“Yes,” I said, voice cracking. “I feel for you, I always have. And no matter how hard I try not to”—I shrugged—”it won’t go away. It’s always there.”
Ollie’s lips twitched. “You can stop fighting now, Mia.”
My heels lifted off the ground, and without an afterthought, my mouth found his. I felt his smile against my lips before they molded with mine, and I slipped my tongue inside, craving the taste of him. Ollie’s body relaxed against me as he held my head in his hand, and took my bottom lip between his teeth.
“Ollie, it’s over!” someone shouted, but Ollie reached one hand behind them and flicked them off without parting from me. A giggle escaped between us.
“You. Me. Tonight. Your room,” he whispered, and took my hand and lifted me off the wall. His words bounced around in my head the whole way back to the circle. He refused to keep his distance after and pulled me over to his spot between his legs. Everyone’s eyes darted around, but neither one of us could care as he kissed my neck and kept me warm inside his arms, where I should have been all along—my safety net.
“Think it’s your birthday, mate?” Jake teased, looking over at Ollie and me.
“Every day is a present,” Ollie replied with a lift in his tone.
Alicia leaned over and whispered in Ollie’s ear, “You’re walking a dangerous line … You need to be careful.”
Ollie nodded and brought his attention back to me and ran his palms up and down my arms.
“What was that all about?” I asked, looking up at him.
Ollie dipped his head down. “We’ll talk about it later, love.” And he kissed my temple.
Out of anyone who could have said something, Alicia was the last person I expected. It took a lot for me to admit to him my feelings for him openly. I had confessed it before to Zeke, but because Zeke didn’t talk, I never really treated him as a real human being—more like a part of my subconscious. I had been afraid until now to openly say it. But after seeing the look in his eyes, the one that said, trust me and I will never let you fall alone, without having to utter a word at all, my words came out effortlessly.
Perhaps he was right, and he would be the one to help me save me from myself.
“Mia?”
“Yeah?” I asked, snapping my head to the source.
“How about a score, yeah?” Alicia asked.
I dropped my head back to look at Ollie. “Eh, I’ll give him a one.”
Everyone laughed, including Ollie as Alicia tallied up the scores before she dug her hand into the beanie. “Okay, my turn.”
Alicia withdrew her action and read it, her eyes darting around the circle. “Mia and Isaac, you’re on here. Stand up,” she said.
Ollie’s fingers tensed against my arms as Isaac and I exchanged glances. We got to our feet and walked outside the circle in front of Alicia. “You’re my life-sized Barbies for the next minute, and you have to do whatever I say,” she whispered to us.
Pursing my lips together, I stood before Isaac, trying refrain from an awkward laugh.
“This one’s mine,” Jake bragged from the circle.
Ollie shook his head. “Yeah, thanks for that, man.”
Alicia started her roleplay game, using Isaac and me as her pawns. “Oh, Ken. Please take your shirt off, I want to feel your body against mine,” Alicia said in the most authentic British versioned Barbie voice, and Isaac obliged. He removed his shirt as everyone in the group let out a laugh, except for Ollie. Ollie wasn’t the least bit amused.
“I want to feel your body,” Alicia hinted again at me.
“Oh, right,” I mumbled and brought my hands to Isaacs abs.
“Yeah, Barbie. That feels nice. Why don’t I help you out of your shirt,” Alicia said in a deep man voice. Isaac took a step toward me and helped me out of my shirt, and it dropped to the floor as we waited for our next instruction.
“Kiss me, Ken. I want to feel your hands on my boobs, and your tongue down my throat,” Alicia said through a laugh, and I looked over at Ollie with wide eyes.
“No, she doesn’t kiss, Alicia. You know that,” Ollie said, drawing the line.
As I remembered the sickness on Ollie’s face when I’d kissed Liam, my legs wobbled. It had been right before Ollie kissed me sober and I punched a wall. “Don’t ever kiss another before my eyes again,” he said in my dorm room before he left.
“She kissed you, didn’t she?” Alicia asked.
Ollie scrambled as his attention went from me and back to Alicia. “Yeah, but that’s different …”
“Different?” Alicia turned to face me. “Mia?”
Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place. I darted my head between both of them as my mind raced, trying to do the right thing for once. I’d hurt Ollie too many times to count, and I couldn’t bear to see the pained look in his eyes again.
Ollie got to me. He got to me in so many ways, on so many levels. Even though Ollie couldn’t accept the way I was, he was the only one who fought for me, which was more than I deserved.
I picked my shirt up off the ground and pulled it over my head before taking off through the woods.
That’s right—I ran.
It was the only option that made the most sense at the time. I darted through the woods, past the green lawn, and back through the double doors of Dolor.
Chapter Fourteen
“This girl is my heaven.
With lips of an angel, the sweet
taste of mercy lingers. She has halos in her
eyes, and my heart beats to the sound of her wings.”
—Oliver Masters
WE WERE HALFWAY through the broken record, and I felt like an idiot. Did they see what Ollie could do to me? Were they pushing our buttons on purpose to see me lash out again? Were my public displays of affection and feelings a joke, when it had been so entirely hard to get to this point? A wall came up as anger brewed, but I fought through it, keeping Ollie’s words rolling as the record got stuck on this specific song.
“Stop!” he called out, but I shook my head as I turned the corner. “Dammit, Mia. Slow down,” he shouted before I reached the bathroom, and I wished it were a private bathroom where I could lock the door behind me.
After turning on the faucet, I splashed cool water over my face, washing away the last ten minutes. When I opened my eyes, Ollie stood beside me, chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath.
“I couldn’t go through with it, Ollie. I couldn’t do it to you …”