t going to work together anymore…“
“Actually, Kristen texted and she asked if we were free this evening,” he interrupts me.
This catches me off guard.
“You don’t have to go if you…“ he starts to say but it’s my turn to interrupt.
“We can talk about that later but what I was wondering was…when are you going to pay me?”
He sits up a little and then slides back down.
This isn’t what he was expecting me to say.
“Anytime,” he says.
“Really?” I raise my eyebrows. “That’s great. Because I have my rent and all of these other bills to pay.”
“Yes, of course,” he says. “Is a check okay?”
I nod. If he’s bluffing then he’s really good at it. But what would be the point?
He has to know that I will deposit the check as soon as I can and if there’s no money under it then the truth will come out.
“How much do I owe you?” he asks, grabbing the check book from his briefcase.
“It was a million dollars over a year, right?” I ask, taking out my phone. He nods.
“So, you owe me for two weeks. That’s thirty-eight thousand, four hundred sixty-one dollars, and fifty-three cents. But you can make it out to thirty-eight thousand if you want.”
“Look at you, being generous!” Nicholas says.
After signing the check, he hands it to me and leans back against the wall. It’s for the full amount I quoted.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
I’m shocked a little, given that I’ve never held this much money in my hand before.
My fingers and toes start to tingle and I cross and uncross my legs trying to get comfortable.
Okay, calm down and get a hold of yourself.
There might not be any money behind this. Anyone can write a check.
For all you know, it’s probably going to bounce.
“And I can deposit it?” I ask. Nicholas stares at me for a long time and then laughs.
“Of course. What, you think I’m going to write you a bad check?”
23
Nicholas
When I lie…
The check is bad.
At least for the time being. It won’t be bad if she waits two more days to deposit it and I get the flash drive to the client.
Right now, I have less than three-thousand dollars to my name. But it’s Saturday afternoon and the banks are closing in an hour.
They will remain closed tomorrow and the earliest that she can deposit that money is Monday morning, if she is that enterprising.
The flash drive is worth two-hundred thousand to me because of how difficult it is for me to get.
And it is worth probably five times that to the client because of the information that it contains.
A wiser person would have never made her promises that he couldn’t keep. But I have always been the type to live life at the edge of my seat. I paid off her debt when I still had about half a million left because I wanted her to trust me and I owed my own dead sister my own debt.
Olive is very good at what she does, when she does it. She’s cautious and careful and an excellent partner.
I know this because she doesn’t like partners and she has always worked alone. I don’t know the extent of her experience but from the rumors I heard it is extensive.
And if even ten percent of those rumors are true then it’s more than enough to get me back on my feet.
The million dollar offer? Only one part of that isn’t true.
I have all intentions of paying the money as soon as I get my hands on it myself. She’ll forgive me for that, right? Let’s just hope she doesn’t find out.
Olive touches my hand with hers, arresting my train of thought.
In bed, we are like dynamite.
Dangerous.
Difficult to control once ignited.
Explosive.
But what are we on the outside?
How does she feel about me for real?
Asking her to be exclusive with me was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. It seems like nothing. People do it all the time. They fall in love and tell each other how they feel. Not me. I can joke. I can be fun. I can have a good time. But I cannot tell a woman the depth of what I feel for her. And I definitely, cannot tell this woman.
“Are you okay?” Olive asks. “You got so quiet all of a sudden.”
“Just thinking.”
“About what?”
“You.”
She smiles. She probably wants me to elaborate, but I don’t. She probably thinks I’m acting like this on purpose. Being dark and mysterious. Not because I’m really a coward. Not because I really can’t bring myself to say the one thing I really want to.
“So, the money… you have the money, right?” she asks. I nod.
“Why do you ask?”
“I’m sorry, I know that it’s private and sort of rude to talk about money.”
“It’s rude to talk about money?” I ask.
“Isn’t it? Isn’t that what people say? That it’s a low-class thing to do?”
“I think only people who say they have more money than they know what to do with are people who don’t want other people, with real problems, to know how good they have it.”
This makes her laugh and I let out a small sigh of relief.
“I was just talking to Owen and he put all of these shitty ideas in my head,” Olive continues.
I’m tempted to put him down but I take the high road, the long view. I need to become his friend, no matter how impossible that seems, and in order to do that I need Olive.
“How’s he…adjusting to everything?” I ask.
“Not well,” she admits. “I mean, he went to see his parole officer and he’s going to try to find a job soon but we’ve been fighting a lot.”
“Really?”
“He just really hates you. And when we had that fight, I was so angry with you and he was there eager to listen. I was so stupid,” she says, burying her head in her hands.
“What happened?” I ask, draping my arm over her shoulder.
“Nothing,” she whispers and rubs her temples.
“What happened, Olive?”
She reaches for the bottle on the nightstand, opens it, and takes a sip. The cardboard tag around the head says that it costs five dollars.
“Did he do something to hurt you?” I ask, putting the price of the water out of my mind.
“No, no, of course not,” she says quickly. “It’s quite the opposite actually. He’s so overprotective of me, I feel like I’m starting to suffocate.”
“Why don’t you come and stay here?” The words escape my lips just as I realize the mistake that this would be. I don’t want to drive a wedge between Olive and Owen, I want her to bring us together.
“No, I can’t,” she says to my relief. “He just got out of prison and I don’t want him to be all alone. I also don’t want him to go and stay at our mother’s.”
“Yeah, that wouldn’t be good for anyone.”
She nods her head and shakes her foot nervously again. Picking up the check, she runs her fingers over the numbers.
“This means so much to me,” she whispers. “I have no idea how I was going to pay my rent without it.”
“Your rent isn’t th
at high, I hope,” I joke, saying a silent prayer that I can get the flash drive tonight or at the very least she doesn’t deposit it right away.
“No, of course not. With this, I’m going to have plenty left over.”
I tilt the conversation back to Owen and why he doesn’t like me.
I want to know what she knows and she explains a bit leaving out the thing that I am pretty certain that he told her about.
In fact, we have already talked about it. I told her what happened, I am just not sure if I had been convincing enough.
“Did he say anything else about Nina?” I ask, getting tired of going in circles around the one thing that I want to talk about.
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “He thinks you did it but we didn’t talk about it again.”
I give her a nod.
The main reason why befriending Owen is a particularly difficult proposition for me is not because I slept with his girlfriend all of those years ago and he’s still pissed at me for it.
No, Owen thinks that she is dead because of me. He thinks that I killed her. And who would want to be friends with someone who murdered their girlfriend?
“Do you think I did it?” I ask, looking up at her trying to glean her answer from her body language rather than from the words coming out of her mouth.
“Would I be here if I did?” she asks.
“I guess you have a point there.” I smile.
She lies down next to me and pulls the blankets over her shoulders. “I want to stay here forever,” she says. “And never leave.”
“I’m not sure I have enough for that,” I say. “This suite is a grand and a half a night.”
“So, when are we meeting Kristen and Becker tonight?” she asks, giving me a wink.
24
Olive
When I lie…
I won’t be able to deposit Nicholas’ check until the banks open on Monday. I could’ve rushed out of his hotel room right when he gave it to me and run over to the branch a few blocks away but I thought that would look a little bit suspicious.
No, I can wait until Monday. The check is so big that if it clears then I’m certain that he has the money. And if not, this will be more than enough to last me the year.
The thing that I need to worry about now is what’s going to happen in about five minutes. Oh, wait, I’m wrong. I don’t even have that long.
“Hey! It’s so nice to see you again,” Kristen says, giving me a peck on the cheek.
We’re meeting in the bar of a three-star hotel that they recommended. It’s not that cheap but it’s not very expensive either. We are upper middle class professionals after all, but that doesn’t mean that we have a grand to plop down on some five-star treatment.
Kristen is dressed in a form-fitting red dress, black heels, and a shawl, which she uses to either cover or uncover her shoulders depending on what the mood calls for.
She talks quickly and passionately about the new project that she just started at work as if we are old friends. Most of it goes over my head, partly because I’m only half listening and partly because I’m nervous about what’s going to happen tonight.
Instead of letting Kristen grab the seat next to me, Becker takes the one between me and her instead, making the arrangement boy-girl instead.
When we’ve had two rounds of drinks, my nerves finally start to relax a bit. I don’t bounce my foot so much on the bottom of the bar stool and I keep my hands from tapping on the table.
But then Becker launches into a story about a commercial loan that the guy couldn’t close and knocks over his drink.
“Oh my God, are you alright?” I ask, nearly launching myself out of my chair to grab a napkin.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” He laughs.
The smile vanishes when I press the napkin into his crotch to soak up the alcohol. It only hits me what I’m doing when I feel it get hard.
Becker smiles at me and licks his lips. Before I can stop myself, I do the same.
The alcohol has gone to my head but I can’t blame it on just that. It’s not an excuse.
Were I to tell the truth, the alcohol is giving me permission to do what I really want to do. I take my hand off my leg and place it on his thigh. He gives me another smile when I give it a little squeeze.
It is only when I manage to pull my eyes away from him that I realize that both Nicholas and Kristen are staring at us.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper quietly.
“Oh, no, don’t be,” she says, wrapping her arm around Nicholas’ shoulder. “I was wondering if you were going to get shy again.”
Her words come out like molasses and the accent is incredibly sexy.
“Well, I am shy,” I admit.
There’s no use in pretending that I am at all experienced in this sort of thing but I hope that my naiveté and innocence makes them feel at ease with me.
“That’s okay,” Kristen says, parting her lips. Nicholas leans closer to her and kisses her on the cheek.
“I’m not,” he whispers into her ear.
The conversation at the bar continues well into our appetizer course even though none of us are particularly into it.
When we talk about our work, the others ask mundane questions that no one really wants any answers to.
As I nurse my third vodka tonic, I get the sense that we are all waiting for something to happen only no one is actually starting the ignition.
“Why don’t we take our drinks upstairs?” I suggest.
The hotel room is much bigger than I thought it would be. It’s actually a suite with a separate bedroom and living room. It’s appointed in contemporary mid-century modern style furniture and there is neutral yet uplifting artwork on the walls. Everything is a shade of gray, some darker and some lighter in tone.
Becker and Kristen have been here before because her large tote bag sits underneath the table at the far end. I had looked for this bag, which Nicholas said never left her side at the bar, hoping that we could make the switch there or perhaps even in the bathroom if she had joined me there but, unfortunately, she left it up here.
Becker opens the mini-bar and offers us another round. I opt for a single-serving bottle of white wine and take a seat on the couch, not far from the three of them. When their backs are turned I take a quick peek inside the bag.
The flash drive is attached to the laptop via some sort of metal cord, the exact replica of which Nicholas gave me. In fact, we both have one. We also both have a pair of small pliers with which to cut the original cord so that we can make the switch to the dummy flash drive.
Switching it for a dummy drive is more complicated than just swiping it but it will buy us a lot more time in the end. Who knows how long Kristen will go without using that flash drive again.
If luck is on our side then she won’t access it until Monday.
In one and a half days, she will take it with her to brunch (they have a standing Sunday morning reservation at a French cafe that serves the most delicious crepes).
Then maybe she’ll take in a matinee and do who knows what else before going back to her apartment.
By the time she discovers that her flash drive has been compromised, we will be long gone.
Besides, she would have come in contact with so many other people that she might not suspect us at all.
“And when she delivers the bad news to her boss,” Nicholas pointed out earlier that afternoon, “she will forget to bring up the sexy couple that they spent Saturday night with out of fear of being outed as someone who does this sort of thing.”
“I hate that this is something that people still can’t talk about,” I said. “I hate that we can use it as a weapon.”
“Yes, me, too, but in this game, we must use whatever weapon we have access to,” Nicholas said.
Moving one of the throw pillows from one side of the couch to another just as Kristen and Becker turn toward me, I reposition the laptop.
It’s a simple illusion, one of the first tric
ks they teach little kids in magic school. Move something voluminous and, preferably, large with one hand to draw the audience’s attention there while quickly doing what it is you mean to do with the other.
Unfortunately, I don’t have enough time to switch the flash drives. I will need Nicholas to cause even more of a distraction.
“Oh, let me get that out of your way,” Kristen says, grabbing her bag.
Shit.
Does she suspect something?
My heart drops into my stomach but I don’t let a single bead of sweat show up on my forehead.
“You mind if I sit down next to you?” Becker asks, taking a seat before I answer.
25
Olive
When I make a move…
It’s hard to know whether or not my heart is beating out of my chest because of the job or because of what I am about to do.
What are we about to do? I glance over at Becker who brushes his thick auburn hair out of his face, rubbing his chin with his hand.
I’ve seen this look before in bars where men first make eye contact but before they buy you a drink.
It’s the expression of a person asking permission.
Is it okay to talk to you?
Is it okay to offer to buy you a drink?
In Becker’s case, he’s asking, is it okay to touch you?
Is it okay to fuck you?
If it were any other time, under any other circumstance and it were just me and him, my answer would be yes.
He’s smart and he has made me laugh.
He has a quick sense of humor and a sharp tongue, enough to keep me entertained.
And he is not at all hard on the eyes.
But with his wife looking on, I feel shy.
I cower in my seat and turn my whole body somehow inward.
I try to force myself upright but my limbs refuse to cooperate.
“I'm sorry, I just feel a little…off,” I finally say.
“Maybe you need another drink?” Kristen suggests.
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