Chapter 17 Niko
Niko
Niko, posting a message on his Camboy account, this morning
Username: Dragonfly
A note for my followers: Sorry that I’ve been missing in action for a while. Real life has been crazy, and I’ve been taking care of very necessary things.
I haven’t forgotten you.
Happy Holidays, Dragonflies. Xx
I should have known what I was getting into when I accepted the offer to come to Oliver’s family home.
My instinct was to tell him no, but then the reality of it slipped in. If I hadn’t gone back with him, I would have been up all night worried about his safety.
These days, it’s harder to be away from him than ever.
And the idea of a vacation from my daily life sounds vitally necessary, right now.
I first notice something different about Oliver when we’re halfway through the road trip, then confirm it once we arrive.
“We’re close,” he says, looking out through the front windshield.
His neighborhood is beautiful. A wealthy suburban residential neighborhood with manicured streets, sprawling two-story homes, and curving roads.
“This is absolutely nothing like what I grew up in,” I tell Oliver.
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“Very good. When my mom got enough hush money from my dad, she bought a modern glass-and-steel thing that looked more like a cold museum than a home. The front yard was covered in concrete pavers and only small, designated portions of grass.”
“Not exactly cozy vibes.”
“Zero cozy vibes. My mom hates anything that requires any maintenance or care. Grass, plants, animals, her own son.”
“Christ, Niko.”
“This seems like a beautiful place to grow up,” I tell Oliver, looking around and changing the subject away from my childhood. “I can picture kids riding bikes around here, playing hide-and-seek, actually being loved by their parents.”
He puffs out a nervous laugh. “Sprinkle in a lot of social awkwardness on my part, but… yeah. Otherwise, I definitely did do all of that in my childhood. Guilty as charged.”
I reach over and squeeze his thigh.
We pull up outside a house that’s white with navy blue trim on the window shutters.
The front landscaping is lush, with beautiful Japanese maple trees out front and a dusting of snow on the lawn.
We get out of the car and start to walk toward the house, and Oliver nervously tugs at his clothes. He’s in a pale green sweater that fits him tight and makes his eyes look like two goddamn jewels, and as the neckline moves I catch a glimmer of gold around his neck.
“You’re wearing the necklace I got you,” I tell him.
I bring my fingertips to the fine gold chain, so thin it’s barely there. I pull out the small dragonfly charm, running my thumb over it.
“Oh. Yeah,” he says, reaching up to touch it, too. “I put it on this morning.”
He’s fidgety.
He’s actually completely nervous to be bringing me back here.
Earlier, he tried to ask me about what happened when I got hurt a couple of months ago, and again, I managed to push him off of the topic.
I’m just… not ready yet.
Not ready for him to know how empty I was, in that moment.
Why I jumped.
And why I didn’t care if I survived the fall, even if I wasn’t trying to hurt myself.
We made the road trip over here this morning in my car, and for the whole drive over, Oliver got more antsy and talkative the closer we got.
Now he seems practically ready to leap out of his skin.
“Quit being adorable. I don’t have time to fuck you before we head inside.”
“God,” he mutters, a tiny pink blush on his cheekbones.
I squeeze his hip, biting back a smile.
I know he won’t say it, but Oliver has no idea what it’s going to be like to bring someone back home for the first time.
He’s never dated anyone, and I’m pretty sure he didn’t think through the implications of bringing me back for Christmas.
Me.
With my skin absolutely flooded with ink, including the prominent six of hearts tattoo right at the center of my hand.
With my ear piercing, and my inability to keep a filter on my mouth.
I know how Oliver thinks his parents are going to see me: like a rabid, dangerous wolf with a sign around my neck saying I fuck your son senseless and I’ll murder any soul who tells me not to.
I suppose it’s the truth.
But at least for this trip, I want to try to be on good behavior. Try. The idea of “good behavior” feels strange, like I’m in an unfamiliar coat, but I want to try my best not to fuck anything up for Oliver, for once.
We go in through the garage.
Oliver keys in a code and we enter, walking past two cars, hung-up bikes, a spare fridge, and tons of boxes of storage.
Once we’re inside, it smells like warm apples with cinnamon, and the chatter of conversation fills the air. He leads me through a short back hall toward the kitchen.
“Hey, Mom.”
A short woman with a messy bun the same hair color as his is standing over the kitchen island.
“Sweetie!” she says, coming over to wrap Oliver in a hug. “God, I’ve missed you. Are you taller? I’m just shorter. Fuck, I’m old. I’m so happy you’re back.”
No wonder Oliver’s so attuned to affection. Clearly he had a whole lot more of it than me, growing up.
“Hi, Mom. This is Niko.”
“Niko, I’m Cheryl. Get in here. Welcome.”
She wraps her arms around me in a hug, too.
A teenage kid looks up at me from over his handheld gaming console, his eyes going wide. “Holy fuck! Those tattoos are fire.”
“Language, Aaron,” Cheryl scolds him.
“Niko, this is my little brother Aaron, and my sister Emily. Aaron’s a freshman in high school and Emily’s a junior.”
Both Aaron and Emily stand up and come over to give me hugs, too.
And the award for most affectionate family ever goes to the Ashfords.
Everyone has the same golden-brown hair other than Emily, who’s clearly dyed hers to go in a more goth direction.
Her hair is jet black and in two braids like Wednesday Addams, and she’s rimmed her eyes with thick black eyeliner.
In high school, I even had a phase where I wore eyeliner and painted my nails black, so Emily instantly feels like a little sister to me.
Oliver’s dad is the only one who opts for a handshake instead. He sets down a cup of black coffee and stands up to greet me. He looks even more academic than Oliver, with thick-framed glasses, sharp green eyes, and a neatly-trimmed grey beard.
“Pleasure to meet you, Niko,” he says. “I’m Victor. We’ve heard a lot about you.”
I can’t hide my surprise.
I lift my eyebrows, turning toward Oliver, who looks like he wants to sink into the ground.
“You’ve told your parents about me, Ollie?”
“He’s told us, too,” Aaron says, grinning. “He didn’t say you have tats, though.”
Cheryl sighs, leaning over the kitchen island. “Aaron, if you so much as get a microscopic line tattooed on your skin before you’re 18, I will have failed as a mother. Hell, make it 25. Your brain needs to fully form before you make those decisions.”
“Niko’s not 25, and he has good tattoos,” Aaron protests.
Cheryl looks over at me, putting a hand to her mouth for a moment. “Shit. I didn’t mean any offense by that, Niko.” She comes over and whispers in my ear so that Aaron can’t hear. “Your tattoos are very beautiful. I just don’t want my fourteen-year-old getting any ideas.”
I nod. “Understand completely.”
Oliver is running his hands through his hair, putting them down flat on the kitchen island, then moving them back up to his hair again, adorably nervous.
“I told them we started dating a few weeks ago,” he admits to me. “I didn’t tell them all about you, though.”
“He said you’re popular on Instagram. Wouldn’t give me your account, though,” Emily says with a sly grin. “Ollie has had me and Aaron blocked on Insta for a while now.”
“Yeah, because you two should be focusing on school, not social media.”
Victor’s shrewd eyes are still peering at me from behind his glasses, and I definitely feel like I’m being sussed out.
“So,” he says, crossing his arms and leaning on the kitchen counter. “Oliver tells us you went to Morningview Prep. That’s a great school.”
“I wasn’t the greatest prep school student, but yes. I graduated.”
“We almost considered Morningview for our kids, too. Settled on Benning because it’s a lot closer, and still an academic titan.”
“Dad used to be a corporate lawyer, and now he’s a professor,” Oliver explains. “He likes, ah, school-related stuff.”
“What are you majoring in, Niko?” Victor asks.
“Still undeclared. I considered photography, and psychology. But I’m really not sure yet.”
No ideas for careers, either.
If I don’t ever make it as a model, I’m out of fucking ideas.
Because until my brother begged for me to get into Crimson… I wasn’t going to go to college at all.
“Ollie’s wanted to be a professor since he was young,” Cheryl adds, a warm smile on her face.
I turn to him, suddenly flooded with a strange feeling.
Guilt, almost.
I’ve never even once thought to ask Oliver what his major was, or what he wanted to do with his life. When I look at Oliver now, I can see it so clearly. He’d be an incredible professor.
He’s patient.
Smart.
Sensitive to the needs of people around him.
He’d also make the hottest goddamn professor on Earth, and I can picture students in the class endlessly forming crushes on him while he’d cluelessly just think they were that interested in the subject matter.
You want to be a professor.
A fuller, richer picture of who Oliver Ashford really is begins to form in my mind. The nurturing family. The ambitions. The backbone of love and fresh-baked apple desserts and sibling banter that have made Ollie who he is, but feel so foreign to me.
I feel like an idiot for never realizing it before. Suddenly I’m swimming with thoughts about the future in a way that makes me uncomfortable.
Soon enough, our fake relationship will end, and Oliver will have a whole life path ahead of him, and I’ll go back to how my life was before him.
My chaos.
My baggage.
But for now, I’m here with his perfect family in his perfect home. Playing my part for him.