Page 38 of What If It's You?

“Sorry, did you need to be somewhere?”

“No. Well…yes, but not this very second.” A half-smile Irecognized as hisscheminglook started up, but it didn’t quite make it to the finish line, his thick eyebrows furrowing instead. “Are you okay? You look really pale.”

“I’m fine. Just…do we…know each other? Like, now…or…” I exhaled sharply, bending double to rest my hands on my knees. “Of course we don’t, you barely recognized me,” I muttered.

“Laurel?”Drew’s voice was closer now, but strangely muffled, as though I was hearing it through cotton wool.

“Whoa…” I could sense Ollie moving closer. “You really don’t look so good…”

“Sorry, I’ve been…getting these dizzy spells…”

“Should I call an ambulance, or…”

“I’ll be fine. I’m just…a little light-headed.” The grimy black-and-white tile pattern of the portico was flickering, the edges of my vision black—was that some trick of moving from the well-lit restaurant out into the night, or something more? I closed my eyes, trying to will away the vertigo by limiting my sensory input. My skin felt clammy all over, my fingertips were going numb…

“See, this is why I’m always pushing you to meditate with me, Lo.”

I opened my eyes slowly, the same six inches of honeycomb tile visible between my toes. I could feel the gentle pressure of a hand on my back. Cautiously, hardly daring to hope, I turned to look over my shoulder. Ollie was there, worry tightening his jaw, belying the teasing smile on his lips.

The smile I recognized. Same with the beat-up black motorcycle jacket he’d found at Brimfield one year for like, twenty dollars, and coerced Shelly into relining for him.

“Think you can stand up now? Because the ambulance offer stands, you know.” He extended his other hand to me and I took it, nodding. I glanced around. I was in the same general area, the same group of girls huddling nearby, but was one of them dressed differently? I would have remembered sequined pants, no? I checked my shoes—Docs. SoIwas dressed differently. Absently I reached up torun my fingers through my hair, dragging them all the way to the ends of the caramel-colored waves that ended around the level of my nipples. It brought my heart rate down slightly.

“Do you think it was something you ate?”

“Maybe? Probably not, I didn’t feel nauseous, just dizzy.” I also felt like cackling with glee—it hadworked,and maybe that was it, the thing I was supposed to learn, maybe life would pull into focus now, just one central image that I could sort out on my own time—but the lingering disorientation from the world skip tamped that down just enough for me to hold it together.

“Good, because I stole a bite of your falafel when you were in the bathroom a minute ago.” He grinned, only the tightness at the corners of his eyes showing his lingering worry.

Right. The Greek place Ollie and I always ate at before shows at the Middle East was on this side street. I hadn’t thought about it when Drew and I pulled up to M & P Quills, thefarfancier restaurant around the corner. Constantine’s Deli barely rated as a hole in the wall, the entire operation squeezed into a storefront that was maybe twelve feet wide, the only seating a line of stools along the front window, but their gyros wereincredible,and the falafel was always the perfect ratio of moist in the center to crispy on the outside.

Ollie’s arm slipped around my waist and he pulled me against him, the lean muscles of his chest pressing into me in a way that made me arch my back, craving more contact. He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, letting his fingers trail along the edge of my jaw, sending a shiver down the entire length of my spine. I knew logically that physical affection from Ollie wasn’t rare, that his hugs weren’t just perfunctory, they were like a promise of something more, whether that was simple friendliness or a future trip to the bedroom. But I hadn’t reallyfeltone of them in so long, the way the pressure of his hand at the small of my back flooded my body with heat, the scent of him just inches away from me intoxicating. I swallowed hard. I had a feeling if I told Ollie what I was thinking rightthat moment—that I wanted him to press me against the darkened storefront and slide his hands down the front of my jeans, that the need to feel him inside me was so intense it was a pulsing ache between my legs—he’d do it. Which sounded enticing on one level—I’d never taken risks like that before him, never let myself give in to my physical, animal instincts instead of listening to the scolding voice in my ear,What if someone caught you?On another level, though, it was an extremely bad idea. The girls weremaybeeight feet away, and one of them had clearly noticed Ollie’s dark good looks. The threat of a witness? Potentially aphrodisiacal. The guarantee of one? Possible misdemeanor.

Luckily, Ollie didn’t seem aware of quite how potent his touch was in that moment.

“Real talk: Do you want to skip the show? I don’t want you pushing yourself too hard if you’re not feeling good.”

A big part of me wanted to say yes, wanted to hole up in our apartment together for the rest of the night and possibly forever after—if Ollie was never out of my sight, I couldn’t slide away from my life with him again…could I?

But I knew the show mattered to him—it was his friend Jason’s new band, one Ollie had been half-hoping he’d be asked to join, and whose fan base overlapped almost one to one with the people in the music scene he felt closest to. Ollie was quiet, bordering on shy—it took him a while to open up to people—so events where the draw washisclose friends, not mine or the ones we’d cultivated together, were rare.

And judging by the fact that I’d run into him on this same block in both worlds, it was possible this show was fundamentally important to him, in the way that a red tote for fall seemed to be fundamentally important to me.

My first thought: Were purses really my most vital expression of self? Jesus.

My second:He was in the same place in both worlds. In World D he barely remembered me, wasn’t planning on stopping to chat, butsomehow, in waylaying him, I’d managed to slip through the cracks in the multiverse.

My stomach dropped—was it possible that this wasn’t over yet? And if the proximity across worlds had been therealcause of the switch…why?

“Lo? Still with me?” Ollie exhaled a half laugh, but his dark eyes were narrowed with obvious worry. “Are we skipping the show? It feels like maybe we’re skipping the show.” Ollie’s smile hadn’t faltered, but I could see the disappointment he was valiantly trying to hide. An overwhelming surge of love gripped my heart, boa constrictor tight and sporting an intricately patterned skin of guilt. He wanted to go so badly, I knew that, and he wasn’t even making me tell him no. Was he kinder than me? Had I never bothered to notice?

“No way, we’re going. Everyone will be there.” Ollie’s smile didn’t change, exactly, butbrightenedsomehow. “Sorry for zoning out, I was just, like…entrancedwith that girl’s pants,” I added. Ollie followed the place where my unfocused gaze had happened to fix—shiny—and grinned.

“Are you entering your disco era?”

“You shouldbeso lucky. Seventies Laurel would have been a fox.”

“All the eras of Laurel would be foxes, that’s a given,” he said raising an eyebrow. “But disco Laurel would clearly have the sickest dance moves.”

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