Page 65 of The Heartbreakers
Oliver wrapped his fingers around my ankle. “Wait,” he said. “Why are you leaving? I thought we would talk.”
“What is there to talk about?” I don’t know what made me say this. There was so much to talk about, especially considering what just happened, but the words left my mouth like an instant reaction.
“About us,” he said, and from the look on his face, he didn’t understand why I hadn’t come to the same conclusion. Still, I didn’t move, so he sighed and added, “Just come back over here and I’ll do the talking, okay?”
Itwouldn’t hurt to hear him out, right?
Answering with a small nod, I slid back to my original spot on the roof. Oliver didn’t say anything at first, and we sat silently for a full minute as he rubbed his chin and squinted into the night. Eventually he nodded his head to himself and glanced at me.
“I was trying to think of a good way to say this, but there isn’t one, so I’m just going to come right out and say it. I don’t want to be friends with you. It’s not working for me.”
His confession completely caught me off guard. I knew our relationship had started out a bit bumpy when I first joined the boys on tour, but I thought our friendship had improved so much over the past few weeks. There was a painful stitch in my chest, like someone had dug their nails deep into my heart, but I kept my face perfectly still. “What do you mean it’s not working for you?”
His eyes searched mine for a moment before he responded. “I tried to keep my distance because that’s what you wanted, but that’s not enough for me,” he said. “Call me selfish, but I don’t want to just be friends.”
Whoa. I mistook his meaning completely. “You want to be with me?” I said slowly, making sure I understood exactly what he was saying.
“Is that so hard to believe?” he asked, his mouth slacking.
“A little.” Actually, a whole lot more than a little, but I refrained from saying this to him. “I thought you didn’t date.”
“I don’t. I mean, I didn’t.” He shook his head and yanked his dog tag up and down on the chain. “What I’m trying to say is that I want to now.”
A sudden shriek cut through the air, followed by a string of laughter, and down in the backyard a group of kids chased each other around the fire. I watched them for a moment, tugging on my lip in thought. “What about that other girl you were kissing?” I asked, turning back to him. “The one in Atlanta.”
His brows pinched together as if he had no idea what I was talking about, but then his face flushed as he remembered. “I never kissed her, I swear!” he said in a rush. Then he sighed and rubbed his hand across his face. “Look, she didn’t mean anything. I didn’t even know her name.”
I laughed, but it was sharp and tight. “No offense, Oliver, but if you’re trying to reassure me, you’re doing the opposite.”
Oliver grabbed a huge clump of his hair as he looked back up at Hercules and Pegasus. “Listen,” he said, his jaw clenching. “I know it was stupid, but I thought you were into me and then out of nowhere you weren’t. That just pissed me off because I didn’t understand why, and I needed something to take my mind off you.”
It took me a minute to absorb everything he’d said, so I focused on the fire down below. The group around it had grown by a few camp chairs, and I could see Alec and Vanessa sitting on the far side of the circle. Oliver needed something to take his mind off me?
“I was never not into you,” I finally said. “I thought it was the other way around.”
“What? What’d I possibly do to make you think that?”
“During that radio interview,” I said, my voice a whisper, “you mentioned another girl.”
Oliver blinked before laughing, the sound hysterical. “I was talking about you, dork,” he said.
Again, he left me speechless. How was I supposed to respond when I finally heard everything I’d been hoping Oliver would say all along? “Then why didn’t you just say that?” I asked after letting the truth sink in.
If he’d really felt something for me, why didn’t he just go for it instead of shuffling around the edges with half-truths like it was some big secret? Then we could’ve avoided this whole confusing mess. Oliver had never been shy before, and the first time we met, he was so straightforward and assertive.
I watched him draw in a breath as some emotion I couldn’t pin down spread across his face. Regret maybe? “The media has a nasty habit of scrutinizing my entire life, Stella. Did you really want to become their next story?”
“Oh,” I said, realizing the implications. While I had been worrying about Oliver hurting me, he’d been trying to protect me. “I feel like an idiot. Like, the biggest of idiots.”
Oliver smiled at me like this was the best thing I could say. “Then is that a yes?”
“Wait, what?”
“To not being just friends anymore.” Oliver wasn’t really giving me any time to think about this, and I was so overwhelmed that all I could do was nod my head. “Are you absolutely sure? I was serious when I said they’ll make a story of this. They’ll dig through your life and pull out all the unpleasant parts that you’d rather have left alone.”
He said this with so much animosity that I wondered what unpleasant part of his life they’d dug up and displayed for the whole world to see. I didn’t have any dark secrets to hide, but then I wondered… “What about Cara? I don’t want her dragged into this. She doesn’t need any more stress in her life.”
“That’s fine,” Oliver said a little too quickly. “I totally get it. We can just keep this between us.”
