Olivia
“Good God, woman! I thought you were dead!”
Sadie’s voice comes through the phone as soon as I answer it. I can’t blame her for being worried. Not only was the drive home the most awkward walk of shame ever (walk of shame? Drive of shame? Whatever…) but the Wi-Fi was spotty as hell and I wasn’t able to update her on my location.
“I know, I know. But I’m fine, I promise.”
Luca dropped me off at home five minutes ago, and I am frantically trying to get ready for work. I switch the phone to speaker so I can multi-task.
“So what happened?” she asks. “You went on date four and you went radio silent.”
“We went to dinner,” I say.
“Where? The moon?” she asks.
“Close enough,” I frown as I look at my reflection in the mirror.
I look like hell. Between the rain and the bedroom activities that took place last night, I think it’s safe to assume it looks like there are birds living in a nest on my head right now.
I literally took nothing but a clutch with me, and a hairbrush just wouldn’t fit.
And Luca saw me like this. Great.
“What do you mean?” Sadie asks, jerking me back into the moment. “Olivia. I need to know all the things!”
“Right, right,” I say, dousing my hair in a week’s worth of leave-in conditioner spray before running my fingers through it. “He took me to dinner in Salem,” I say before pausing because I know she’s going to freak.
“Salem!? You went all the way to Salem for dinner? Why?”
“Traffic,” I answer, reaching for the hairbrush. “We got rerouted so far we ended up outside of the city. I suggested we go to Salem, and he went along with it, surprisingly enough. It was this cute little vegetarian place I saw on Insta–”
“So you ate broccoli in Salem. Then what?” she asks.
“Then it started to rain,” I wince as I brush my hair. Once it is more or less smooth, I pull it into a sleek ballerina bun because there’s no way it’s going to cooperate beyond that today. Then I turn on the water and get started on my face.
“You ate salad, and it rained. But that doesn’t explain why you are just now getting back to me,” she states, and I can tell by all the honking and screeching that she’s driving.
“Where are you?” I ask, slightly concerned. Sadie has never been a patient driver. She’s never been a patient anything, honestly.
“I’m driving to an interview,” she says.
“A job interview?” I ask. “You got a job interview? Where?”
“A fashion magazine, of all things,” she answers.
“Sadie! You will be so good at that!” I exclaim, as I soap up my face.
“We’re off topic,” she says. “So what happened? I am five minutes away and I need to know everything. Are we closer to catching him in his own net or not? You know, this whole thing has carried on a lot longer than I expected. I just want to see him when his trap backfires.”
“So it started to rain. Bad. And we knew we couldn’t get home safely, so we got a hotel room…”
“Of course. You know, I bet he planned that,” she sneers.
“Planned it?” I ask. “The accident that caused the traffic and the detour? And the rain?”
“Trust me, Livv. He’s a gifted man.”
Oh believe me, I know. But not in the ways you think.
“I don’t think he had an agenda,” I tell her. “He actually seemed grumpy most of the time.”
“Only most of the time?” She asks, and I can feel the ice cracking under my feet. I need to tread carefully from here on out.
“He lightened up a bit. The food was good, and the room was nice,” I say.
“Is that the only reason he lightened up? You didn’t have sex with him again, did you?”
“No,” I say. And it’s true. We didn’t have sex. Not exactly…
“Okay good. Because that would just be throwing the ball in his court,” she says, and I hear another honk. “Boston drivers are literally fucking insane.”
“Sadie,” I say as I moisturize my face. A little mascara and lip gloss and I’m going to have to call it good. “How long are we going to keep this up?” I ask. “We’ve been on four dates, and I feel like we’re losing sight of the initial purpose.”
“We lost sight of the initial purpose the night you slept with him,” she says flatly. “But it’s okay because I forgive you. We aren’t just going to break his ego. Now we are going to break his heart.”
“Did he really hurt you that badly?” I ask, and Sadie gasps.
“You’re joking, right? Olivia…I was in love with him. And he led me on. And then he fired me. He fired me, Livv. For believing he cared about me.”
“I know, I know…” I agree, covering my face with my hands. “Okay. He hurt you, and he deserves to be held accountable for that. But we need an endpoint here. Because right now I am following his lead and it’s just heading for what feels like monogamy,” I say, and Sadie just laughs.
“Monogamy? Olivia. This is Luca Laurent. He’s not monogamous.
He’s never been monogamous. It’s not his MO.
No, if he is still stringing you along, he must have a plan.
A motive. A scheme…” She trails off before gasping loud enough to make me jump, and I nearly fall over as I tug a pair of panties on.
“What?” I ask.
“OMG! That asshole!” she says.
“What!?”
“Olivia…he knows.”
“Knows what?” I ask as I dig through my laundry for a bra. I am going to be so late. And then I’m never going to hear the end of it.
“He knows that you know me.”
“How?” I ask.
“Seriously. You don’t think he’s looked you up on social media?
No, that is exactly what happened. He looked you up and saw me.
Or he came to his senses and looked me up after he fired me and saw you.
Either way, he saw us. He saw us together, and he figured it out, and he knows we’re playing him. That tricky asshole.”
“Sadie,” I say as I throw on a band t-shirt and some shorts. There are definitely perks to running a podcast where being visible is optional. “I feel like you’re reading too heavily into this.”
“And I feel like you are too na?ve to see what’s really going on,” she says. “Livv. He’s onto us. It’s why he’s taken you on four dates and only slept with you once. Because after he slept with you, he figured out who you are and now…he’s trying to beat us at our own game.”
“I thought we were trying to beat him at his own game,” I say as I grab my keys and purse.
“Exactly,” she says. And my head is spinning.
“Look. Sadie, I love you. And we can talk about it later. But I am so late for work right now, and I really need coffee and–”
“Go, go,” she insists. “And in the meantime, I am writing up a new agenda.”
A new agenda. Just what we need.
I drive like a bat out of hell to work and throw the car in park. We don’t have an episode today, but we do have to write up the notes for the next one. And Kiersten has a second job as a bartender, so we are on a bit of a timeframe.
Still, I’m never going to survive any of this without coffee, so I grab my usual latte before heading up to the studio.
“I am starting to regret ever agreeing to go along with this,” I say as soon as I walk in the door. My hope is that if I start talking before they do, I’ll have a head start in the conversation that is most likely going to be similar to the one I just had with Sadie.
“I thought it was your idea,” Henry says.
“It was…sort of,” I say as I toss my bag on the floor and plop down in my seat, latte in hand. “But it’s gone too far.”
“Let me guess, you slept with him again,” Kiersten says.
“No,” I answer, ripping open my straw and shoving it in the cup. “I did not sleep with him. I slept with him, but I didn’t sleep with him.”
They look at each other before turning back to me. “Date four run down,” Kiersten says. “You have seven minutes, and then we have to get to work because I’m picking up a double today.”
So I tell them everything in more detail than I did Sadie.
I feel a bit guilty about that, but I also didn’t want to upset her with the details.
Plus, Kiersten and Henry are my go-to for advice when it’s a subject I can’t talk to Sadie about.
And getting eaten out within an inch of my life is definitely one of those subjects, considering Luca Laurent was the one doing the… eating.
“Okay,” Henry nods when I finally finish talking and take a sip of my coffee.
“So your date was spontaneous and fun and had a happy ending,” Kiersten says. “Nothing wrong with that.”
“Yeah, except for the fact that I don’t think this whole thing is going the way we initially planned,” I say.
“Sure it is,” Kiersten says. “He’s laying it on thick…because he has secret intentions.”
“Or a secret side piece,” Henry adds.
“Or you are the sidepiece and he’s actually married,” Kiersten says, and I just stare at them.
“I think we would know if Luca Laurent was married,” I say. “He’s a public figure.”
“So is Keanu Reeves, and yet unless he is actively Matrix-ing, nobody knows anything about what he’s up to,” Henry says. “Trust me. I’ve looked.”
“I don’t think he’s married,” I say. “And I don’t think I’m a side piece either.”
“So you think he’s falling for you?” Henry asks, and I don’t say anything.
“That would be perfect,” Kiersten smirks.
“Would it?” I ask. “I don’t even know if I want to be in a relationship. Even if I did, I’m not sure how I’d feel about being with the CEO of a dating app. It kind of goes against everything I stand for. And he’s so grumpy. And so rich and–”
“Okay, Elizabeth Bennett. So Darcy isn’t your type. Right…” Henry winks at me.
“Olivia,” Kiersten cuts in. “We aren’t suggesting you actually date him or even that he’s actually falling for you.”
“Right,” I shake my head, willing away the warmth in my cheeks. “That would be ridiculous. You know what else is ridiculous? Sadie thinks he knows that her and I are friends and he’s trying to play us.”
They both just stare at me.
“Crazy, right?” I ask.
“That makes sense,” Kiersten says, and Henry nods. “That makes total sense. Why else would he take you on four dates, two of them with no action? Oh yeah, because he’s fucking with you. He’s fucking with all of it. Which means in this next episode, we gotta amp it up.”
“That’s not really what I had in mind–” I say, but Kiersten just grins and scribbles a bunch of things down before standing up.
“I have to go, but this is perfect.”
“So perfect,” Henry agrees. “We are going to get him so good. And our ratings are going to go through the roof!”
I go out to my car, my half-chugged coffee in hand, feeling more lost and exhausted than before.
I can’t help but feel like a fish out of water.
Or a fish with too much water, if that makes sense.
A little fish caught in that big ass current over by Australia.
I’m in so over my head and my friends are all just along for the vicarious ride of their lives.
I would love it if they were right, and he really is an asshole that’s just playing me.
If he really is the world’s biggest catfish, we are going to hook him, expose him, and throw him out to sea.
Sadie would get her payback, and Unmatched would get its ratings, and he would get what he has coming to him.
Except that I am really struggling to believe that’s actually what he has coming to him. I am struggling to believe that’s who he is. And when I reach my car, I come to a halt. My jaw drops as I stare at the giant bouquet of assorted yellow flowers. My struggles are now solidified.
I check the note and sure enough. They’re from Luca. And he wants another date.
If this wasn’t some huge ruse to take down the CEO of Realr, I’d be wondering if he might be boyfriend material after all.