24. Oliver
TWENTY-FOUR
Oliver
“Here’s a sleeping bag, a sleeping pad—” I continued to rummage through the bins of camping equipment that Bev had given me from her garage. She’d said we were welcome to any of it. I already had my own gear, but Frankie had nothing, and neither did Harrison or Lila, who were arriving later today.
“What about a tent?” Frankie asked. She was lounging on the loveseat in the living room corner of my small studio. I’d been trying to build up her excitement for this camping trip for days, but she still wasn’t fully convinced.
I, on the other hand, was pumped. I wanted nothing more than to be out in nature with her, sitting by a bonfire with our friends, not thinking at all about what was next and just being with each other. There would be no cell reception so she’d finally be forced to take a break from preparing for interviews for this supposed dream job of hers. If you asked me, it was freaking ridiculous to put a potential candidate through this many hoops just to decide if you wanted to hire them or not. Frankie had already killed three rounds of interviews; they should have known what they had by now.
“My tent is pretty small, but we should both be able to squeeze into it.” I grinned up at her, but it faltered when I found her frowning back at me. “What?” I questioned.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” she said. “I mean, your best friend and his girlfriend are coming up. I would totally get if you didn’t want to say that we’re together—or whatever it is that we are. It’s so confusing, and they’re only here for a few days.”
My smile remained frozen to my face, but I could feel the vein in my neck start to bulge. “Frankie, you’re overthinking this,” I said carefully, because like hell was I letting her sleep anywhere except for my tent. She’d be lucky if I didn’t squeeze her into my sleeping bag.
“It’s confusing,” she insisted.
I stood up slowly, dropping my smile and raising an eyebrow. “Confusing? What are you talking about? No, it’s not.”
I mean, I guess it kind of was. I was confused as hell. I’d never felt this way in my entire life, yet we were only temporary. Everything in me was screaming to fight for whatever this was, but every logical thing in my brain was telling me we weren’t meant to be. Actually, come to think of it, “confusing” about summed it up.
“Look,” she said in a gentle tone I kind of hated—like she was bracing to let me down or something. “There will be a group of us. It’s not like it’s some romantic getaway, just the two of us. We can keep it casual in front of your friends. Mattie and Giles have an extra tent I can borrow. I’ll just use that one. It isn’t a big deal.”
I opened my mouth to protest again, but she shuffled off the couch and cut me off .
“I don’t want to have to explain myself to your friends, okay?” She let out an exhausted-sounding sigh, and I fought the urge to pull her into me. “They’ll ask questions that I don’t feel like answering. I’d rather get to know them in a chill environment—without any pressure.”
If she knew Harrison, she would know that he’d be as likely to interrogate her as a monk that took a vow of silence. He was not the chatty type, nor would he ever stick his nose in anyone’s business.
I didn’t say that, though. Something felt off about today. In fact, something had felt off for the past couple of days. She’d made a few excuses not to hang out. I knew she was stressed about getting this job, but I also knew how fucking prepared she was. There was no way she needed as much alone time as she’d insisted on, but I wasn’t about to call her out on that. I didn’t beg people to spend time with me, and I wasn’t about to start now.
“Okay, we’ll play it by ear.” I gave my best noncommittal answer.
I wouldn’t push her on it right now, but I would figure something out. She’d be in my tent tonight, that was for damn sure. And this weird energy she’d been giving me this week? Yeah, that needed to go right the hell away. I only had a limited time left with her, and I wanted it to be amazing. Not stifled and awkward.
I went to her and bent down to place a kiss on the top of her head. “Harrison and Lila will be here any minute. We were going to grab lunch and pack up the car. Do you want to stay here or should we pick you up?—”
“I’ll drive up with Mattie and Giles,” she said, waving her hand as if it were no big deal. As if she wasn’t painfully, achingly slicing my chest open with a dull butterknife. “See you up there,” she said cheerfully, taking the sleeping bag and headlamp I’d set aside for her. She gathered them up in her arms so that I could barely see her face over the gear.
I sighed. “Put that down. I can at least bring your stuff, can’t I?”
“Oh.” She dropped the things before looking back at me. At least there was finally a hint of guilt in her expression. “Yeah, I guess that would make sense. Thank you.” She backed away, waving awkwardly. “Bye.”
“See ya,” I said, cocking my head and giving her a look that I hoped said “We will definitely be discussing your bizarre behavior later.”
Frankie let out a nervous laugh before gulping and scurrying out my front door.
Yeah, no. We would definitely be figuring this out later.
“And then she says we should sleep in different tents.” I said that last part like even the idea repulsed me, which to be fair, it did.
“Separate tents? Why? That seems so random.” Lila leaned forward from the back seat, hanging on my every word.
Harrison, meanwhile, let out a grunt of disapproval and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Maybe we shouldn’t be discussing this. She clearly didn’t want us to know you two were together,” he said.
I scoffed and Lila snorted. “What? Like I’m not going to tell my best friend about the girl I’m seeing?”
Lila squealed. “Oh, so you’re seeing her now?”
“As if that isn’t the vaguest fucking term ever,” Harrison grumbled.
“It’s more than he’s ever said before.” Lila reached out and tugged on his bun, which got his lips to quirk up as he turned to look at her. My tenseness softened a little at the sweet gesture. Harrison and I had been best friends for basically our entire lives and he’d never let anyone in the way he’d let Lila in. It still caught me by surprise seeing how comfortable the two of them were together. An added bonus was that Lila was basically the female version of me. We’d already been friends before she and Harrison got together. She was peppy and always down for something new. She got Harrison ever so slightly out of his shell, which was a huge bonus for me. I’d been trying to get the guy to loosen up since high school to no avail.
“I like her,” I admitted, tightening my grip on the steering wheel as we took another hairpin turn up the side of the mountain. “I mean, obviously we can’t be anything serious, but…”
My words trailed off—because but what ? But maybe we could stay friends? But she’d had some profound effect on me and changed me forever? I was probably playing with fire here, but fuck it. I was ready to get burned.
Harrison shot me a disapproving look. “Shouldn’t we respect what she asked and not talk about this? She didn’t want to sleep in the same tent so you wouldn’t have to explain your relationship status, and here you are, spilling every detail ten seconds into this drive.”
I made eye contact with Lila in the rearview mirror, and we both smirked at each other.
“She’s just getting her first lesson in Ollie one-oh-one. That being that he can absolutely not keep his mouth shut,” she said.
Harrison sighed. “Fair.”
“Hey, I can keep my mouth shut when it matters.”
“Can you?” Harrison challenged .
“Definitely,” I insisted, although I hoped he didn’t come through with a plethora of examples proving me wrong.
Finally, after a beat of silence, he said, “I’m glad you met someone.”
My eyebrows shot up, shocked to hear quite possibly the most sentimental thing that had ever come out of my best friend. “As you can see, it’s not exactly straightforward,” I said.
He shrugged. “Still. You care. That’s a start.”
The words of the person who knew me better than anyone twisted inside my chest. If he could tell this was real, then there was no doubt that it was. Or at least it was real on my end. But fuck, what did that even mean? Likely nothing good, considering we were on a countdown toward ending and she was already pulling away from me.
If there was one thing about me, though, it was that I was going to take life by the balls and savor every moment. So if my gut was right and she was trying to pull away, I wasn’t about to let her do that without a fight.
“Okay, okay. Enough obsessing about me and my situationship. How are you two?” I asked.
Harrison turned and glanced back toward Lila, whose eyes lit up.
“We’re good,” she said.
“Fucking fantastic,” Harrison added, flashing a rare smile.
“Even without me in Denver?” I asked, feigning a pout.
“You’re missed daily,” Lila said.
“It’s all we ever talk about.”
“I knew my absence would hit you hard,” I said, pretending to be distraught. “Don’t worry, maybe I’ll find time to head back to the city for a week or two before my next gig starts. You have room, right?”
Harrison’s smile fell. “It’s a small house,” he mumbled, to which I laughed .
Lila giggled. “We always have room for you, Ollie.”
My chest swelled. Home wasn’t a place; it was a feeling. I felt it right now sitting with my best friend and his person. And fuck me if I also didn’t feel it anytime I was with Frankie.
Eagerness electrified my body as every mile swept by and I was closer to being in the same vicinity as her again.