Page 38 of The Edge of Falling

"Oh my gosh. I'm such an idiot."

"Oh no. What happened?"

"He..."

"Oh my God, don't tell me he came within five seconds."

"No, that's not what I'm trying to say."

"Ten seconds?"

"No, Alice. We didn't have sex."

"Oh no. Don't tell me he..."

"It wasn't about sex in the first place," I almost screamed. I looked up and noticed two very distinguished-looking men staring at me, so I lowered my voice. "He has a work event. He brought me to the hotel for a work event."

"Oh," she said. "But I thought you said he asked you on a date."

"Well, I mean, he didn't technically ask me on a date. He asked me if I wanted to go to the Ritz-Carlton. And he said to wear a nice dress."

"Okay. And then what?"

"I guess I just assumed he was saying wear a nice dress because it was a date and we were going to hook up."

"Oh, Rosalie." She sighed. "And so you made a move on him and..."

"No, I didn't make a move on him. We showed up, and there were, like, people waiting on him. And they were like, 'Hey Oliver, hurry up. We want to award you a prize.'" I rolled my eyes.

"Oh, wow. What prize did he get?" Alice said.

"Not important."

"Oops. Sorry. So continue."

"Anyway, we finally had it out..."

"About him getting a prize?"

"No, about what he said about me all those years ago."

"Oh wow. You finally asked him."

"Yeah. I mean, it just came up. Anyway, turns out he wasn't actually calling me a fat pig. He was just saying that so Foster would think he wasn't interested in me because Foster warned him off me."

"Oh wow. Your brother's crazy," Alice said. "I can't believe that he warned Oliver off you. Did your father know that you guys kissed?"

"I don't know if he knows that we kissed. I doubt it, though. Because if he did, there's no way he would've let me stay in the apartment with Oliver without him there."

"That's true," Alice said. "Wow, so your brother warned Oliver to stay away from you..."

"Yeah."

"And so Oliver said something rude about you to make your brother think he wasn't interested."

"Yeah."

"Oh shit. So you stopped talking to him for nothing."

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