by Camryn Eyde
Moaning against the intrusion of sunlight on my eyelids, I burrowed into the warmth around me. An alarm rudely went off a few minutes later, forcing me to squeeze my eyes shut and hug the warm thing I was tucked up against as it moved. A second later, the irritating noise stopped.
“Morning,” said Olivia. Her amused-sounding voice rumble below my ear. Odd.
I forced my eyelids up and saw an expanse of skin in front of me. I found myself staring at Olivia’s clavicle. Shifting my head, I spotted her neck, chin, and then smiling mouth. “Morning.”
“I see my squirrel found her bravery last night.”
I poked my tongue out at her and she laughed, jostling my head in the process.
“Come on my cute little rodent, time to get up.”
“I’m not a rodent,” I mumbled as I burrowed under the covers, trying to recover the warmth she had just let escape.
“But you are cute,” she said. I quickly shoved the covers down to find myself alone. It didn’t stop me from grinning. Olivia had just called me cute.
“You think I’m cute?” I asked her over my morning coffee fifteen minutes later.
“You have your moments,” she said as she scooped her egg-white-only omelet from the pan.
“How many moments?”
“You’ve had one so far.”
I pouted.
“Careful, the wind might change and your face will be stuck looking like a sulking toddler.”
“I’m not sulking.”
Olivia smiled and pushed a plate of freshly made omelet at me. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
“It’s Valentine’s Day? Since when?” How had I missed this rather significant date on the calendar? I rubbed at the stitches rubbing against my jean waistline. Damn appendix.
“Since 496 AD.”
Ugh. Trust Olivia to know a random fact like that.
“Eat up,” she said, walking around the counter and kissing me on the cheek. “See you at school.”
“Wait. You’re leaving without me?”
Olivia paused and frowned. “You want me to wait?” She looked at her watch and I saw her eye twitch.
“No. It’s fine. You go on ahead.”
Olivia nodded and opened the front door.
“Wait!”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.” I held up my breakfast.
“You’re welcome.”
She left and I stared down at my very wholesome breakfast. Usually grabbing a piece of toast or just surviving on coffee alone, I smiled and dove into the meal. Olivia was the best. It was then I concluded that she hadn’t eaten anything but an apple. I looked at my plate with suspicion. I had a sneaky feeling she made this for herself but ran out of time to eat it. Shrugging, I decided I didn’t care.
I spent the day plotting, and for once, I wasn’t plotting Olivia’s demise. Yes, she was still irritating and difficult, but now she was my girlfriend, so I was obliged to do something for Valentine’s. I ruled out flowers remembering the disaster of bringing in a bouquet of daisies once and inciting a severe allergic reaction in my roommate. I had wanted to brighten up my desk space and provide inspiration for my study. Fail.
I thought of chocolates when I opened the Reese’s bar I had brought along with me for lunch, then remembered every single lecture Olivia had given me about empty calories and blood sugar spikes and long term fat storage, not to mention her freak status at not liking chocolate in the first place. Subtly poking at my stomach, I reminded myself I should go for a run as soon as I was able.
I munched on my treat and sighed. What does someone get a person like Olivia to show them they care?
Screwing up the empty foil packet of my chocolate, I threw it in the bin on the way to my next class. I stopped as soon as my eyes caught the notice board and the schedule for upcoming seminars. Perfect!
“Hi,” I said, coming up behind Olivia on her walk home. She screeched and swatted me with her bag.
“Hey.”
“Darcy?” She clamped a hand over her chest. “What the hell are you trying to do?”
I grimaced. “Sorry.”
“God.” Olivia took a deep breath and shook her head at me.
“I needed to catch you.”
“What for?”
“Umm…I want to ask you out on a date.”
Her eyes turned wary and she slowly shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Wait. What? Weren’t we technically dating? “But—”
“Look, Darcy, I know we’re doing this girlfriend thing for real now, but you need to know that I don’t date. Ever.”
“But…seriously?”
“Seriously.”
I folded my arms across my chest and glared. I had never been in a relationship before, and I had no intentions of missing out on the awkward dating scene. I needed the experience. “Well, too bad.”
“Excuse me.”
“We’re going on a date tonight because it’s Valentine’s and you’re my girlfriend and it’s the right thing to do.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Darcy—”
I held up my hand and fished around in my bag for a moment. “Here.” I shoved a bouquet of pencils at her. “Flowers.”
“They’re HB pencils.”
“Because you’re allergic to flowers.”
“Only daisies.”
“Oh…well…this is more useful.”
Olivia looked at the mug full of pencils in her hand and smiled. “Actually, it is.”
“Exactly. And now, you’re coming with me because you feel indebted. Come on.” I grabbed her free hand and tugged her along. She reluctantly walked behind me.
“You should know, I don’t feel the slightest bit indebted to you for these pencils. I did make you omelets this morning.”
“Omelets that you ran out of time to eat.”
I smirked when Olivia’s eyes widened and she stopped walking. “How—”
“Did I know? Because you have some sort of protein every single morning. Except today.” I stepped closer to her. “You gave me second-hand omelets.”
“There’s no such thing as second-hand food. I hardly regurgitated it.”
“Ew. Nice visual.”
“You’re welcome.”
I took Olivia’s hand again and walked us along. “The point is, you owe me now. I got you an actual gift, and not a plate of leftovers. And now I’m going to collect.”
Olivia sighed. “Fine. Where are we going then?”
“Well, we have to hurry to get some food, then get over to the children’s hospital.”
“What?”
I smiled. “You’ll see.”
A couple of containers of sushi later, and I walked Olivia into the Folkman auditorium at the children’s hospital for a lecture on cell biology.
“This is your idea of a date?” Olivia said, at the auditorium door, yanking on my hand and forcing me to stop.
I had a nasty feeling I’d made a wrong move. “Umm…yes?”
She looked at me blankly for a moment before tugging me to the women’s toilets. I prepared myself for a defense testimony which I launched into the moment we checked the bathroom was unoccupied. “I’m sorry! I thought you’d like this over some try-hard romantic dinner by candlelight. I promise we can go and do something else if you like?”
Olivia’s eyebrows rose. Her mouth began to turn up at the corners and soon she was smiling at me.
“Umm…so…did you want to go?” I said nervously.
“No. I don’t.” Olivia stepped forward and hooked me behind the neck and pulled me against her. Her lips met mine with a satisfied groan and my legs began to wobble. Damn that sound was devastating. My back was suddenly up against the cool tiled wall and my lips had been parted with a needy tongue. Gosh, how this woman could kiss. Feeling the need to give some of the feels back, I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her tight
against me while I slid my tongue past her lips. She made an approving noise and had someone not walked in and yelped at us, I may very well have got to second base.
We parted in a flurry of panting breaths and I went bright red. Olivia began to chuckle, a sound that made my confidence inflate.
“Come on, cute squirrel, we have a seminar to attend.”
Olivia thinks I’m cute.
Chapter Eleven
Olivia and I continued to share a bed despite the fact that we had no visitors and the sheets in my room were fresh and clean. I like to think it was my cuteness that kept me beside her each night. I spent a week having no idea how I was supposed to be acting around her, but was pleased to see Olivia’s abrupt personality didn’t change. She was easier to deal with when she was being bossy and anal. I knew that Olivia. The one that emerged when I was in the hospital, the caring and touchy-feely one, was difficult to pinpoint. I figured all the touching would come back in time.
And bit by bit, it did.
She still went to school at the break of dawn, and I dawdled and dashed in late. Just in time to catch the start of the class and take my seat near, but not beside her. After classes, she’d wait for me citing that she was catching up on reading or research while I lingered talking to fellow students, and we walked home together. This was the moment of the day I enjoyed the most because more often than not, she’d hold my hand. I walked home on those days grinning like a fool.
We’d prepare dinner and eat it together as we discussed the day’s lessons. We’d study the rest of the night away and collapse into bed exhausted as the clock struck midnight. Monday to Friday, we’d repeat the process each day. Weekends differed…slightly. I managed to rearrange my shifts at the dry cleaner for Saturday and Sunday night. Olivia let me sleep in Saturdays before enjoying a day full of study, muted ball games, and sips of cheap beer. Sunday, I’d get a cooking lesson and then clean the house while Olivia washed the clothes. After that…more study. There wasn’t a lot of time outside of that rigorous schedule for kissing, touching, and nakedness. Medicine had taken over my life.
Class schedules changed again, and we undertook more exams and assessment tasks and suddenly, we had three classes left until we’d completed year one of our medical training. One night, Olivia had been snappier than usual as she read through her notes from our first Immunology, Microbiology and Pathology lecture. She kept rubbing at her neck as I prepared dinner which was an advanced version of pasta that she had taught me the week previous.
“You okay?” I called out as I closed the oven on the lasagna.
“What?” she muttered.
“I said, are you okay?” I walked over to her and put a hand on her back. She swatted at it immediately. “Hey.” I raised my hands in defense.
She looked instantly guilty and slumped over with a sigh. “Sorry.”
I tentatively returned my hand to her back and rubbed slow circles. “What’s up?”
Rubbing her eyes, she said, “Nothing. Tired I guess.”
I nodded and stepped in behind her and started kneading at the muscles of her shoulders. The moan she let out did funny things to my tummy. I kept massaging her tense shoulders and dropped a kiss on her hair. “We’ve been working hard this past month or so, why don’t we forget about medicine and go and do something different for a couple of days?”
As expected, Olivia shook her head. I don’t think the woman knew what relaxation or fun looked like. I pushed my thumbs in deeper and elicited another moan from her that made me smile. It was nice to do this. I spent most of my time looking at her and hoping I wasn’t being too obvious. I memorized the way the planes of her neck met her shoulder, and how the warming weather meant I could spend many long minutes or hours dreaming about touching the creamy skin that dropped from her throat to the swell of her breasts. More often than not, I was caught in those moments and spent a good deal of time blushing.
Each morning I woke up wrapped around her like a boa constrictor. She never complained, and I cherished the times I woke before her so I could linger in the moment and enjoy the soft flesh beneath my cheek, arm and leg that was inevitably curled around her. Apart from holding hands, touching wasn’t a regular thing outside of the bedroom.
Kissing was even more irregular. Sometimes, she’d surprise me and I’d suddenly be backed up against something having the breath kissed from my lungs. I never had the nerve to initiate those moments, so I relied solely on her mood to feel her lips below mine. I’d often thought I should woman-up and make a move. Perhaps that’s what she was waiting for and her frustration burst out in random acts of passion.
Those passionate moments always ended the same. She’d grunt and push herself off me before vacating the scene entirely. It left me feeling ravaged, but confused. My dreams would become vivid after days like those. Thankfully, the weather was still cool enough for her to wear a high-necked top that day.
“Liv,” I said softly into her hair as I left my mouth pressed against her head.
“It’s Olivia.”
“Mmm. Will you come away with me this weekend?”
She leaned forward and looked up at me, breaking the contact I had with her hair and shoulders. “We have exams coming up in a few weeks.”
“And spring recess starts Monday. Please. Just for a couple of days.”
“A couple of days that we could spent preparing for the integration exercise.”
I heaved out a breath and stepped back a few inches. “Yeah. You’re right.” Nodding and feeling utterly demoralized, I turned to walk away, but found she had snagged my hand.
“I’m sorry.”
I didn’t look back at her. “It’s fine.” Gathering my running clothes, I swiftly changed and headed to the door.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Olivia asked as she glared at me from her desk.
“For a run.”
She shook her head. “No. Your incisions—”
“Are fine.” I opened the door and shut it before she had a chance to say anything further. I knew I was running away, but I had no idea what it was I needed to do to take the tentative relationship I had with Olivia to that next rung. Tension burned nervously in me every time I was around her, and knowing that her education was more important than me, despite her declaration of love, was a little disheartening. I had selfishly hoped that our feelings would rise and conquer all, and that I’d at least have experienced an orgasm by now. Sharing a bed made releasing sexual tension at my own hands a little awkward, and being unable to get out and run had added to my frustration.
Limbering up at the front of our apartment block, I took a deep breath and jogged a few steps, grimacing against the tug of pain at my suture sites. Perhaps this wasn’t a good idea after all. Slowing to a pace that didn’t hurt, I walked and walked and walked. My plan to exercise my frustrations away didn’t work, and I found myself thinking about Olivia with a renewed intensity. The woman was a walking conflict. Passionate, but distant. Confident, but sometimes, so unsure, especially when it came to me apparently.
I sighed. Maybe it was time I grew a backbone and made a move. Yes, I had zero experience with this relationship business, but that didn’t mean I shouldn’t start trying. I wanted to touch her so badly my fingers ached constantly. I wanted to kiss her obsessively, and I wanted to take her away from the medicinal world and focus on her without distraction. Spring break meant a week with no classes. A week of opportunity to woo my girlfriend.
My mind preoccupied with all things Olivia, I didn’t realize I’d followed Columbus Avenue all the way to downtown Boston until the street ran out and I was practically standing in the Boston Common gardens.
“Huh,” I said with a grunt as I stared at the parklands in front of me. Shrugging and figuring I’d not really explored Boston enough, I crossed the road and wandered about the common. It was full of budding plants, busy with activity from tai chi groups to people running with Frisbees, and the bridge over the water attracted a bevy of lovers
judging from a number of people kissing. Watching them depressed me. I should be on that bridge with Olivia. We should be the couple lounging under that tree on the picnic rug laying back and reading. We should be the ones riding those horses.
I shook my head. No. I don’t do horses.
Despite that, I bit my lip and stared at the scenes around me. Perhaps if I couldn’t convince Olivia to spend time away, I could encourage her to spend a day with me here just lolling about relaxing. Plan forming, I smiled and headed back to the apartment.
“Morning,” I said, snuggling into Olivia’s side as I roused on the first day of spring break.
“Morning,” she said in return as she tried to climb from the bed.
I tightened my arm around her and shook my head. “No. You’re staying here.”
“Pardon?”
I leaned up on my elbow and smiled at her. “I have plans for you today, and that starts with you staying here.”
Olivia frowned at me, suspicion all over her expression. “Plans?”
I nodded.
She narrowed her eyes. “And what if I had something arranged already? Did you think of that?”
My mood sagged. “Oh.” I bit the inside of my cheek for a moment. “Do you?”
“Have plans?”
“Mmm.”
“Beyond reading journal articles, no.”
Big sigh of relief. “Good. Then stay put.” I threw myself out of bed and shut the door, catching her amused look as I left.
Operation Romancing Olivia, initiated.
I rattled about the kitchen making breakfast and soon wandered back into the room expecting to find her lying in bed.
“Hey,” I said, protesting to find her up and dressed and perched at the end of the neatly made bed. She’d even brushed her dark hair and pulled it into a ponytail that draped down her back.
Olivia looked at the tray of food I carried. “You didn’t specify that I was supposed to remain in bed.” She looked back up at me. “Eating in the place you sleep isn’t exactly sanitary.”