Chapter Twenty-Two
ALONE, IN THE harsh light of the bathroom, everything looks and feels different.
My lips are swollen, my thighs are tender, and my hair is a disaster.
I’m wearing one of Oliver’s old Juilliard T-shirts, which is so long on me that it covers my underwear-clad butt, but I still feel more exposed than I did a few minutes ago when I was naked in his bed.
We slept together.
My heart races every time that thought thrums through me, which is about every other second that I spend standing at the marble counter of this very nice bathroom.
The rest of my brain is occupied by how distinctly not casual it was, the way we trusted each other and let go of everything else. It was just us.
We slept together. And it was incredible.
The longer I hide in this bathroom, the weirder it will be when I go back to the scene of the crime, so I cut the faucet and take a deep breath, willing my heart to calm down.
On the other side of the door, Oliver is seated on the bed wearing a pair of gray boxers and nothing else.
His physique is lean but strong—not a “gym body,” per se, but the body of a man who does go to a gym—and it really is something to behold.
Butterflies erupt in my stomach when he looks over at me and smiles.
“I like you in my shirt,” he says.
I fiddle with the hem of it. “It’s very soft.”
“Come here.”
He reaches out for me. I couldn’t resist the pull of him if I tried.
I step between his legs as we wrap our arms around each other. I wonder if he can feel the rapid beat of my heart when he presses his cheek to my chest. My fingers shake lightly when I stroke the back of his neck.
“Will you stay?” he asks, his voice quiet and small. “In this room with me tonight?”
I’m careful to hold in my surprise. Weeks ago, he invited me to this house, but that was for work.
This is different. It’s the first time Oliver has ever asked something of me, something that clearly means something to him based on the tone of his voice and the fact that he’s burying his face against me.
Something shifts in me then. Maybe even breaks. I can’t pinpoint what that feeling is, but I do know that I want nothing more than to stay with him. At least for tonight.
“Yeah.” I keep my tone and my touch light. “I’ll just go grab my toothbrush.”
I feel him exhale against me. “I’ll get it. Do you want anything else?”
“Maybe a glass of water?”
He pulls back, kisses me swiftly, and says, “I’ll be right back.”
He’s gone before I can process that look on his face—so uncharacteristically bright and open for him.
In his absence, I glance around the room, amazed by what a mess we made in such a short period of time.
The bed looks like a tornado ran through it.
Our clothes are strewn about on the floor.
My bra somehow ended up draped across the bureau.
I pick up our discarded clothes and pile them on a squishy white armchair next to the window.
When I grab my bra off the dresser, a small picture frame comes with it, tangled up in the straps.
It’s small enough that I missed it before.
I pull it free and find myself face-to-face with none other than a tiny Oliver.
He must be three, maybe four years old in this picture.
His little pink cheeks are still babyish and round, so at odds with the blue suit and tie he’s dressed in.
He’s smiling in that way only little kids do, with reckless abandon, not a single worry about angles or food in teeth or anything that we grow to be insecure about.
He’s so chubby and cute and innocent in this photo that tears well in my eyes.
The adult version of him appears in the doorway then, holding two bottles of water and my toothbrush. I look at him, then down at the picture, then back again. The smile on my face is enormous.
“You are so cute in this picture that I might cry. Literally.”
He rolls his eyes, but in a distinctly playful way. “Oh god. Please don’t.”
“But look at you!” I’m practically screaming. “Your cheeks! Your scraggly bowl cut! That big smile!”
He shakes his head as he sets the waters and toothbrush on one of the nightstands. I bring the picture over to him and wipe the stray tear that managed to escape. He flattens his lips; I know he’s trying to fight a smile.
“I have been looking for baby pictures of you the entire time we’ve been in this house,” I say. “Do you have any idea how much this means to me? You were extremely cute. You look like you’re ready to run your preschool in that suit.”
“Well, you’re wrong about one thing. I never went to preschool. Or any regular school, for that matter.”
I look at him. “What?”
“I was homeschooled until I was sixteen,” he replies as he sits on the bed.
In the thirteen years that I’ve known Oliver, he never once shared this piece of his history with me, nor with any of our classmates at school, who surely would have told everyone this over the gossipy meals we used to share.
I feel like he’s handing me a gift. One that I have to be very careful with when I unwrap it.
I climb over him and into the bed, stretching out against the mass of pillows and blankets. I prop myself up on one elbow and pat the empty space next to me. He slides in without hesitation, mirroring my positioning except for the hand he places on my hip.
“Tell me more,” I say. “Please.”
His brows furrow as he holds my gaze. “That’s it, really.
My father’s work required he split his time between LA, New York, and London.
Before the digital age of film, he had to be physically present when picture lock was done, so off we went.
Dad, Mom, Beatrice, and me. By the time I was sixteen, we settled in LA, so I spent two torturous years at a performing arts high school before going to college. ”
This is so much new information to me that I hardly know where to start. “Who’s Beatrice?”
“She was my nanny,” he replies, then hesitates, as if he’s not sure whether to keep going.
I’m desperate to hear more, so I wiggle closer to him until our bodies are flush.
A wry smile stretches across his face when I throw my leg over his, but my trick works because he continues.
“Bea is the one who raised me. She was there from the very beginning. She was even my homeschool teacher for my core subjects for a while, until I advanced enough that we brought in new tutors.”
“What happened to her?”
“When my parents decided to settle in LA, she left us.” His thumb rubs gentle circles on my hip. “I was old enough to fend for myself, and she was ready to start her own life.”
The puzzle pieces that make up Oliver start to fall into place in my mind.
“Where is she now?” I ask. “Are you close with her?”
“Florida,” he says, then rolls over just enough to grab his phone off the nightstand. “I just saw her and her family a few months ago. Here’s us at Disney World together.”
He taps into his photos and hands me his phone.
I’m met with dozens and dozens of pictures of Oliver with a family of four that I’ve never seen before.
Bea is easy to spot; she has bright-red hair and her arms around two kids who inherited her fair coloring and ginger hair.
There’s a boy and a girl who look to be somewhere between small kid and true teenager, with mouths full of braces and Mickey ears on their heads.
Bea’s husband is a stout, stocky-looking guy with dark hair and a beard.
Oliver is in so many pictures with them, smiling and laughing and hugging in various places at the theme parks.
I zoom in on one where Oliver is standing with his arms around the kids in front of a bunch of palm trees. “Does your shirt say… World’s best uncle?”
“Yeah. They made me that shirt.” He smiles as I blink at him in surprise. “I think I have it with me.”
A memory tugs at me as I keep scrolling through photos of him looking so at ease in Florida. Our sophomore year at school. The blizzard that set snowfall records.
“That one holiday break I saw you. In the dorm lobby.” I look up at him over the phone. “You said you were going to Florida. Was it to see her?”
“We were supposed to go on a cruise with her whole family. It was a tradition for them, before she had the kids. I didn’t make it that year, obviously.
” He sighs as he runs a hand through his hair.
“Before, when you asked me if I was close with my family and I said no? That’s not exactly true.
Bea is my family, just not by blood. She’s been like a mother to me since before I could walk. ”
I stare at him in amazement as I hand back his phone. “You’re an uncle. To her kids.”
“Basically, yeah,” he says with a rueful smile as he sets his phone on the nightstand. “I was in my twenties when she had Bryce and Kelsey.”
“Why does no one know this about you?” I ask as I grip his arm and give it a little shake. “Why didn’t I know this about you?”
“No one ever asked,” he replies, then shrugs, as if he didn’t just say the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever heard in my life.
I blink up at him and take in the look on his face. His jaw is relaxed, his eyes open and serene as he continues to trace small circles on my hip with his fingers. What he just said doesn’t seem to bother him at all. Then again, I guess it wouldn’t if that’s been his reality all his life.
I think back to that first social mixer at Juilliard—how half the room swarmed him to ask him about his dad, while the rest talked about him behind his back. Including me.
Shame slithers through my veins. I take refuge in Oliver’s chest and curl into him until my head is tucked into the crook of his neck. He wraps his arms around me until we’re so tangled up in each other I don’t know where I end and he begins.
“For what it’s worth, I want to know,” I say, more to the warm skin of his shoulder than anything else. “I want to know everything I can about you.”
He kisses the top of my head but says nothing else. For the rest of the night, I can’t get that image of Oliver in his homemade “World’s greatest uncle” T-shirt out of my head. It’s the last thing I think about when I fall asleep in his arms.
r/television · 12 hr. ago
Posted by wannabeaaronsorkin1
Limelight Teases Chris Ross’s First TV Show ‘Lineage’ at Fall Fan Event
First look at Chris Ross’s new show. Looks promising tbh
4k 212 Share
AnonymousRaccoon8819 · 5 hr. ago
surprised we haven’t heard more about this show considering they’re filming all over the place. wonder if the studio was forced to put this out after the tmz article
1k Reply Share
TangerineCream · 5 hr. ago
Ross always operates on a closed set. He runs a tight ship.
AnonymousRaccoon8819 · 5 hr. ago
i mean most sets are usually closed right? but we still get pictures when they’re filming out in public places
TangerineCream · 5 hr. ago
Ross is different. I was a PA on set for two of his films. He makes studios fork over the money for extra security so his cast and crew don’t get badgered by paparazzi or fans.
losangelista69 · 5 hr. ago
is it true he makes people sign a behavioral clause in their contract? i heard he fired someone for making a sexist joke to the costume dept or something
AnonymousRaccoon8819 · 5 hr. ago
ross ain’t about to get caught up in the #metoo stuff lmao
TangerineCream · 4 hr. ago
Yeah that’s true. Honestly Ross’s films were the best environments I ever worked in. If all sets were run like that I might have stayed in the industry longer lol. I’m out of the game now.