Chapter 7
JOHN
SIX YEARS AGO
Idon’t know what to do with the hand towel.
I’m a twenty-one-year-old genius who’s at the top of my class at MIT, and I don’t know what to do with the Montgomery hand towel that I’ve just blasted copious amounts of my semen into.
They were kind enough to invite me to Thanksgiving, and now my splooge is all over one of their white Turkish-cotton towels.
At least I didn’t release it inside their seventeen-year-old daughter.
That’s not even funny.
Although she is legally over the age of consent in Ohio.
But it’s not funny.
I can’t believe I couldn’t even make it through dinner without doing this, but I also can’t believe that Olivia isn’t wearing a bra.
At a family holiday. Her very thin cream-colored sweater is so form fitting that I could see the outline of her nipples in my peripheral vision.
I suppose it’s a good thing we’ve been seated next to each other, so I don’t have to face them head-on for over an hour.
Except that she smells divine. I haven’t been this close to her for a sustained period of time in ages. It’s like I’ve been inhaling her burgeoning sexuality while trying to concentrate on digesting the first home-cooked meal I’ve had all year. It’s too much to process all at once.
She’s been pretty since she was thirteen.
She was beautiful the last time I saw her, although I tried not to look at her.
Over the course of a year, she has become a sexy young woman.
I am thankful that all her ballet training has not turned her into an emaciated, wispy waif.
Although she’d still be hot. She has curves.
Bewitching curves. Stunning long, toned legs.
That criminally short skirt leaves very little to the imagination, despite the tights.
She could do anything with those legs. I could do anything with those legs.
I mean, I shouldn’t do anything with my best friend’s little sister’s legs—but I could.
But what the fuck should I do with this hand towel?
Her hands. Olivia’s hands are so smooth but capable… Shit, it’s starting up again. I have to stop thinking about her. Those long, elegant fingers that would wrap themselves so firmly around my throbbing, rock-hard—
“Hey! You still in there?” Monty knocks on the bathroom door.
He would kill me if he knew. He would saw off my dick with the turkey-carving knife.
“Yeah. Just a little stomach upset. Took care of it. Be right out.”
“Gross, man. Open the window. There’s no fan in that bathroom.”
“Will do.”
The window.
I drop the soiled hand towel out the window. I’ll pick it up when I leave, dispose of it on the way home. On my way back to my parents’ empty house. I suppose I can’t blame them for working at the office on Thanksgiving. It is a weekday, after all.
“What do you mean you aren’t going to college?
” I think my ears are ringing. Did someone just punch me in the head?
Glancing around the table, I am shocked—stunned—to find that Olivia’s parents and brother are unaffected by this news.
It’s like she just casually placed a bomb in front of herself at the dining table.
A bomb that will only blow up in her pretty face later in life. And no one else can see it but me.
Olivia smiles as she turns her gaze to me. Her hazel eyes always look lit from within. Right now they are glowing amber and filled with mischief. “I’ve been accepted into the graduate school program in Pittsburgh.”
“What kind of graduate school? How do you get into graduate school if you don’t go to college? What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about ballet. Duh.” She looks over at her brother. “You didn’t tell him about this?”
“Believe it or not, sis, you rarely come up in our conversations.”
“Whatever. I’ll be training with the Ballet Theatre in the pre-professional division. It’s an amazing intensive program.”
“In Pittsburgh?” I huff out. “Pennsylvania?”
“At least it’s closer to home than Seattle or Houston,” sighs Mrs. Montgomery.
“And cheaper,” mumbles Mr. Montgomery.
I can see that her parents are resigned to this but not happy about it.
“Well, I would have been happy to go to any of them, but I chose Pittsburgh to be closer to you guys, so you’re welcome,” Olivia says.
“Did you get a scholarship?”
Staring down at her mashed potatoes as she traces a pattern into it with her fork, she says, “They gave me a partial scholarship.”
Monty scoffs. “Partial. It only covers like ten percent of your tuition.”
“Well, some people didn’t get anything,” she snaps.
My ears feel hot now. Why is this news so upsetting to me? She’s happy. She has always wanted to be a ballerina. She’s Tiny Dancer. I should congratulate her. “Did you even apply to colleges?”
Her mouth is full of stuffing. “I applied.”
“So, you didn’t get in anywhere?”
After swallowing, she says, “I got in everywhere that I applied. This may come as a shock to you, but college was always going to be my fallback in case I didn’t get accepted to the good training schools.”
Her brother snorts and shakes his head but says nothing.
“It’s fine, Johnny,” her saint of a mother says. “This is what she wants. Would you like more gravy, dear?”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Montgomery, but it’s not fine. Yes, I would like more gravy—thank you.”
Mrs. Montgomery passes the gravy boat to Olivia, who carefully places it in front of me, grinning.
I should just leave it. I’m not family. It’s not my place to have an opinion. Not at Thanksgiving dinner, anyway.
I take a deep breath and then say, “It’s not fine.
Because your daughter has an excellent brain, and regardless of her talent and passion for ballet, her brain is the only thing that she can rely on to provide for her long-term.
That is, if she plans to provide for herself financially.
” I don’t turn toward her when I say, “If your plan is to marry a wealthy man while pursuing your lifelong dream of dancing, well, that’s up to you, I suppose. It’s just disappointing.”
Is that what I think? It just came out. I don’t even know why this is so upsetting to me.
“First of all, I’m not getting married until after my dance career is over,” she says calmly. “And when I have sex, I will always use two forms of birth control.”
There’s a loud clang as Mr. Montgomery drops his fork. He covers his face, groaning.
Mrs. Montgomery sighs. “More dinner rolls, anyone?”
“I’m married to ballet is what I’m saying,” Olivia continues.
“I really don’t see some rich guy falling for that sasshole anyway,” her brother mutters.
“Nathan,” his mother reprimands.
Olivia gives her brother the finger.
Monty flips her the bird right back.
It’s comforting to know their sibling relationship hasn’t changed over the years.
He’s her brother. Not me. I’m not even her friend, really.
I mean, I care about her like a sister. Is that right?
No, I just care about her. But it’s none of my business what she does with her life.
“Your brain is what you’ll have to rely on when your body begins its inevitable demise,” I say.
“It happens to all dancers. You have to think of your future.”
“I’m aware of that—thanks,” she says. “Believe it or not, I do have rational plans that I formulated using my excellent brain.”
“What kind of job are you going to be able to secure if you break your ankle?”
Mrs. Montgomery gasps at the thought of it.
Olivia shrugs. “I can do administrative work. Arts administration.”
“Any decent administrative position will require a bachelor’s degree.”
“It doesn’t require a degree, but it might help to have a degree. It also might help to sleep with the right person.”
“Olivia.” Her father curses under his breath. “Give your old dad a break. Come on.”
“I’m not saying I’d do that!” She snaps her head around to me. “Do you have any idea how many people don’t get a job after graduating from college?”
“That’s a lazy argument,” Monty says, punctuating his statement with an epic, not-at-all-lazy belch.
“And statistically invalid. College graduates earn far more money than high school graduates—even in the same positions. Over fifty percent more. That’s a fact.”
“What about all the college dropouts who founded the world’s most successful start-ups?” Olivia asks.
“They’re just lucky,” says Mr. Montgomery.
“They’re anomalies,” I say. I don’t challenge her to name any of them because I know she can’t.
“They’re geniuses,” snorts Monty.
“Well, so am I,” Olivia exclaims. There’s defensiveness in her tone. She isn’t as confident as she’d have us believe. Now I feel bad.
“No one’s saying you aren’t special, sweetheart,” Mrs. Montgomery says kindly.
“And no one’s telling you flat-out that you’re making a terrible decision that’s disrespectful of your family—except me.”
“I’m being disrespectful? You’re telling me that I’m being disrespectful?
” Her face is now flushed. I wonder if her skin is flushed anywhere else.
Her nostrils are flared, and her chest is heaving.
Why is it that a woman’s physical response to anger is so similar to sexual arousal?
At least, it is with the women I’ve been with.
We haven’t had an argument this heated since before I left for college. What is this heat? Is it just me? Why do I care so much?
“No one asked your opinion, Nerdballs. You know what—talk to me once you’ve secured post-college employment.
And then talk to me again a month later after the person who hired you realizes what a terrible mistake they made.
” She’s getting angrier by the second. Like Anakin right before he goes full Sith Lord on the Tusken Raiders.
“You have zero social skills. You have no idea how to make someone like you, and you definitely have no right to talk to me about family—where is your family?”
She has a point.
“Jesus, O,” Monty says, his mouth full of candied yams. “That’s cold.”