Page 50 of The Heartbreakers
“Oh, Stel,” Cara said, and I could almost see the way her lip jutted up when she frowned. “How come?”
“It’s Oliver.”
“Uh-oh, that doesn’t sound good. Tell me everything from the beginning.”
“Okay, well, I was super nervous about seeing him again,” I started. “Like, so nervous I didn’t sleep at all Sunday night. Things went well in the morning. It was a bit awkward at first, but Oliver gave me his banana for breakfast, which was incredibly sweet. But then we went to this radio interview and Oliver started talking about some girl, which made me realize he didn’t like me.” I paused before finishing my story, trying to work up the courage to tell Cara everything. “I-I didn’t want to get hurt, so I told him that we should just be friends. Now he’s—”
“Youdidwhat?”
I flinched. “We’re working together now,” I said, trying to defend myself. For some reason, saying this to Cara sounded ten times stupider than when I’d said it to Oliver. Maybe that was because I knew she’d called me on it. “I thought it would be for the bes—”
“No, just no,” Cara said, refusing to listen to my explanation. “That’s a load of bull. Why in the world would you tell him that? How do you know the girl he was talking about in the interview wasn’t you?”
I opened my mouth to tell her otherwise but stopped. During the interview I’d assumed that Oliver was talking about someone famous, someone Kelly had “heard of” to use her exact words, but Cara had a point. Kelly had met me when we arrived at the station, which meant he could have been referring to me.
But it didn’t matter—not after seeing that girl at the band’s rehearsal. Even if he had been talking about me, that would mean Oliver’s interests had an exceptionally fast turnover.
“He. Doesn’t. Like. Me,” I said slowly.
The line was silent for a moment, but then Cara sighed. “You’re such an idiot, Stella,” she said. “He gave you his freaking number.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said, letting my breath out in a quick huff. “He gave me his number because we had fun for a night,” I told her, “but that’s all. I was just another random girl to him, and if Paul hadn’t offered me this job, Oliver never would’ve thought about me again.”
“Do you really think Oliver Perry goes around handing out his number to ‘random’ girls?”
I could easily have ended this discussion by telling her the truth—that I’d seen Oliver cozying up to someone else. That was why I’d originally called her, but now, just thinking about admitting what had happened made me feel sick, like my ribs were squeezing in on all the organs trapped between them.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not going to let myself like him, Cara. I don’t want things to be awkward—Idon’t want to be awkward. All I did was uncomplicate things.”
Cara heaved a sigh. “If you think it’s for the best, do what you want. But you can’t chalk it up to Oliver dismissing you if you’re going to do the same thing to him.”
Maybe she was right, but the damage was already done. I couldn’t revoke my friends-only request without Oliver thinking I was completely jealous and pathetic.
“Can we just forget about this?” I asked, suddenly regretting my decision to call.
“Sure, Stella.” I knew from the way Cara said my name that she thought I was making a mistake, but for once she let it go. “What else do you want to talk about?”
I did my best to push Oliver out of my thoughts and focused on another of my mounting problems. “Well, on Friday I have my first blog post.”
“Ohmygee!” Cara gushed, her mood changing in an instant. “Totes exciting. Are you super-pumped?”
“Not exactly,” I told her. Alec’s reassurance had helped settle some of my insecurities, but that didn’t mean my nerves were completely gone. “I know I’m being ridiculous, but I’m scared Paul’s going to take one look at my work and realize my pictures from the other weekend were just a fluke.”
Cara scoffed. “Yup. Totally ridiculous. He’s going to like them, Stella. Stop stressing yourself out.”
“But how can you be positive?”
There was a long pause in which I assumed Cara was giving me a look, even though I couldn’t see it. “Because I know you, Stella,” she finally said, “and I know what you can do. I also know that you overthink everything, which tends to induce pointless panic.”
And Cara was right. About both things actually—the pictures and the panic.
By the next morning, I’d chewed my fingernails down so far that, if I kept going at this rate, all I’d have left would be bloody stumps. As I sat down with Paul at a café a few blocks from our hotel, I made a conscious effort not to bite them anymore. But without a diversion, my fingers started to twitch.
“Let see what you’ve got so far,” Paul said with a smile. I slid my computer across the table to him, and then I tucked my hands under my butt to keep them from moving.
“Wow,” was the only thing Paul said as he clicked through the gallery.
Wow? Was that a good wow or a these-are-so-bad-I’m-shocked wow? My heart was hammering, and I felt like it was expanding inside my chest, leaving my lungs with no room to function.
