“So, you’re not happy about moving me in with you?”
“I am very happy about it.”
“You’re not smiling anymore.”
His frown deepens. “This interlude is putting us behind schedule. I am not happy about that.”
“This entire evening is off-schedule,” I remind him. “Why were you smiling at all before?”
“Oh.” He glances at me as we walk toward the errant box. His expression brightens a little. “I explained that to you. Neurochemicals lit up the reward center of my brain when I saw your face. You are right. I thought about it after you left last night, and we are already bonded. I have always associated the sight of you with happiness.”
Butterflies dance in my chest at his words.
He grunts as he hefts the box into his arms. Instead of hauling it immediately into his condo, he freezes in place and glances at me. “Do you associate the sight of me with happiness?”
“Of course! Why would you even ask me that? We’ve been best friends for years.”
This doesn’t seem to appease him. He frowns again. “You do not have much time to finish packing. I was able to select your clothes based on what you wear most frequently, but I have never witnessed your morning and evening hygiene routines. I left the bathroom untouched. You will need to gather what you want for yourself.”
This is a lot of change in a very short time. I’m reeling from it, so I can’t imagine how Ollie must feel. “We don’t have to go to dinner tonight. Monterrey Bay is really expensive. I can cook for us.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “I promised to date the hell out of you, and that is what I will do. I chose a restaurant fitting for the occasion of our first date.”
Wow. If that’s his idea of fitting for a first date, I’ve been slumming it for all these years. “Do you usually take women to places like that for first dates?”
“No,” he concedes. “You went once with some of your friends and spoke of it so highly for weeks. I know you like that restaurant.”
“Oliver,” I breathe, stunned. “That was sophomore year of college.”
He nods, completely aware of the facts like he always is. “I know.”
“That was ten years ago.”
It was just something fun and slightly stupid that my sorority sisters talked me into. We got dressed up and went out for a fancy evening since none of the guys we dated ever ponied up for anything more than the dive restaurants littering Oakland. By the time we were staring at the menus, we figured out why. We could only afford to order dessert. The view was lovely though, and the conversation was way more interesting than any I’ve had on a first date since. It was a magical experience, and I still dream about that angel food grilled cheese sandwich. Sounds disgusting, but it was the best thing I have ever put in my mouth.
“You have never talked about another restaurant like that in the past ten years,” Ollie supplies. “It is obviously your favorite. Or did I misjudge?”
I shouldn’t be surprised that Ollie keeps a running tally of what I wear most frequently or the restaurant I’ve raved about more than any others, even if that was a decade ago. He’s so brilliant; it’s a wonder he even deigns to rub elbows with common people at all. “Do I have enough time to primp for you?”
Ollie stares at me, his brow furrowed.
“Um, primp…” I run through my mental thesaurus, which is admittedly much, much smaller than Ollie’s. “Get ready to go out, uh…get dressed up.” Crap. I’m terrible at this. “For women, it usually entails several hours of self-hygiene preparation. Things like shaving our legs, conditioning our hair, painting our nails, carefully applying makeup and lotion and perfume, picking out the perfect dress and shoes…”
Ollie clears his throat to stop my rambling. “We do not have several hours for you to primp, no.”
“Do I have time to put on makeup at least?”
He tries to glance at his watch, then remembers he’s still holding a large box. He frowns. “Highly doubtful. Why do you need to do all those things anyway?”
“I want to look beautiful for you,” I admit.
This seems to make him more confused than anything I’ve said so far. After several moments of silence, his expression turns furious. “I think I understand why you do not want to bring up the topic of people we have dated in the past. If all those men expected you to go through that amount of preparation for them, they did not deserve to spend a second of time with you.”
A tiny smidge of satisfaction pings in my brain. Jealousy overrides it. “Oh. Huh. Just like all those women you were with didn’t deserve you. At least you didn’t have to spend hours making yourself attractive to them.”
“This is why I am angry,” he explains.
“I’ve spent years being angry, so welcome to the club.”
“That does not make any sense. You do not need to be angry on my behalf. You just said I did not have to spend hours making myself attractive to women.”
“That’s exactly why I’m angry!”
His expression is a snarled tangle of confusion and frustration. “I do not understand what you are telling me! Those women found me attractive without any…primping on my part. They were aroused by the sight of my face and my hair and my body and the way I pleasured them in bed. Why would it take hours for you to achieve the same level of attraction for men? You are beautiful all the time, Olivia! I might be weird, but those guys were obviously blind!”
All my anger vanishes in a puff of smoke. “You think I’m beautiful?”
He hoists the box against his hip then points to his glasses. “Not blind!”
“I didn’t know, Ollie,” I murmur. “You never told me.”
“After hours of primping for those idiots, they better have told you,” he mutters, striding away with the box.
Some of them did. But none so beautifully as Ollie.
8
Oliver
This is not my first date. To be clear, it is my first date with Olivia. I have been on many dates with many other women. The script is usually straight-forward. Open their car door for them, give them my elbow to escort them inside, pull out their chair and seat them, offer them a compliment about their appearance, order our food, mind my manners, engage in meaningless small talk, then be rewarded with an orgasm afterward if I have played my part well enough.
I have mastered my script for interactions with Olivia, too. As friends. I have never had to concern myself with winning an orgasm provided by her. The prize was always continued friendship. This is strange, new territory, complicated by the fact that she gave me an orgasm last night without me having to do anything to earn that reward. In fact, she refused my attempts at even trying to maintain a reverse order of events.
I am out of my element. Combine that sense of unease with the fact that the restaurant is overly crowded, our reservations were not abided by in a timely fashion, and we have been waiting twenty-two minutes and fifty-seven seconds for even a greeting from our server. I also failed to account for how much I detest the smell of seafood.
“We don’t have to stay, Ollie,” she murmurs, staring out the wall of windows at the glittering view of the city sprawled out below us.