by Cassie Cross
“Hi,” he breathes.
“Hi.” I fiddle with his tie, a lavender silk one that I gave him for Christmas a couple of years ago. “This is early for you.”
He tucks my hair behind my ear, caressing my cheekbone with his thumb. “I wanted to come and see you, maybe take you out to dinner?”
Can’t say no to that. “Sure.” I push up on my toes and give him a quick kiss. “I just need to clean up really quick.”
“This used to drive me crazy when we were younger,” he admits, as he walks over to my desk and sits down. “You were the only teenager I’d ever known who actually liked cleaning up after herself.”
I shrug as I wind up a tape measure. “What can I say, I operate better when I’m in a clean environment.”
“It’s easier for me to understand that now that we’re adults. When we were kids it just got in the way of us having fun.”
“It’s getting in the way of us having fun now,” I tease.
“Well, maybe I don’t understand, then.” He clasps his hands together as he looks around the place, taking it in. It’s been a long time since he’s been up here.
“You should stop by more often,” I say, bending down to pick up a few scraps of fabric that fell on the floor when I was cutting earlier.
The chair squeaks as Oliver turns in my direction, and I slowly straighten my back, making sure he gets a good view of my ass for as long as possible.
“I plan on it,” he replies, his voice all gruff and gravelly. I’ve never heard an innocent statement sound so dirty on his lips, like he’s planning to follow through with something filthy. I hadn’t given much thought to studio sex, but…I gotta admit, it’s appealing.
I throw the scraps into my fabric bin for use on something later.
“Why do you have the beach house pulled up?”
Maybe I should admonish him for being nosy, but my monitor is huge, and it’s not like you can really miss the giant real estate listing. I do, however, curse myself or not closing out the window before he came up here. This isn’t exactly the way I wanted to bring this up with him, but I have to seize the moment.
I walk over to him and when I get close, he holds out his left arm, welcoming me to sit on his lap.
“Oliver,” I say sweetly as I settle in, then give him a soft kiss. “I’ve been thinking…”
I slide my fingers through his hair, gently scratching my nails against his scalp in the way that makes his eyes go all half-lidded.
He hums in response. “What about?”
“Why don’t I buy the house?”
That jolts him wide awake, all relaxing effects of my fingers-through-the-hair trick completely gone. “You’ll pay me back, I’ll sign the deed over to you. You get your house before someone grabs it off the market, and I get to do something good for the man that I love. We both win.”
“Felicity,” he sighs. There isn’t any heat in it though, like he wants to argue but he doesn’t really have a good argument. His lips are pressed together as he searches my face, and I think he might actually be considering it. His hand slides along the small of my back, just under my shirt, pulling me closer to him. “I don’t know if—”
He’s interrupted by the sound of my studio door sliding open, and when I look back to see who it is, I’m met with my brother’s shocked—then livid—face staring back at me.
“What the fuck is happening?” Ben asks, eyes narrowed in my direction. The words come out thin and sharp, like he barely has a hold on his anger.
Okay, probably not the best way for him to find out about Oliver and me, but I’m not going to tiptoe around my brother’s emotions, because he doesn’t have a right to be angry here. I stand and walk toward him, just like it’s any other day.
“What are you doing here?” I ask calmly. He only visits at lunch—when he visits—and any other time he calls beforehand.
“I stopped by to get Marisa’s bridesmaid dress. The bride is having a meltdown, and she wants to have a little summit tomorrow. I texted you twice but didn’t get an answer, I figured you were out or something, but now I get it.”
Ben’s hands are clenched at his side, and he’s practically vibrating with anger. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this angry, which is just…ridiculous. I wish I hadn’t muted my phone so I would’ve had some kind of warning to head this off, but, then again, there’s nothing here for Ben to be angry about or for me to be ashamed of.
“Sorry, I was working and I muted my phone.”
“Is that what you call working?”
“Hey,” Oliver snaps, standing up and ready for a fight.
I hold my arms out toward both of them on either side of me, hoping we can talk this out instead of things escalating.
“I told you to stay the fuck away from her,” Ben shouts, completely ignoring me.
Wait, what? “This isn’t any of your business, Ben.” I’m starting to get as angry as my brother seems. “You don’t make decisions for me, and you don’t get a say in who I date.”
Again, he doesn’t even acknowledge my presence, he just stands there staring daggers at Oliver.
“I’m in love with her, man.” Oliver says to Ben, then looks at me with a soft smile.
Ben moves in a flash, pushing past me and punching Oliver square in his jaw with a sickening thud.
Oliver gathers his footing quickly, nailing Ben with an uppercut. They scuffle, eventually hitting the wall and then falling onto the floor, miraculously managing to not knock anything over.
“Hey!” I scream as they fight each other, even though Oliver obviously has the upper hand. “Hey, stop it! Stop right now, both of you!”
Somehow that gets their attention, and I grab a fistful of Ben’s shirt in my hand and yank him back off of Oliver. “Get off of him, Ben. Now.” He doesn’t come easily, but eventually he complies.
I finally get them separated, but they’re both breathing heavily, all red-faced with bloody mouths and bruises blooming on their cheeks.
“What in the hell is wrong with you?” I ask my brother.
When he sees how angry I am, I guess realization at what he’s done finally hits him and his shoulders slump.
“You’re my sister,” he says, as if that excuses any of this behavior.
“Don’t go pulling some bro code shit with me, Ben. I’m a grown woman and Oliver is a grown man and we choose who we’re in relationships. You don’t get a say in it. And you certainly don’t get to come into my studio and start throwing punches over something that is none of your damn business.”
His eyebrows knit together in anger. “It’s not my business?”
“No,” I dismiss him. “Not even remotely.”
He gestures between me and Oliver. “If everything is on the up and up here, then why were you hiding it? How long has this been going on?”
“Three weeks,” Oliver says, wiping a drop of blood from his lower lip.
“What,” Ben says with a bitter laugh. “Were you embarrassed?”
“Never,” Oliver says, looking at me.
“Fuck you, Ben, for even insinuating such a thing.” Maybe he doesn’t realize what he’s insinuating about me when he makes the accusation, but seriously. Fuck him.
He catches on a little too late, and gives me a pleading, “Felicity, I didn’t mean—”
“What has gotten into you? It’s not enough for you to start a fight in my studio, you have to insult me, too? Get out, Ben. Just…get out.”
He looks like he’s going to argue with me for a few seconds before he thinks better of it, and reluctantly makes his way to the door. This isn’t necessarily how I want to leave things between us, but if he stays, I’m not entirely sure I won’t say something that I’ll regret later. When he walks out, he looks back one more time, and then disappears into the hallway.
It’s then that I realize that Marisa’s dress is still hanging by the door, and the last thing I want is for him to have to come back here again to get it. I don’t want to see his
face for a little while at least. I grab the dress and run out to the elevator, thankfully catching him right as the doors open.
“Here,” I say, slamming the dress into his chest.”
“Felicity, just let me—”
Maybe it’s going to be an apology, but if it is I’m not ready to hear it. I need to be clear headed before I can get into a state of being ready to accept what he has to say to me, and I’m nowhere near there yet.
“I don’t want to hear it right now, okay? Give me some time to cool off and be a little less pissed at you for how you behaved in there. I thought you wanted me to be happy?”
“I do, but—”
“You don’t get to put any qualifiers on it, Ben. Oliver makes me happy. You should be happy. I don’t understand why you’re not.”
I don’t give him a chance to answer me, I just turn around and walk back to the loft.
When I walk in and see Oliver standing right where I’d left him, I’m quick to try and lighten the mood.
“Well, that went to shit really quickly.” But, Oliver doesn’t laugh. “I get why you didn’t want to tell him. No one would look forward to a black eye.” Still nothing.
I walk over and gently touch his unbruised cheek, but Oliver flinches away from me. Coming back from this is going to be harder than I thought, and the prospect of what that might mean for us leaves my heart plummeting to my toes.
I reach for his hand, and it takes a few seconds for him to clasp mine. I ignore the heaviness that’s settled in my stomach, knowing that everything’s just changed in a way that I’m not going to like. I push it down to deal with the issue at hand.
I can fall apart later, if there’s something to fall apart over. Until then…
“C’mon,” I say, nodding toward the door. “Let’s go get you cleaned up.”
Chapter Eighteen
The ride to Oliver’s apartment is filled with nothing but silence between us. Oliver sits on his side of the car, staring out the window, and I sit on mine. I can’t remember Oliver ever being this quiet about anything, and that pretty much makes me desperate to know what’s going on inside his head. I want him to open up about what he’s thinking, so I can get to work on squashing the fears and objections that I know are making a mess of his head.
We make it to his building, the doorman and concierge both greeting us like normal, as if Oliver doesn’t look like he’s gone a round in a boxing ring.
Once we’re in his apartment, I guide Oliver into one of the barstools set up at his kitchen island, and make my way into his bathroom to get the first aid kit I’ve seen under his sink. I return with that and set it on the counter, then wet an old washcloth with warm water. I move slowly and purposefully, giving myself time to calm my nerves and come up with something to say that won’t make this whole thing even worse than it already is.
When I can’t delay it any longer, I walk over to where Oliver’s sitting and open the first aid kit.
“Are you just not gonna talk to me anymore?” I say in the lightest voice I can possibly manage. I wish it sounded less shaky than it did.
It takes Oliver a few seconds to reply. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Well,” I say, dabbing some of the blood off of Oliver’s lip with the washcloth. “You can start with Ben telling you to stay away from me. When did that happen? Why did that happen, and why didn’t you ever tell me about it?”
Those gorgeous blue eyes search mine. “A couple of reasons, I guess. I think a part of me was afraid that Ben not wanting us together would make you rethink things with me.”
I give him a withering look, and he holds his hands up defensively. “I know, I know. But you wanted me to be honest.”
I bite my tongue and nod. I value Ben’s opinion about pretty much everything, but would never stand for him trying to dictate who I should or shouldn’t spend my time with. It’s kind of difficult for me to believe that Oliver would let someone else’s opinion on something stop him from having something he truly wanted.
“So…when did he say this? When we were on Shelter Island?” Did Ben see something between us then?
Oliver shakes his head. “No. It was during our trip to Thailand.”
I drop the washcloth out of pure shock, and it lands on Oliver’s thigh.
“That long ago?” I say, more to myself than to Oliver. I run back all the things that Ben has said to me about Oliver, Oliver’s history in relationships, and how Oliver thinks of me in particular, reinforcing my belief that he’d always seen me as a sister. That Ben had inserted himself into the situation and managed to keep us away from each other all these years, depriving us both of all the happiness we’d found over the past few weeks, makes me want to spit actual fire at my brother. What a meddling asshat.
“Did he give you a reason why?”
“He didn’t like the fact that I couldn’t commit, and didn’t see me as the kind of guy he wanted his sister dating. And honestly, I don’t blame him.”
“Did he really hit you that hard?” I ask, positive that something must be malfunctioning in that brain of his. “You two don’t get to decide what kind of guy I should be dating. I get to decide that, and…you’re kind, you’re generous, you treat me well. Oliver, you’re exactly the kind of man I should be sharing my life with.”
How he doesn’t see that about himself, I’ll never understand.
“I can be selfish and stubborn and…to be honest, I don’t know how to be in relationships. I’ve never been in one that’s been worth a damn, and I’m never able to make them last very long. It was probably only a matter of time before I messed this up, too.”
“You’re doing fine,” I say softly, carefully caressing his cheek. He doesn’t flinch away this time, and that’s something.
“It’s only been a few weeks,” he argues.
“That’s generally how things start, Oliver. They go well for a few weeks, then they go well for a few months, a few years, and before you know it we spend a whole lifetime together.”
Oliver, who is very intently staring at his hands, slowly drags his eyes up to meet mine, and I hate what I see in them with every fiber of my being. It’s defeat, and some kind of self-loathing that I just don’t get at all. It’s a look that makes a painful lump lodge in my throat.
“Don’t do what you’re going to do,” I say, barely managing to keep myself from crying.
“It’s probably for the best.”
“The best for who? You said you were in love with me, unless you were lying about—”
“I would never lie about that,” he replies tightly, his eyes full of fire.
“Then is it best for me? Because I’m in love with you too, and you make me happy, Oliver. I don’t understand where this is coming from. We were perfectly fine before Ben came busting into my office earlier. He’s wrong, and he’s a hypocrite given his own history. We were happy…why does this change anything?”
Oliver’s back to looking at his hands again, and it is infuriating. “I just think it’s better if we don’t. I got wrapped up in the moment in Portland, and I wasn’t thinking straight, I wasn’t thinking long-term, I think—”
“Don’t you dare say we made a mistake.”
When Oliver looks up at me, it’s like a flip is switched. He’s not the warm, caring man I’ve been in love with for years. He’s morphed into the successful businessman with billion-dollar deals under his belt, cold and emotionless with only an end strategy in mind.
“I think we made a mistake.”
I do my best to swallow them down, but the tears come quickly anyway. There’s no holding them back.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this.”
“Knowing me, I probably would’ve done it at some point anyway.”
No, he wouldn’t have. I refuse to believe it. “Fucking liar.”
He tries to hide it, but I see him flinch. If he doesn’t want to be honest with me about what he’s really scared of, then I guess maybe this is for the best. The
anger and hurt coursing through me makes me rush into Oliver’s bedroom. I empty out the drawer he gave me, shoving my clothes into a giant tote I’d stashed in his closet. Next, I dump in the lotions and soaps I’d brought over, and toss my toothbrush into the trash. On my way out I spot a pair of my favorite heels in his closet, and make sure to get those too. The bag is overflowing and probably a little too heavy for me to carry easily, but I don’t care.
“What are you doing?” Oliver asks, still rooted to the spot where I’d left him.
“Erasing all remnants of this mistake you’ve made from your life. Isn’t that what you want? Well, you got it.”
I storm out into the hallway and down to the street where the doorman hails me a cab.
Oliver doesn’t come after me.
Caught up in a wave of hurt and anger, I wind up at Ben and Marisa’s apartment. I just want to get this confrontation over with, because I want to give my brother a piece of my mind and then not have to see him for…well, a very long time.
Marisa answers the door with a soft, sympathetic look on her face. “Hey,” she says softly, stepping back so I can walk inside. “Are you okay?”
That lump in my throat makes itself known again, and I start tearing up. My eyes are already throbbing and hot from all the crying I’ve done on the way over here.
“No, not really.”
Marisa shuts the door and gives me a comforting hug. “I’m so sorry,” she says when she pulls away. “I feel like it’s my fault for sending Ben over there.”
I shake my head, not wanting her to linger on that kind of guilt. “No, this has been coming for a while. Ben would’ve acted this way no matter when we’d told him. I thought maybe we should do it at dinner tomorrow night—which I will not be attending, by the way—but Oliver was reluctant, which I completely understand now. And makes sense considering Ben told him however many years ago to stay away from me, the nosy asshole.”
“Wait, he did what?” Marisa asks, confused.
“Ben told Oliver to stay away from me,” I repeat.
Her eyebrows scrunch together like she’s trying to figure something out, but that look disappears a few seconds later. “Is everything okay between you and Oliver?”