Page 51 of Never Thought I'd End Up Here
“I didn’t expect to be back so early either,” Oliver says, shrugging off his bag and leather jacket in one movement, “but it appears my dad’s new driver is a street racer. Or just someone who doesn’t believe in traffic lights.”
“What event did you have to attend anyway?” I ask, hoping to divert his attention from the fact that I’m now climbing slowly out of the bed. “Did your family open up another winery?”
“No, this was for his client’s new art gallery. My dad wanted me there to charm all the guests. Well,supposedly, but the old man gets bored out of his mind at these things so I think he just wanted some company— Hang on.” He narrows his eyes. “Don’t change the subject. What were you two doing the whole night?”
“Nothing.I told you, we were looking at photos, and then we fell asleep. The end.” I nudge one of the slippers on the floor toward me with my toe. “Can you just let me go back to my room and act like this never happened?”
“I’ll let you go back to your room,” Oliver says. “But you should know that I’m not a good actor.”
***
True to his warning, Oliver maintains a thoroughly scandalized expression all throughout the morning, from when we bump into each other again at the breakfast buffet to when everyone regroups in the hotel lobby to when we pile into the bus for our next stop.
“Can you quit looking at me like that?” I ask, crossing my legs in the seat beside him.
He drops the scandalized face but only to peer over at me with unabashed curiosity. “You’re not sitting with Cyrus?”
“No,” I say. “I thought I’d talk to you.” Ever since I returned to my own room, where Daisy was waiting, wide-eyed and looking ready to burst with questions, I’ve spent the whole morning untangling my feelings in the daylight. And though I can’t guess at what might be going through Cyrus’s head after last night, I can be certain, at least, of what I want.
Oliver flashes me a grin. “And whatever did I do to deserve this honor?”
“I’m going to ask you a very obnoxious question,” I begin as the bus rumbles onto the road. “But I need you to answer me honestly.”
“Sure. Honesty is one of my best traits,” Oliver says. “Along with my good looks, natural charisma, impeccable style, shiny hair, and melodic voice, of course.”
“Okay, no comments on any of that—”
“Because there’s no need to comment on what’s objectively true,” Oliver says, nodding in understanding. “I get it.”
Just ask him. Say it.I take a deep breath and choose the most direct route possible: “Do you like me, Oliver?”
He pauses. Stares at me for what might be a full minute. “Likeyou, as in a let’s-make-out way?”
“Not really the wording I would’ve chosen, but yeah. Romantically. Not just as friends.”
Another pause. His voice is light when he asks: “Do you want me to like you?” As if he’s asking whether I want him to grab me a soda.
“I mean … it would be nice if you liked me as a friend, because despite my initial reservations, I like you like that a lot,” I say carefully, and brace myself for the fallout, my fingers gripping the seat belt. Maybe he’ll ask me to go sit somewhere else on the bus. Or maybe he’ll just spend the rest of the ride in sullen silence and never speak to me again, because what’s the point, if I don’t see him as a potential boyfriend?
But the warmth doesn’t fade from his eyes. “If you don’t want me to like you in that way, then I won’t.”
“Seriously?” I twist around in my seat to face him, my relief mingling with surprise. “How does that even work? You can’t just switch your feelings on and off. You don’t decide to like someone; you simply do.”
“What can I say? It’s a tough skill to master, but I’ve mastered it,” he says with a shrug. “This may be very hard to believe, seeing how totally cool and in control of my emotions I am now, but I used to fall in love way too easily. Like, I would fall in love with the attendant who helped add ice to my drink in the airport lounge. I’d fall for a stranger who held the door open for me once, or a guy in my class because he waved at me in the halls, or a cute girl handing out flyers for the local animal shelter, or a waiter who swatted a fly away from my meal and smiled when our eyes met. And I would act on it. I’d ask for their number and buy them flowers—I didn’t have any game like I do now, just stupid sincerity.” He looks away, out at the blurred sweep of trees, and turns quiet.
“But they never loved me back, and you kind of get sick of the whole unrequited love thing after a while, you feel me? There are only so many angsty, depressing love songs you can listen to before you start feeling a bit pathetic. So I got my shit together and stopped falling so deep that I can’t help myself up when I need to. I still have my little crushes because it keeps things interesting, but I don’t actually, like,likeanyone until I’m certain they’ll like me too. And I was never certain with you.”
My heart pinches. Even though this is the confirmation I was after, I still can’t help imagining him years ago, offering up his heart on open palms to people who dropped it or tossed it aside.
“What about the prince?” I ask.
“Right, yeah. That guy.” Oliver glances back over at me and makes an unimpressed face.“Forgot to mention the part where he was after my dad’s money because he’d spent all his royal savings on a massive emu farm, and then he got bitten by an emu and decided he wanted nothing to do with them anymore. Not really what I’d consider boyfriend material, let alone husband material. Plus, he wasn’t even that hot.”
I wrinkle my nose. “You can do so much better.”
For the first time, I think I glimpse the self-doubt underneath the lacquer of his brash confidence, the active effort it requires to smile all the time, to keep everything light and make everyone laugh. “We’ll see. But hey,” he says, holding up three fingers like he’s making an oath, “I promise I won’t fall for you. You’re, like, a bro. Like, a very pretty bro, who I’m into platonically, and whose house I might crash at in the future, once you’re married and I’m named the most eligible bachelor of the century.”
“I would love that,” I tell him earnestly, bumping his shoulder with mine. “I don’t have any other guy friends. You’ll be the only one.”
