Page 68 of What If It's You?

“So yeah. Things end sometimes, I get that. But I don’t want to throw away something good because there’s a possibility it might not always be good.” He closed his eyes, inhaling and exhaling deeply. “But I know we’re not wired the same way. So I need you to be honest with me, okay? Do you want something else? Or…someone else?”

“No,” I whispered. I couldn’t lie to him aboutthat—half the reason I’d been planning the breakup was to help Ollie, to give him the chance he deserved. Maybe most of the reason; guilt over knowing what he could have had without me was all mixed up with guilt over questioning what we had in the first place, the blend of itso potent it was impossible to ignore. As for the rest…I couldn’t make myself hurt him that way just for the possibility itmightfix whatever was going on with me. Other-Drew had told me this might work, but he had been pretty careful to never say itwould,to note that things had progressed further than he could fully explain or correct. Without the possibility of helping Ollie achieve what he deserved, ending things was only about the outside possibility that my “create a new fixed point” planmightwork…and right now, feeling closer to him than I had in as long as I could remember, that just didn’t feel like a particularly good reason to do it. Especially not if this might be the last time I saw Ollie in any life.

“Me neither. So unless you come up with a better reason than ‘Ollie might have topped the charts without me,’ you’re stuck with me.”

My aching heart exploded, the painful love filling my entire chest.

“Are you sure?”

“Didn’t you hear about my dream? That gig is way too heavy on the scheduling logistics.” Ollie grinned, inching forward on the bed to cover my hand with his. “And while we’re being honest…there’s something I should probably tell you.”

“Okay…”

“You know how I’ve been going over to Ryan’s lately?”

I nodded, the familiar vise of fear tightening around me again. I might have been half-blind to Ollie’s charms for too long now, but that didn’t mean every other woman was. But it couldn’t be that…could it?

“Is that…not what you’ve been doing?”

“No, it is,” he said. I unclenched ever so slightly. “It’s just not the whole story. The thing is, we’ve kind of been working on…something new?”

“Like a new band?” I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it. Ryan definitely wasn’t the frontman type.

“Actually…a video game?” Ollie’s face accordioned, gaze drifting to the ceiling. “One that Ryan built.”

“Wait…what?”

“He’s been working on it forever, and I would sometimes help out with like…ideas about the aesthetics, which I guess he appreciated? Anyway, when he got further along he asked me to score it.”

“Seriously? That’s so cool!”

Ollie bit his lip against a smile.

“It is pretty cool. Don’t get me wrong, it’s really different than the songwriting I’m used to, but there’s something about getting to tell this whole story through the music, change the entirefeelfor a player just based on a chord change…” He shook his head. “I don’t know. It might not go anywhere, but I’m really liking it. And we have this idea for a possible second game, it’s still way too embryonic to evenstartlaying down tracks, but the music would actually be part of the gameplay. And I know it’s premature, but I can already envision the soundscape it would need, more washy, like…music in pastels, if that makes sense?”

I laughed. He might not be Synesthesia in this life, but clearly it was nipping at the edges of his brain.

“It makes absolutely zero sense to me, but it sounds incredible. And like you’re really enjoying it.”

“I am. More than I even expected to. Honestly…it’s the most excited I’ve felt about a project in a really long time.” He smiled shyly, still unable to meet my eyes.

“That’s incredible, Ollie.”

“So see? You weren’t holding me back from my destiny as a rock star. You were setting me up for this waybetterdestiny as a celebrated scorer of games and eventually film.”

“Oh yeah? Scorsese have you on speed-dial?”

“He will when he sees my nextsoundscape,Laurel.”

Then, giddy with a relief I could feel too, like the conversation had replaced the oxygen in the room with nitrous, Ollie half-leaped across the bed at me, wrapping his arms around my body and tackling me to the mattress. I yelped, pushing weakly at his shoulders, but he just wrapped his hands around my wrists, pinning them over my head, leaving me panting beneath him, exertion and desirecombining to make my heart beat hard and fast in my throat. Ollie crouched over me, gaze flicking between my eyes.

“We’re good?”

I nodded. It was a lie—we were teetering on the edge of oblivion, for god’s sake—but that wasn’t Ollie’s fault. And there was nothing I could do to stop it, apparently, since my stupid heart wouldn’t let me lie and break his.

“Better than good.”

He smiled softly, leaning down to press his lips to mine. My breath caught as I returned the kiss, feeling it in a way that I had only started to fully appreciate again so, so recently. His hair tickled my cheek, and his tongue traced the inside of my lip, that tiny touch rippling through me, bringing every inch of my skin alive as sensation flowed slowly but insistently downward, pooling hot between my legs. My body arched up to him, the pressure of his hands on my wrists gentle but insistent, telling me he wanted to take charge while promising that if I didn’t want that, I just had to show him.

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