Page 22 of Oliver
“Call me if he gets worse,” Emmet said, scribbling his number on a sticky note.
“I promise.”
He nodded before heading out, and I busied myself with washing our mugs, delaying the inevitable until I was out of excuses.
I checked on Oliver. He was dampened with sweat, his fever had broken slightly, but his skin was still too warm.
He stirred as I placed a compress on his forehead, catching my wrist with a weak grip.
"You smell nice," he murmured, tittering on the brink of consciousness. "Like that day in the park." His eyes were barely open, glazed over, unfocused. “Can’t stop thinking about kissing you," he whispered. "Shouldn't have touched you... Not professional. Not safe." A pause. His fingers flexed weakly. "Can't let myself..." His grip on my wrist tightened, just slightly. "Not with you, Lumina. Not with you."
I blinked hard, tears stinging, vision blurring. Oliver had drifted off again, his grip slackening, but I couldn’t move.
Not when his words still pressed against my skin like a brand.
Not with you, Lumina. Not with you.
A quiet, fevered confession that would never survive the light of day.
He’d buried that nickname along with our friendship, and yet somewhere, deep in the tangled mess of his feverish mind, I still existed. The girl he had loved. The girl he had lost.
I exhaled, slow and shaky, fingers trembling as I freed my wrist. My skin burned where he’d touched me, where he’d held on like he didn’t want to let go.
This was dangerous.
Oliver Beck didn’t slip. He didn’t accidentally say things. Even when he was burning up, even when his mind was unraveling, his walls held.
And yet, for just a few seconds, they hadn’t.
I stepped back slowly, forcing down the irrational ache in my throat. My feet carried me out of the room, my breathing too shallow, my hands curling into fists as if that could somehow contain the flood inside me.
He’d spent weeks pretending we were nothing. But now I knew the truth.
And that was going to make pretending so much harder.
Seven
OLIVER
I checked my watch.5:55 PM. Right on schedule. Exactly where I was supposed to be, doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing. Time was a controlled variable in an otherwise unpredictable equation, and I needed that control.
The contract folder was tucked under my arm like a shield, but it did nothing to protect against the fog still clinging to the edges of my mind. The past few days were a blur—fever, Emmet’s worried face, Zahra’s unexpected presence with chicken soup and concern that I convinced myself was for her “perfect girlfriend” posts—but the details of it all slipped through my fingers like cosmic dust.
And then, there was Emmet’s offhand comment when he dropped by earlier.
"You talk in your sleep when you're sick, you know."
My grip on the folder tightened. He hadn’t elaborated and hadn’t looked me in the eye when he said it. And that was worse.What the hell had I said?
I closed my eyes. Zahra was leaving for a week in Norman tomorrow, finalizing wedding preparations, and we needed to align our long-distance schedule. I needed to get a grip.
My watch beeped once, indicating it was 6:00 PM sharp. I knocked, the sound echoing in the quiet hallway, determined to bury that haze under professionalism.
The door swung open, and there she was. Zahra's hair was pulled back in a loose bun, casual in a way I rarely saw, tendrils framing her face, her expression was neutral but her eyes were guarded. She wore jeans and an oversized Seattle U sweatshirt, looking nothing like the polished businesswoman I'd grown accustomed to.
"Right on time." She stepped aside to let me in.
Her apartment was warm, cluttered with event binders, a large bulletin board dominated one wall, covered with fabric samples, venue photos, and what appeared to be seating arrangements for the wedding, and the faint scent of jasmine filling the air.
