Page 75 of The Heartbreakers
“Huh?”
“I said I have something for you.” He leaned back into the couch, trying to give himself enough room to dig something out of his pocket. Whatever it was, it was big and bulky, so he ended up having to stand to free it. Finally he produced a tiny box with a gold ribbon tied around it. The wrapping paper was the same color as the aqua strand in my hair, and it looked suspiciously like a jewelry box.
“Oliver, you didn’t need to get me anything,” I said, suddenly forgetting my problems. Smiling, I turned the box over in my hands. “What is it? Give me a clue.”
He bumped his shoulder into mine as he grinned back at me. “Just open it.”
“You’re no fun,” I said, but I looked down at the box and slipped off the ribbon. When I tore away the paper and lifted the cover, there was a tiny, silver music note resting between the cushions.
“It’s a charm from my mother’s bracelet,” he explained before I could even ask. “I thought you could put it on your camera. You know, for good luck. Otherwise you can just wear it on a necklace.” He shoved his hands in his pockets as if he expected me to think the idea was stupid.
“Wow, Oliver.” I pulled it out and held it up in the light. “It’s beautiful.”
The charm was stunning, but I was blown away by the fact that it was his mother’s. Oliver had only mentioned her once before, and now he was giving me something that belonged to her?
“So you like it?” he asked, and I could tell he was holding his breath.
“I think it’s perfect,” I told him. “I’m just curious—is your mom okay with it? This bracelet of hers sounds like something special.”
Oliver paused, his eyes flickering away from me for a moment. “She hasn’t worn the bracelet in a long time.”
“So…she’s okay with you giving me the charm?”
“Yeah, totally,” he said and waved me off.
I watched him for a moment. As soon as I’d started asking questions about his mother, he’d tensed up and I just wanted to know why. Did they have a bad relationship? If that was the case, I doubt she’d give him a charm off her bracelet so willingly. “Well, your mom sounds cool,” I said after a few seconds of consideration. Oliver took his bottom lip into his mouth and didn’t say anything so I added, “I’d like to meet her sometime.”
“Yeah,” he said, nodding his head absentmindedly. “I bet she’d like that too.”
I could already see him folding in on himself, no longer wanting to talk, so I was quick to change the subject. “So is there a specific occasion?” I asked. It occurred to me that Oliver might be trying to bribe me into accepting Paul’s new contract. “For the gift, I mean.”
His shoulders relaxed, and he looked down at me, a slow half-grin pulling at his lips. “Kind of,” he said. “There’s this movie premiere in LA the band has to attend. Would you like to go?”
“Movie premiere,” I repeated.
“Yeah, with me,” he added.
It sounded like Oliver had just asked me on an actual public date, but all my brain could process was movie premiere. “As in, the red carpet?”
“Um, yeah,” Oliver said. “Is that a problem?”
“You want me,” I said to clarify, “with you, like, on the red carpet?”
This made Oliver smirk. “Like no,” he joked, trying not to laugh. “I was actually hoping you’d turn me down so I could go with JJ instead.”
“Wow,” was all I could say.
Oliver asking me to the movie premiere was huge! Just thinking about it made me feel giddy, and at the same time it was a relief. That he wanted to be seen in public with me was a step forward. I’d been thinking about our relationship a lot lately, especially considering the choices I had to make in the near future, and I realized that keeping the whole thing a secret didn’t sit well with me. So I’d confessed to Cara that the only reason I feared going public with Oliver was the media digging into our private lives.
“What kind of dirt could they possibly find on us?” Cara had asked as she laughed into the phone. “We were homeschooled. It’s not like we had many opportunities to rob a bank or get arrested.”
“But what if they write about your cancer?” I asked.
Cara scoffed. “So what? Like that’s something we don’t already know.”
Our conversation cheered me up. If Cara didn’t care, then we didn’t need to date in secret for her sake. I’d been meaning to talk to Oliver about it for days, but there hadn’t been any good chances and now he’d beaten me to it.
“I take that as a yes?” Oliver asked, his eyes sparkling with amusement. Unable to respond, I nodded my head. “Good,” he said with a crisp nod. The corners of his mouth rose in a crooked grin, and then he gently pressed his lips to my forehead, still smiling.
