by Olive East
“Who said we talked about you? Maybe I just guessed.”
He gave me a knowing yet sexy stare, raising one eyebrow and tightening his jaw. “You talked about me.” Confidence.
“She said you’re a doctor. Aren’t you?” I held the oversized mug to my chest in an attempt to warm up.
“I’m a veterinarian student.” He seemed to be watching my reaction. For the most part I was relieved—he was not as old as I thought.
“That would explain it.” I gave him a sort of smile back.
“Explain what?” He swiped his thumb across his bottom lip to capture some rogue tea, and the movement was so captivating I forgot he asked a question.
After I found words again, I said, “Why I didn’t get the doctor-y vibe from you.”
“Well, that’s not exactly a fair statement. I’ll still be a doctor. I’ll have a white coat and the ability to write prescriptions. People will call me Dr. Brooks.”
“Not your patients.” I laughed at my own joke so hard I almost sloshed my tea over the rim of my mug. I thought I was pretty funny.
“You got me there, Ollie.” He smiled back at me while I enjoyed the sound of my name from his mouth. “Did Sadie tell you anything else?”
Her name sounded like the emergency broadcast system beeps when he said it: loud, a bit alarming, but mostly annoying.
I shook my head. “No, just that.”
In the silence that followed, I took the time to study his house. It could’ve passed for a model home with its clean modern lines and lack of personal effects. In fact, I would’ve thought he was living in a model home if it weren’t for the large bookshelf in the back of the room. It was sagging under the weight of countless haphazardly stowed books. For the most part they appeared to be textbooks, but I could pick out a few novels.
Though the furniture was minimal, it was obviously costly. There was a fireplace that was either cleaned meticulously or seldom used, while the mantel lacked the standard knick-knacks and instead only displayed his undergrad diploma and some other plaque of hot, soon-to-be doctor achievement.
“How old are you?”
His clear blue eyes widened the tiniest bit, like he wasn’t expecting that question. And that was probably because he wasn’t.
“Older than you, I’m assuming, baby.” He leaned forward and covered the distance between us with his almost too-long arm to mess up my hair.
I snickered as I struggled to put my already messy hair back into some kind of place with my one free hand, but internally my heart set off a miniature fireworks display. He. Called. Me. Baby. Sure, it was probably to emphasis his point, but still!
Oh, God. Was I already into him?
“I’m in the third year of my grad program,” he said, still leaning forward on the couch.
“Oh.” I tried to calculate how old that made him. Damn my lack of knowledge on veterinary schooling.
Another pause in the conversation followed, which I chalked up to my inability to hold one. It didn’t feel entirely uncomfortable, though, and I could only hope he felt the same.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Dr. Brooks asked a short time later, pointing across the street.
“What makes you think something’s going on?”
He furrowed his brow. “It just seems like you’re over here because you’re hiding from bad news over there.”
“My friends aren’t bad news.” I leaned back in my seat. If I wasn’t mistaken, the action only made him press forward more.
“Why are you defending people you don’t want to see?”
“You know what they say about old habits.” I shrugged, not sure how much I wanted to or should share. “I’ve known them for a long time. I know they’re not bad people; they just do bad things sometimes.”
“Isn’t that what defines a bad person?” He asked as if he was genuinely curious, not accusing.
“I think intent as well as actions define a bad person. Actions don’t always reflect what’s in your heart.”
He seemed to consider my words for a long minute. “You’re deep, Ollie Oxmend.”
Was that a compliment, put down, or simple statement? “I call ’em like I see ’em,” I told him.
He smiled and nodded, then finished his mug of tea in one mighty gulp. “And here I was trying to call you on your BS.”
A witty comeback didn’t spring to mind quickly enough, so we shared yet another moment of silence until I said, “So, should I call you Dr. Brooks?”
“Seems a bit formal for the conversation we’ve been having, don’t you think?”
“Well, from what I know about you, you’re older than me and a soon-to-be-doctor. Seems like the right thing to do.”
“I’d prefer it if you didn’t.” He blinked, most likely mimicking what I’d just done.
“Fine, we’ll compromise. I’ll just call you Brooks.” He didn’t have an immediate response for my solution so I assumed it was fine. Of course, I could’ve just called him William, which was a perfectly fine name, but it wasn’t special enough for him.
“Do you think they’ll worry about you?” He popped his thumb out in the direction of the house across the street.
I didn’t have to think about his question at all, though. “No.”
“So, Sadie is the kind of friend who lets you walk out of her house alone at night, and won’t worry?”
I put my mug down and leaned forward from my casual, relaxed position. I wanted him to see my face and hear my words. Sadie wasn’t as sweet as her appearance suggested. She was the kind of girl who wasn’t afraid to take what she wanted, no matter who she hurt. I wanted him to know she wouldn’t leave Aaron to comfort me.
“Yes, that’s exactly the kind of friend Sadie is.”
“I always figured her as that type.” He didn’t even bat an eye when he said it, but a fit of laughter escaped my lips. He eventually started laughing too. “I didn’t think you were that drunk.”
“I’m not.” Which was my automatic response, no matter what. “I only had a little to drink and that was earlier.” Was I drunk? I did feel…different. He seemed to watch me carefully while I considered my alcohol intake and picked the mug back up. “I’m not,” I told him again, only slightly more confidently.
“For someone who’s a bad friend, you spend enough time with her.”
“How would you know?” I countered.
“I see things. I hear things.”
That response was problematic for me. I lived in an apartment building and I hardly ever saw or heard my neighbors. I couldn’t name any of their friends or even boyfriends. Hell, I didn’t even know most of their names, and they lived only feet away from me, which led me to believe that maybe he was at least semi-close with Sadie.
“I’ve known her for a very long time. She has her moments.” I hoped those were good enough reasons.
He sighed. “I think you give too much of your time and energy to people who don’t deserve it.”
I thought he didn’t know me well enough to be pinning me with such deadly accuracy. Immediately I wanted to cry, but luckily my fake lashes were securely in place. I never cried in front of anyone, for any reason, and I had no intention of showing Dr. Brooks just how broken I really was.
“You’re probably right,” I told him, placing the tea on the end table again. “I should go now.” I stood up.
“You don’t have to leave. I’ll make more tea.”
“It’s getting late and I don’t want to overstay my welcome.” No, I didn’t want to overstay my welcome, but I really, really didn’t want to go back across the street. I pulled my cardigan down so far it almost reached my knees.
“Are you going back to Sadie’s?”
It made the most sense to lie and say yes, but I knew he’d not only be able to tell I was lying, he would watch me leave and not go to Sadie’s. “I just wanna go home.”
“You know you can’t. You’ve had too much to drink.”
“I can’t go b
ack over there.” I was probably sounding immature and overly dramatic, but my mental health depended on it.
“Ollie, you don’t have to go. Really, stay.”
“Stay?” I sat back down on the couch.
“I have an extra room. Two actually.” He pointed upstairs, and it made me wonder if he had some finger gesture quota he had to reach every day.
I wasn’t exactly sure how good of an idea it was to sleep in a practical stranger’s house, but the longer I stayed away from Aaron, the better. I didn’t want to question the weirdness of Brooks’s offer out of fear of him taking it back.
How bad could a guy with a dog be?
“Sure.” I pulled the one shoulder shrug.
“Sure?” He shrugged back.
After I agreed, he offered me the guest bedroom across from his room, but I was more comfortable sleeping downstairs on the couch. I felt like less of an intruder that way. He offered me a t-shirt and athletic shorts to change into as well as pillows and blankets—I only took the blankets.
“You’re a good host,” I told him as I settled on the couch.
“Not so good you’ll actually sleep in a bed.” He gave me a challenging look as if I was offending him.
“I’m comfy.” I pulled the soft navy blanket up around my chin as he stood over me.
Brooks locked the front door, then stopped in the threshold of the living room to peek in at me. “Empty bed upstairs. Last offer.”
With the cozy blanket and comfort of knowing there’d be a floor separating us, I said, “I’m good.”
He shook his head. “Goodnight, Ollie.”
“Goodnight, Brooks.” I never felt more comforted or odder in my life.
Chapter Five
Maddening beeping from my cell woke me up. My alarm was set extra early because I assumed Brooks woke up early—he gave off that studying-before-school vibe. I folded my blanket, smoothed the couch cushions, and washed our mugs, which he’d left in the sink, before I tiptoed to the front door.
Boden didn’t appear when I started stirring. That either meant I was just that quiet, or that he slept behind Brooks’s closed door. I knew he closed his door because I stealthily climbed halfway up the steps to check. If there was a medal out there for fighting the urge to snoop around an alluring stranger’s house and winning, it would’ve been given to me.
After I scanned the house for any lingering signs that I’d been there, I triple checked that the door was unlocked before I shut it. I wanted to be able to return to his place if I couldn’t get into Sadie’s.
The plan was good in theory, I just wasn’t positive I knew where her hide-a-key was. Making my way from one pristine yard to another in the predawn hours, I prayed Sadie was asleep. Just as I was picking through rocks lining the flower bed, looking for the fake one, Sadie opened the door wearing a sleep shirt and a just-woke-up expression.
Damn.
“You slut, you!” she squealed and my clean getaway vanished. “Enjoying your very short walk of shame?”
“I was until you showed up.”
Her jaw dropped, exposing her perfectly capped teeth. She grabbed my arms and pulled me inside with more strength than any twiggy girl ought to have. I scooped up my keys from the stand by the door, but Sadie wrenched them from my hand and put them right back down.
“I need details.”
“There’s nothing to tell.” There was nothing I would tell.
“Oh come on, Ollie. You slept there and he’s so damn hot. We’re adults here.” She shut the door, making the entryway even darker, and pressed me close against it.
“Exactly, he’s practically perfect. He’s got his shit together and a real life while I’m finding it difficult to just live mine. It’s not like that at all. At. All.” Heat spread across my cheeks and my fists clenched. She lied to me about Aaron, then had the nerve to ask about how I spent my night because she ruined it.
She rolled her eyes, accepting defeat. For now. “Aaron’s pissed at you.”
“How can that be?”
“Um, well, you ditched me for starters, he brought over your favorite liquor and that weird stuff his dad makes, and he went out to look for you and couldn’t find you. Then I told him you were probably across the street at your boyfriend’s and he wasn’t happy he wasted all that time.” She was so pleased with herself you would’ve thought she set me up with Brooks on purpose. I wanted to punch her.
“You didn’t.”
“I did, I did. And keep your voice down; he’s still sleeping like most sane people at this hour.”
I wanted to scream. Now I remembered why I was avoiding her in the first place. Then I wanted to run back to Brooks’s so I could pretend I never left.
“Well, you shouldn’t have told Aaron anything about where I was, and you shouldn’t have lied to me about him coming over, either.”
“I don’t think it should matter. He’s my fiancé and you’re my best friend. Why can’t you just hang out with him?”
My eyes went to the floor. “It’s the principle of the thing.”
She laughed at that like I wouldn’t have principles or something—like I wanted to be around Aaron. “Ollie, stop being jealous for two minutes and just be normal.”
I didn’t have anything to say to her after that. I brushed past her to retrieve my overnight bag, gathered my keys back up, and left.
***
I didn’t do well with confrontation and Sadie knew that. She knew all the things I wasn’t good at. We both knew we wouldn’t speak for a couple days, then one of us would cave and everything would go back to normal.
That was our pattern and I could never seem to break it, but then again neither could she. Even if Sadie would never admit to it, she was always just as eager to have me back in her life after a fight as I was to return. I knew I wasn’t good at keeping friends and I owned up to it. Sadie was just as bad with her thick outer wall made of shallow comments and selfishness, but somehow together we weren’t so bad.
At least I hoped not.
I refused to call her and I couldn’t put my finger on why exactly. When you’re angry at someone for twenty-seven reasons, sometimes one doesn’t stand out more than the others.
I was too scared to leave my apartment for fear of who I would run into, while simultaneously thinking of a million reasons to not be home. The idea of hiding out till work on Monday was pretty tempting, especially after my interesting Friday, but I was a masochist and knew I wouldn’t stay away much longer.
As Val, my mom, pointed out every chance she got, my apartment was reason enough to cause a depression. The square footage in total was smaller than the bedroom I’d have if I lived with her and her new husband, Karl, at his house. Or I guess I should say their house. My interior design skills are seriously lacking, but that’s mostly because of my insufficient funds.
Apprenticing at the tattoo shop, while essential to my happiness, didn’t keep me flush with cash.
But, as a twenty-year-old in my second year of art school, even if that school was only forty minutes away from Val’s house, I thought I deserved an away-from-home experience.
Well, that and the fact that I liked my mom about as much as Batman liked the Joker. Sure, she gave me life and proved to be a worthy adversary, but I didn’t want to live with her.
I just couldn’t get in a better mood. The more I tried to avoid a situation, a place, a person, the more I thought about it. Constantly trying to not think of it only brought it to the front of my mind and my mind was already clouded enough.
When picturing a tiny wooden box to put my bad mood in didn’t work, I decided I would put on my saddest music and think as much as I wanted for a full hour. By the time fifteen minutes passed I would be so sick of myself I’d be over it and not think anymore.
I had a whole fifty-four song playlist created for just these kinds of situations, so I wrapped myself in my fluffiest blanket—which wasn’t as nice as the one at Brooks’s—and burrowed into my tiny ancient flora
l loveseat. With my thumb and pointer finger firmly grasping the fake lashes on my right eye, I gave myself the don’t-do-it pep talk.
The lashes weren’t just part of my aesthetic, they were my way of life.
Ripping the lashes off my eye would sting a little, and would be a waste of a pair since I only had them on a few hours, but I tore them off anyway. When the last globule of adhesive was removed it was my cue to cry. I don’t know how it happened—maybe magic, maybe complete mental trickery—but those lashes kept the tears in my eyes, and now that they were sitting on my thigh, mocking me like deformed caterpillars, I cried.
Before I knew it two hours had passed and I was nowhere near over it, but I was sick of myself and dehydrated.
My music stopped playing when my phone rang. The screen said it was an unknown caller. I had that small internal battle of whether to answer or not.
Probably a wrong number. Could be Aaron with a new number. Did I not pay a bill? What if it’s an emergency? Maybe it’s Brooks?
I answered. “Hello?”
“Ollie?” It was Val, but I only called her that behind her back.
“Hi, Mom.”
“I called you several times over the last few days; I just knew you’d answer if I called from a number you didn’t know. Why didn’t you ever call back? You never want to talk to me.”
I pulled the phone away from my mouth so I could sigh. In the last week she called me exactly once, and I did call her back, but she was the one who didn’t answer. I couldn’t tell her that, though. “I was listening to music.” Even though I was never in the mood to speak with her, I really wasn’t in the mood.
“What’re you doing today?”
Not seeing you, I thought. “I have some running around to do. You know, errands and ink shopping.” I lied. I don’t buy ink, and why would I do that on a Saturday?
“Oh, good. We can run around together.”
No no no no. “I guess, but I wanted to be in bed early.” I had to practice having a backbone.
“You can stand to see your mother for a few hours. I’m picking you up in twenty minutes.”