Page 92 of What I Like About You

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Dec 12

Becca Holloway

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Dec 12

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FIFTEEN

Ihear Michael Scott’s voice the moment I enter Gramps’s house.

Ollie only watchesThe Officewhen he needs to shut off his brain. He has every episode memorized, I swear.

I find him stretched out on the couch, eating a bowl of Rice Krispies in neon orange sweats and his Voldemort T-shirt. He has something to tell me.

“You look terrible,” he says.

“You too,” I say on my way upstairs to change.

I put on leggings and myTHE BOOK WAS BETTERT-shirt. Wash all the makeup and residual mascara away. Brush out my knotted curls and twist my hair into messy bun. Remove my contacts and put on my plastic frames. I feel infinitely better.

I still look pretty rough when I catch my reflection in the mirror, but at least I’m comfortable. I’m not planning on leaving the house today. Being friends with my boss’s son has its perks—Sawyer got us the day off. Bless him.

Scout pokes her head out from Gramps’s cracked door.

“Morning, girl,” I whisper. “Come on.”

She follows me downstairs.

Ollie hasn’t moved, and he’s not laughing at any of the jokes.

“Okay. What’s up?” I sit on Gramps’s leather recliner chair, legs crossed, and reach for the remote to pause the TV. Scout jumps onto my lap and curls herself into a tiny ball of floof. “Something is definitely up.”

Ollie sits up. “You’re not the only one who had a date last night.”

“What?”

Ollie goes to every school-sponsored social event ever created, but he never goes with anyone. He prefers to fly solo—it’s more fun with friends, he usually says.

Ollie shrugs. “Everyone paired off, and Talia asked me if I’d go with her. As friends.”

“Whoa,” I say. “I just thought—”

Ollie cuts me off. “Yeah. I know. You kind ofjust thinka lot lately.”

I flinch.“Ollie.”

He scrolls through his phone. “So, is Nash a good kisser?”

It’ssoOllie to make a passive-aggressive quip and then segue, leaving me feeling like trash. Ollie needs to know that I want to hear all about his friend date with Talia. But I’m alsodyingto talk about Nash, to let all my confusing feelings spill out of me all over the living room floor.

So I take the bait.

“I wouldn’t know,” I say.

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