Page 39 of What If It's You?

“And the best eye makeup.”

“Maybe, but the eighties Lo I’m imagining is seriously rocking that weird blue eyeshadow. Oh, and those aerobics outfits with the belts?” Ollie’s usually sleepy eyes popped. “Plus, crimped hair just feels kinda…”

“Kinky?” I smirked and Ollie groaned, shaking his head.

“Literally? Yes. Metaphorically? Also maybe yes. And physically? I’m gonna need you to stand a Catholic school distance away until we get to the show, otherwise it’s gonna be super awkward for all our friends.”

“I don’t know, I think Jason would be really happy to see how much you care.” I gave him my best naïf look.

“Tsk, tsk, Laurel. Always trying to get me to sleep my way to the middle.”

Rolling his eyes, Ollie rotated away from me, his arm still hooked around my waist in a looser “let’s walk” hold, the familiarity of the gesture only making me feel more tender.

But was thatjustthe familiarity? I pinched my eyes tight, head pounding anew. Just minutes ago I’d been fully invested in Drew’s level of support for my writing career, some part of me clearly buying into the idea that we were together, that the way he treated me was worthy of analysis. The fact that Drew had shown a side I hadn’t expected—one I didn’t like—didn’t mean Ollie was automatically right for me.Part of me was annoyed that I was already doing it again—overanalyzing this, poking for holes. If I shot back to my other life, I’d regret it. But instead of fixing my certainty, the back-and-forth was making me less and less sure of what was right. I’d gotten into this whole mess because I needed certainty, and the messier it got, the more tightly I gripped on to the life raft of that need.I have to be sure.Otherwise…what was the point?

“This is random, but…remember how we were talking about book ideas this morning?”

“You mean the guaranteed bestsellerMousehouse Murders 2: The Return of Ratdalf? Obviously. Why?”

“What if I just…did it? The writing thing I mean. Like full-on left Pixel to give it a serious chance?”

Ollie’s mouth dropped open, eyes registering something like wonder.

“Are you serious right now?”

“I’m not like…ready to hand in my notice. I’m just toying around with the idea. I don’t see how I could fit writing into my life without changing up my work situation pretty seriously, so…yeah, anyway. Thoughts?”

“Do you even have to ask me that? Do ityesterday.”

I laughed.

“You know I would also be leaving my salary, right?”

“That’s just details.” Ollie waved a hand through the air, brushing off the mundane problem of paying for our lives. “The important thing is that you’d be going after the thing you always wanted! I mean…money’s great, but it doesn’t evencompareto that.”

“You might change your tune when I can’t sell my book. Or…you know,finisha book. It’s not like I’ve done this before.”

“Yeah, but you’reyou,Lo. You’d figure it out. You’d bust your ass making sure you figured it out. Besides, I’ve read your short stories from college. You’re super talented, and since then you’ve read like…every romance ever published, how could you be anything but awesome at writing them?”

“And you don’t think that’s a little…downmarket? Writing romance, I mean?”

“Downmarket?” Ollie’s face crumpled in confusion. “It’s what you love, who cares what ‘market’ it fits into? Anyway, whatever kind of book you decide to write, it will be absolutely incredible. If it’s a romance, everyone will get the bonus of getting turned on. If you ask me, that’s waymoreimpressive.” He gazed at me, eyes turning thoughtful. “Are you seriously considering this? Because in case it’s not obvious, I’m totally behind it.”

“I don’t know, it’s just a thought. I mean…I don’t even know how we’d pay rent if I quit.”

“That stuff always sorts itself out.” Hand through the air again. I bit the inside of my cheek, annoyance fighting with tenderness. Ollie always dismissed the details he found inconvenient—like mere financial solvency—as though they didn’t matter. Sometimes I wondered whether he genuinely didn’t understand that his glib artist’s belief that things like moneysort themselves outwas built on the rock-solid foundation of planning that I did for both of us.

But still…he thought I could do it. And seemed to think that the version of “doing it” that I’d always envisioned—writing booksthat felt important tome,not some unseen jury of literary value—was enough.Morethan enough.

“Regardless, this isn’t happening anytime soon. I just wanted to take the temperature.”

“A balmy ‘I can’t wait to help you research your sex scenes’ over here. Which reminds me…Catholic school distance. For Jason’s sake.”

He turned and pressed a soft kiss to the hair at my temple, then led me down the narrow street, our reflections appearing and disappearing in car windows and storefronts, curved and fragmented and angled into near unrecognizability but always linked. For that moment, the idea of slipping away from each other, of any world existing where the two of us weren’t together, felt like nothing more than a bad dream.

“You know what they say about a man with big blueberry pancakes.” Ollie glanced over his shoulder from where he stood over the stove, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. “Like,reallybig blueberry pancakes. Some women might see these pancakes and get a little worried about whether they can handle them.”

“That he goes through a lot of syrup?” I cupped both hands around my coffee mug, which proclaimedGrandmas Sleigh All Daywith a weirdly sexy cartoon grandma in Mrs. Claus gear on the back. Ollie and I had laughed so hard when we’d spotted it on the shelf of the Goodwill near his parents’ place in Maine, inventing increasingly disturbing Christmas memories for the grandmother who felt this represented her, that we had to buy it. Purchases like this were why our kitchen cabinets could barely hold the dishes anymore.

---