Chapter 13 #2
Oliver and I exchange a glance. I’m starting to panic.
I feel like she’s on to us. It’s got to be how weird Oliver acted when I called him “babe.” We probably aren’t any good at faking this.
We’re too obvious. I try to think of how I’m going to dig my way out of this if she calls us out on our lie right now.
I can’t explain our reasoning for lying without giving away both of their surprises.
I pop the bruschetta into my mouth so that I won’t have to be the one who answers.
“Maybe it wasn’t her throat I wanted to rip out,” Oliver says. “Maybe all this time, what I really wanted to do was rip her clothes off.”
I almost choke. My face burns.
Tina laughs, then kicks me under the table. “I can’t believe you kept this a secret from me,” she says. “All this time, you swore you hated him.”
Oliver frowns. “You hate me?”
“Hated.” I emphasize the last syllable, though I’m not sure that makes it any better. He raises an eyebrow.
I reach for the last piece of bruschetta so that I won’t have to say anything else, but as my hand gets close to it, I realize that Oliver is reaching for it at the same time. When he notices that I’m going for it, he backs off. “You can have it,” he says.
“No, no,” I say, pulling my hand back. “Take it.”
“Seriously,” he says. “It’s all yours.”
“I don’t even want it anymore,” I tell him.
“If neither of you take it, I’ll make the decision for you and eat it myself,” Tina warns us.
I look at Oliver. He divides a glance between me and the bruschetta.
Before he can react, I grab the last piece and I stuff it against his closed mouth.
Most of the toppings end up all over his chin.
He stares at me in shock, eyes wide, before he opens his mouth and scrapes the bruschetta and all the pieces of tomato and cheese from his chin into his mouth.
“I’ll get you back for that,” he warns me.
I stick my tongue out. “I’ll be waiting.”
When our plates arrive, the table gets quiet again as we all take our first bites.
Without looking at Oliver, I’m acutely aware of every move he makes, every time he picks up his fork or swirls his pasta before bringing it up to his mouth.
I’m also aware of Tina watching us from across the table.
I can’t tell if it’s because she knows something is up or if she’s just excited that we’re all eating dinner together.
“This is good,” I say to fill the silence around a mouthful of lasagna.
“What are you two doing for the weekend?” Tina asks.
I look at Oliver. He stuffs a forkful of food in his mouth so that he doesn’t have to answer. This is another thing we should have talked about to get our story straight. Of course Tina would assume we’re spending the weekend together if she thinks we’re dating.
I scramble to think of what we might be doing and blurt out the first thing that comes to my mind: “We’re going to the farmers’ market.”
Oliver shoots a look at me that I know means, “We are?” while Tina raises an eyebrow and says, “That sounds like fun. Maybe Ryan and I can join you.”
Great. Now I have to follow through with this fake plan, and keep putting on a show with Oliver while I’m at it. I’ve never even been to the farmers’ market. I don’t know what people do there.
“Of course,” I hear myself say. “That will be so much fun.”
Oliver leans over and wraps an arm around me. The unexpected contact makes me jump. My wine sloshes and spills on my shirt. I’m not wearing white, but it’s still going to stain.
“Oh no,” I groan, looking down at the red mark on my chest.
“I’m so sorry,” Oliver says. He grabs a napkin and starts dabbing it onto the stain, which happens to be right on my boob.
I’m frozen in my seat, my arms up at my sides.
Oliver notices that he’s touching my boob, and he freezes too.
We meet each other’s eyes. It’s clear that neither of us knows how to proceed.
On one hand, since we’re not actually dating, him touching my boob isn’t exactly appropriate. But since Tina and Ryan think we are dating, it might seem weirder if either of us makes a big deal out of this.
Oliver must be thinking the same thing, because he resumes dabbing a couple more times, then says, “You’re probably going to have to soak it when we get home.”
Tina shakes her head. “You need to soak it right now or that shirt will be ruined.” She stands up, ready to head to the bathroom with me.
I stay in my seat. “I don’t have an extra shirt.”
“I have one in my car,” she says. “I always have one. Come on. Meet me in the bathroom and we’ll take care of that stain.”
I get up and head to the bathroom while Tina goes outside. By the time she makes it back, I already have my shirt off and I’m rinsing it in the sink.
“You and Oliver are so cute together,” she says now that we’re alone. She takes over rinsing my shirt while I put on the one she brought.
“Thanks.” I feel bad about taking the compliment, knowing that we’re not actually together.
I catch my reflection in the mirror and do a doubletake. The shirt Tina gave me is way more lowcut than I’m normally comfortable with. She sees me staring and says, “Don’t worry. You look hot.”
I roll my eyes. “I feel like I’m going to be flashing everyone in the restaurant.”
“Oliver will like it,” she says with a wink.
“Right. Because who cares how I feel as long as Oliver is on board.”
“At least you’re not wearing a red stain anymore,” she says.
“True.” I shrug. “It’s not like that was my favorite shirt, though.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she says. “I can’t bear to see an otherwise good shirt ruined.”
“What are we going to do with it?” I ask. “We can’t just leave it in the bathroom, can we?”
“We just need to keep it damp until I can get it home and treat the stain,” she says. “I have the best stain removal system. You won’t be able to tell that wine was ever spilled on it.”
She takes the shirt out of the sink and shakes off some of the excess water.
We head back out to our table, and on our way there, she asks an employee for a plastic bag.
When we sit down, Oliver does a doubletake just like I did when I saw my reflection in the mirror.
His face turns pink and he quickly turns back to his plate.
“Did you get the stain out?” he asks.
“Tina’s going to fix it,” I tell him. I gesture to the bag that’s now sitting on the end of the table with my shirt in it.
“I’m seriously sorry about that,” Oliver says. “I didn’t mean to make you spill your wine. I’ll buy you a new shirt if Tina can’t get the stain out.”
“I’ll get the stain out,” Tina says. She sounds more confident than the narrator of a stain removal commercial.
“It’s fine,” I say to Oliver. “You did tell me you were going to get me back.”
“Staining your shirt wasn’t what I had in mind,” he says. “I feel bad.”
“Technically, I spilled it on myself.”
“Stop being so nice to each other,” Tina says with a groan. “You’re making me sick.”
“Let them be,” Ryan says. “It’s too early for their first fight as a couple.”
I think about his comment as I take my last few bites of food. Maybe Oliver and I could have pretended to have a huge fight over me smashing the bruschetta on his face and him ruining my shirt. Then we could have gotten out of this whole situation and we wouldn’t have to keep lying to our friends.
Oliver reaches his hand over, grazing my lower back with his fingertips. The action seems so natural that it almost feels genuine. I look up from my plate to him. He’s watching me. I wish that I could get inside his head and hear his thoughts.
The waiter comes by with the check. Tina takes it before anyone else can. She always does this. “We need to do this again soon,” she says.
“Yeah. Totally,” I agree, even though I was just thinking about how to get out of this a minute ago.
Once the bill is paid, we all stand up and head outside.
We linger by Oliver’s truck for a minute, talking about everything except what’s on everyone’s minds—the upcoming proposals and this weird fake relationship—and then we part ways and it’s just me and Oliver in his truck again.
We sit here for a moment, both of us staring through the windshield like we did when we arrived.
“I’m sorry for touching your boobs,” Oliver says, breaking the silence.
“Oh. That?” I almost forgot it happened. “You didn’t mean to. I don’t think.”
I turn my head to look at him. He’s still staring out the windshield, but now he’s smirking.
“You didn’t mean to,” I repeat. “Right?”
He finally turns to look at me, fully smiling now. It’s strange being looked at like this by him. Even in the dark, his eyes look bright, and happy, and… friendly. I want to see more of it and put a stop to it all at once.
“Not at first,” he says, “but I had to keep the act going.”
I want to throw something at him, but since I’m not in his living room with a couch pillow nearby, I settle for playfully slapping his chest.
“Whoa,” he says. “Trying to cop a feel to make things even?”
“That’s exactly what I’m doing.” I cup my hand over his chest and give his firm muscle a squeeze.
“That’s not fair,” he says. “I didn’t squeeze.”
“Guess you missed your chance.”
His eyes narrow. For the briefest second, his gaze dips down to my chest. It’s so quick that I almost think I imagined it.
Then he leans toward me and, placing one hand behind my head, he pulls me the rest of the way to him and touches his lips to mine.
It’s soft and slow this time, nothing like it was when he kissed me on his couch.
He pulls back just a fraction of an inch, and against my mouth, he says, “Tina and Ryan are watching from their car.”
I start to turn my head around to see, but he keeps his hand on the back of my neck, keeping me in place. “Don’t look,” he says. “You’ll give us away.”
I nod as if they might be able to hear me if I answer him out loud.
Then I move back in, touching my lips to his this time, except I’m not as soft and slow as he was.
I pull on his lower lip with my teeth until he opens his mouth.
He tastes like red wine. His hand moves away from my neck, sliding down my shoulder until he reaches my ribcage.
He stops there. I wonder if he’s aware that his thumb is touching the side of my breast.
For a moment, I don’t care that we’re only doing this to put on a show because we’re being watched.
I feel like this is what I want to do regardless of them watching or not.
I kind of wish they weren’t. The realization that I’m having these thoughts is startling, but I’m too caught up in this moment to stop.
I want to grab his hand and move it all the way onto my breast. I wonder if that would be too forward. I touch my hand to his, but he must take it as a warning to back off because he takes his hand off of me and then pulls back. My mouth hangs open, caught off guard by the abrupt change.
“They’re gone,” he says, leaning back into his seat.
“Oh. Right.” My chest feels tight. For a moment, I forgot that we were only kissing to put on a show.
He clears his throat. I straighten out in my seat so that I’m facing the windshield again. I wonder if he can tell that I wasn’t ready for that kiss to end. He’ll probably find a way to laugh at me for it at some point. I’m dying to get out of here.
“So. Uh. Farmers’ market tomorrow?” he asks.
I sigh. “I guess we can’t get out of it now that Tina invited herself.”