“You’re helping make the wedding of our dreams happen, and in under a month.” Brendon shook his head. “Hauling a few boxes a couple of blocks is the least we can do.”
“I mean, that’s my job.” She laughed. They were paying her to help. Well, they were paying Lori, and Lori was paying her, but same difference.
“Still.” Brendon rocked back on his heels. “Any friend of Margot’s is a friend of ours.”
Margot averted her eyes.
Friends. So that’s the story Margot was going with. All right. Nice to know.
“Well, thank you.” She drummed her fingers against the outsides of her thighs. “Really.”
Brendon smiled, eyes crinkling. He turned to Margot. “We should probably get out of your hair. Let you settle in.”
“It’s been a long day,” Annie said, nose wrinkling softly in sympathy.
“You have lots of catching up to do,” Elle added. “Even more so now, considering . . .”
They were roommates.
Funny how years ago—before they’d grown apart and long before they’d fallen into bed—they’d talked about what it would be like, living together. It had been the plan. Graduate and move to the city, together. Margot had painted a pretty picture with her words. Late nights and libraries and watching the sunrise from rooftops, of all-night diners and coffee shops, parties that offered more than beer and Everclear. A city where all their dreams could come true. Olivia still had a corkboard hidden away in her closet back home, covered in purple-and-gold UW paraphernalia.
Olivia had never dreamed they’d live together under circumstances like these. It would’ve required her, at fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, to have imagined a future where she didn’t get that scholarship she needed, where she went to WSU instead so as to not burden Dad financially, where she and Margot stopped speaking, where she married Brad and spent a decade stuck in neutral, spinning her wheels before divorcing him, moving back home—a million bad decisions she tried not to beat herself up over because the past was the past.
Everyone slowly migrated in the direction of the door.
“See you for the cake tasting,” Brendon said.
Olivia nodded. “Looking forward to it.”
Elle waved as they disappeared down the hall. Margot shut the door, fingers lingering on the lock, her back to Olivia. Reality set in, and along with it, an oppressive shroud of silence. For the first time in eleven years, she and Margot were alone together. Really, truly alone. No one to barge in, no interruptions.
Olivia cleared her throat. “Thanks for letting me stay here.”
“No big.” Margot slipped past her, arms brushing. “You want something to drink?”
She could use a margarita the size of her head right about now, but she wasn’t about to make requests. Hard alcohol was probably a bad idea. It might’ve taken the edge off, but the last thing Olivia needed was to feel more unsteady than she naturally did around Margot. “Sure.”
Olivia hovered in the doorway of the kitchen while Margot ducked inside the fridge. Margot shut the door with her elbow, a beer held in each hand. “Here.”
Olivia stared at the bottle of proffered beer, its neck dangling from between Margot’s fingertips, her nails short and neat, painted a shade of red so dark Olivia had first thought they were black. If her hand shook when she reached out to take the bottle, it was only because it had been a long day and the adrenaline was wearing off. “Thanks.”
Margot lifted her own beer to her mouth, tipping it back, throat jerking when she swallowed. She lowered her bottle, tongue darting out against her bottom lip. A smudge of ruby lipstick lingered on the mouth of the brown glass.
Margot jerked her head to the right, hair swishing against her jaw as she disappeared around the corner into the living room. Olivia followed, stumbling on the tangled fringe of a threadbare rug that bore a single singe mark near one corner. She clutched the sweating bottle between her palms and made a sweep of the apartment, taking in the details she hadn’t noticed when she first walked in.
Like the embroidery hoop on the sliver of a wall by the kitchen that contained a cross-stitched phrase she had to squint to read. Behold! The field in which I grow my fucks. Lay thine eyes upon it and see that it is barren. Funny. She chuckled under her breath and turned on her heel, cocking her head, studying the framed paintings hanging from the exposed brick wall. Her jaw dropped.
Wow. Georgia O’Keeffe’s flowers looked downright subtle by comparison. These drawings were . . . realistic and—Olivia squinted harder, face flaming. She considered herself pretty darn flexible, but her body didn’t bend that way. Olivia perched on the couch beside Cat and pressed a hand to her cheek, trying to cool it off, her fingers damp with condensation from her beer bottle.
Margot’s brows ticked upward, the corners of her mouth twitching as she watched Olivia.
“Your art . . . it’s really . . .”
Margot smirked.
Olivia flushed, floundering for the right word. “Erotic?”
That was it. Erotic. Broad black brushstrokes kept the art from veering into vulgar territory.
“They’re a relatively new addition. I bought them to make Brendon uncomfortable after Elle moved out and Annie moved in.” She shrugged. “You stop noticing them after a while.”
How much sex did someone have to have to become desensitized to paintings of other people having it? More sex than Olivia was having, clearly. She ducked her chin, trying to will her blush away, her cheeks so hot she could’ve sworn there was steam coming off of her. Olivia stole a surreptitious peek at Margot from the corner of her eye, watching as she tilted her head to the side, considering the series of sketches on the wall. Margot’s slender fingers skimmed the front of her throat, lingering on the hollow between her collarbones, dark nail polish and the sharp cut of her hair stark contrasts against her pale skin, making her look a little like one of those canvases come to life.
Margot turned, catching her staring, and Olivia’s heart tripped over the next beat, speeding, sending another wave of blood rushing to the surface of her skin.
“So.” She wheezed out a laugh. “This is awkward.”
The proverbial elephant in the room had tripled in size.
“Don’t see why it has to be.” Margot set her beer on the table, sans coaster, and kicked her feet up beside it, ankles crossing, the picture of chill. Everything Olivia wasn’t. “Like I said. It’s ancient history, Liv. I’m over it.”
Over it. Olivia frowned. What was that supposed to mean? Over what? What did Margot have to get over in the first place? Olivia was the one who’d had her hopes dashed and her heart broken by Margot, not the other way around.
Or maybe it was her fault. After all, she’d been the one to kiss Margot.
Olivia couldn’t say with any degree of certainty when exactly her feelings for Margot had changed. It wasn’t like she’d woken up one morning and suddenly found herself wanting her best friend. There was no grand movie moment where their eyes locked and Olivia’s breath caught and a lightbulb went off inside her head. It had been gradual, so slow that her own feelings had crept up on her. Little touches had started to make her blush and then Margot’s gaze had gained a new dimension. It wasn’t something Olivia could touch but she could certainly feel it traveling along her skin, tickling the space between her shoulder blades, raising the hair on the back of her neck, narrowing her throat and damming up words that before had always come so easy. Awareness. Followed by confusion and uncertainty, not only that it was Margot but that, wow, Olivia was significantly less straight than she’d previously thought. She’d driven herself crazy questioning whether the way Margot’s hand lingered on her leg was intentional, reading into every look, every touch, every text. Wondering if just maybe what she felt was mutual.