Chapter 4 #2
“Maybe that isn’t such a good idea,” Drew said, but my glare shut him up quickly.
It had been his idea to come up here, not mine.
I would have preferred staying in our sauna of a room, sweating our asses off, but now Oliver was going to hear me out whether he liked it or not.
After giving my brother one last pointed look, I nodded a quick thanks to JJ and marched off, my previous embarrassment long gone.
***
He was out on the balcony.
After searching through a series of empty rooms, I stepped inside the master and glanced around. With the curtains pulled back, I quickly spotted him through the glass door. A surge of heat flushed through my body, making my chest and cheeks burn, and I stomped across the room, my anger refreshed.
“What do you want?” he asked when I pulled back the sliding door.
His back was to me, arms folded neatly against the railing as he stared up at the sky. I had expected him to sound furious, but all his previous anger was absent and his voice came out quiet, layered with exhaustion. It was strangely jarring, and I took a step back.
Oliver turned when I didn’t answer. “Oh, I thought you were JJ,” he said, a scowl flickering across his face when he saw me. “I don’t want to talk to you.”
I opened my mouth to snap back, to tell him he couldn’t go around treating people the way he was treating me, but something over the edge of balcony caught my attention and I stepped up to the railing.
Far below us on the ground, swarms of people crowded the sidewalk.
They looked like specks from this high up, but I knew they were all teenage girls waiting to meet their idols.
“Whoa,” I gasped, unable to contain my surprise. “All those people down there?”
Oliver’s gaze flickered from the stars down to the street, a distant look on his face. “Here to see us?” he said. He rubbed his arms as if he was cold. “Yeah.”
I couldn’t comprehend the number of girls waiting outside the hotel. The band had to deal with this every day? The thought made me dizzy.
I didn’t regret my decision to be homeschooled, but sometimes being at home all the time was difficult, and I often wondered what high school was like for a normal teenager.
Whenever those thoughts bothered me, I would lie in bed and stare at the walls of my bedroom to make sure they weren’t shrinking around me.
I often felt they were, suffocating me slowly as they closed in on all sides.
It was like the cancer had trapped us and was holding us back from the rest of world.
I knew Oliver’s situation was completely different, but I wondered if his lack of privacy ever made him feel like a prisoner, trapped, the way I did by Cara’s sickness.
“It must be overwhelming.” I didn’t know what else to say. There was a painful twinge inside my heart, and I pressed my hand against my chest.
“You get used to it,” he said with a shrug.
His answer was so full of indifference that he sounded like he was merely reciting a well-known fact.
I had no answer, and he turned back to the darkness suspended above us.
Only then did a calm expression soften his face, and I was reminded of the smiling boy I’d met at Starbucks, not the famous prick I had witnessed a few minutes ago.
I joined him in stargazing. “I don’t think I’d ever get used to that,” I finally responded.
“That’s what I said in the beginning.” Oliver raked his fingers through his hair and then turned to me. “Look, Stella, I’m sorry about earlier. I shouldn’t have tricked you and your brother like that. But you—”
“Wait,” I said, interrupting him. I didn’t know why I suddenly felt the urge to apologize, especially when moments ago I had stormed in blazing with every intention of making his night as horrible as mine.
It was like, in a strange way, I understood how it felt for Oliver to have the world shrinking around him.
“Don’t. I’m the one who should be sorry. I acted like a total bitch. You just…”
“Caught me off guard,” Oliver said, finishing the sentence.
“Yeah,” I said a little breathlessly. “Exactly.”
We both stared at each other, and a moment passed between us that I couldn’t unravel.
Oliver stood unmoving, with the exception of his bangs that stirred in the wind.
His face was blank, but there was something busy and full about his eyes, and it made me want to take a step closer to see if those deep blues could tell me what he was thinking.
He cleared his throat, which made me acutely aware of how loud my heart was beating, and I lowered my gaze to my feet. The temperature outside had dropped with the sun, and the breeze cooled my hot skin but did nothing to settle the nerves swirling inside me.
“So,” Oliver said, his voice scratchy. “Are you really not a fan?”
His question made me cringe. “Oliver,” I responded, “I was being spiteful, which was totally ridiculous because you didn’t do anything to me.”
“But you still don’t like us, right?”
“Sorry,” I said as I fiddled with my camera, “but not really. My sister absolutely loves you guys though, and she would probably die of embarrassment if she ever found out how awful I was.”
Oliver was quiet as he listened to my answer, and I found the way he stared straight at me with his lips pressed together rather unnerving. He looked like a different person when he smiled, much less intimidating, and I suddenly wanted to see his dimples as his lips curled up.
I couldn’t stand his silence any longer. “I completely understand if you hate my guts,” I said in a rush. “To be honest, I came out here to yell at you, but then I realized you deserved an apology, so again, I’m sorry. I guess I’ll leave you alone now.”
As I turned to leave, I felt his fingers brush my shoulder.
“Wait,” he said. His touch made me jump, and he quickly retracted his hand and stared down at it like he was just as surprised by his actions as me.
Too unsettled to say anything, I wrapped my arms around myself and waited for him to speak.
He looked back up at me and sucked in a breath. “Can we start over?” he asked. It was the last thing I expected him to say, and I gaped as he stuck his hand out. “I’m Oliver Perry, lead singer for the Heartbreakers.”
I hesitated but then slowly slipped my hand into his. “Stella Samuel, amateur photographer.” His hand engulfed mine, skin rougher than I expected, but I liked the way my fingers felt against his.
“Well, Stella, amateur photographer, it’s nice to meet you.” He blinded me with that face-changing smile I had been thinking about moments ago. It was contagious and I found myself smiling back.
“Nice to meet you too.”
“So,” he said, rolling onto the balls of his feet. “You mentioned that your sister wanted an autograph?”
“Um, yeah.” I brushed my fingers against my throat when my voice jumped. “It’s a surprise for her birthday.”
“I’m sure the guys would agree that we’d be happy to provide you with one.”
“Really?” I asked, a tentative grin slowly blooming on my face. “You’d do that?” Even after what happened? Maybe Oliver wasn’t the jerk I’d imagined in my head.
He nodded. “Sure thing. Let’s head back in and I’ll find a pen.”