Page 36 of Lucy Loves Him Not
Thirteen
Olivia
come help me paint cabinets
and I’ll put some cinnamon rolls in the oven
Me
on my way
The next morning I threw on some old cut off shorts and a tank top, barely brushed my hair, and headed over to Olivia’s for a day of painting.
“I barely slept last night,” I bemoaned as she poured me a mug of coffee. “Keep these coming.” The morning sun streamed through her kitchen blinds, glimmering across the kitchen counter where I sat.
“Any particular reason you couldn’t sleep?” Olivia asked as she handed me the mug.
“Kind of.” I took a hot sip. “It’s all the stupid, Adam festival stuff.”
“Is it Adam stuff or festival stuff?”
“It’s all mingled up together in my head and confusing me.”
“What’s confusing about it?” She sat down beside me at the counter, shoulder to shoulder.
I laid my head on the counter instead of answering. She rubbed my back reassuringly.
“He’s confusing,” I mumbled into the granite.
“What’s he doing that confuses you?”
“Olivia, it’s everything about that man. I don’t know what I think about him. I don’t know what I feel about him. He’s gotten me so confused that I’m pretty sure I’m now confusing him, too.”
“I thought he wasn’t giving you such a hard time anymore. He was having a cute redemption arc,” Olivia said, still rubbing my back.
“He isn’t giving me a hard time. He’s giving me too easy of a time now, honestly.” I lifted my head off the counter.
She cocked her head at me. “Too easy of a time.Let me put that in my big sister translator.”
“Yesterday we went to this festival in Bradberry, right? It was just easy between us.Too easy. It was like all our teasing evolved from frustrating to playful. When did that happen? Like we even took bites of each other’s lunch. Olivia, at one point, we rode on a carousel together and there was like this…vibe between us. I kept giggling involuntarily. I even reached out and gave him a shove near the end purely because I wanted to touch him…Like, what is happening to me?” I didn’t mention that I wanted to touch him all the time and the shove was me reaching my breaking point.
“That’s called attraction, Luce.” Olivia rolled her eyes at me.
“You think it’s simply attraction?” I latched onto the idea like an escape route out of this mess. “Maybe what I’m feeling between us is purely physical?Not anything deeper than that.” If it was just my body reacting to him, I didn’t have to worry about my heart.
“I don’t know. If you two were giggling and talking easily?—”
“I need a simple answer, Liv,” I cut her off. “Like maybe it was the ice cream getting to my head. Or his sexy professor glasses and perfect forearms.”
Olivia shook her head. “Fine, Lucy. You’re simply physically attracted to Adam. If you ignore that, focus on his personality and how much you dislike him, you’ll be fine,” she said blandly, like she didn’t believe a single word.
I nodded. “I needed that. I just need to get through the festival.”
“Hey, every time you have an Adam crisis, you can come over and help me paint. It’ll be therapeutic.”
We turnedFolkloreon shuffle and started prepping the kitchen for painting. We sang along to Taylor Swift and accidentally got minty green paint on our clothes. I was on the road to maybe, sort of, getting Adam out of my head.
Then I got a phone call from him. My pulse raced at his name on my phone screen. I hated that I liked him calling me so much.
