The feeling of Ollie’s warmth behind me and his breath against my ear stunned me. “Meet me in your dorm. Two minutes,” he whispered.
“No, Ollie.”
Ollie growled. “Dammit, Mia. If I mean anything to you, you’ll come.” He took a few steps away, paused, then turned back around. “Close your eyes, Mia.”
But I didn’t, and Ollie hung his head and walked back toward me. He planted his palms over the table and leaned in to capture my eyes with his in a plea. “Please, don’t do this …”
I closed my eyes and counted to ten because even though I was upset, I still couldn’t watch him walk away from me.
After he was gone, I opened my eyes and groaned. “If I have to hear one more ‘Dammit, Mia’ I think I will scream,” I said to Zeke, each word increasing in volume, but Zeke sat there stunned by Ollie’s swift presence. Ollie knew better. He should have acknowledged Zeke upon arrival. Groaning, I dropped my head in my hands for a moment before snapping my eyes at Zeke again. “Should I go? I should probably go. I need to hear him out, right?”
The door to my dorm closed behind me when I found Ollie standing in the middle of the room with his arms crossed over his chest. He unfolded his arms, took two steps forward, and grabbed my chin, tilting my face up to his. He let out an exhale. “Don’t do this, Mia. We’re stronger than this.”
I pulled my head out of his grasp and took a step back. “Were you guys together?”
Ollie shook his head. “Whatever happened between her and me was before you.”
“She told me you are her boyfriend, Ollie. Are. As in, currently.”
“No, she isn’t right, Mia. She’s delusional. You have to believe I feel nothing for her. Never did, and never will. It’s always you.”
“Or are you juggling two girls? Telling them both to keep the relationship a secret in case the other one finds out? Because”—a laugh pressed through my throat—”that’s fucking brilliant, Ollie. Well done.”
A rush of emotions played across his face, and I instantly regretted every word. In my heart, I knew Ollie. He wasn’t capable of it.
Injury pierced his eyes. “You really think that low of me, yeah? You think I would do something like that?”
Shaking my head, I instantly rambled my regret away. “No.” I closed the gap between us and laced my fingers into his. “God, no, I didn’t mean it. I don’t know what’s the matter with me, Ollie. I’ve never felt like this before. She told me she is your girlfriend. Then I see the two of you together. I feel sick about it. Explain this to me. Tell me what this is.”
Ollie brought my hand to his chest, pinning them and steadying me. Steadying us. “Truth?”
I nodded.
Ollie drew in a deep breath. His chest moved under my hand. He exhaled. Impatience was eating me from the inside out. “It was just Maddie, Alicia, Isaac, and me here in the summer. She was around during a time when I was on my meds. She was a diversion to pass the time. She was into me, and I took advantage of it because I was a different person on my meds. I didn’t have a care in the world—no fucking conscience. I was doped up to forget who I was. And the truth is …” Ollie let out a breath as I held mine “… I played her. I knew how much she was into me, so I fucked her.”
Ollie paused. I blinked three times. One for each word. I. Fucked. Her.
“Mia, say something,” he pleaded.
I dropped my hands from his chest and sat at the edge of the mattress. My stomach tangled in nausea as the picture of them together played out in my head. It couldn’t have been the same with them as it was with us. This was different. We were different. I had my past, and Ollie had his. I looked up to see him standing before me. “And what happened after you fucked her, Ollie?”
He crouched down in front of me and took my hands from my lap, rubbing his thumbs over mine. “Maddie was convinced it was more than it was. She started obsessing, stalking, causing chaos. One minute she would be fine, the next she would grab Alicia by the throat if I so much as looked in Alicia’s direction. So then, after we cut her out of the group, I showed up to my dorm to find her lying naked in my bed, and I fucking lost it.” Ollie’s breath got shorter as his voice shook. “I grabbed her by the neck and threw her out before breaking anything I could get my hands on. Every piece of furniture.” Ollie dropped his head for a moment before looking back up at me. “She caused so much turmoil in my life because of one bloody night.”
He brought my palm to his mouth and pressed his lips to it, kissing any lingering doubts away before he continued. “Anyway, Conway took me off my meds, and Lynch had me in Solitary for two fucking weeks. The transition was terrible. And when I got out, she was gone.”
Ollie brought his hand to my cheek. “That’s the truth. As much as I hate to admit the way I treated her, that’s what happened, Mia.”
And I believed him.
I let out an unsteady exhale and nodded.
Ollie fell to his knees and settled himself between my legs, laying his arms across my thighs. “She told me she’s better now, been taking her meds, seeing Conway regularly. She told me she was sorry for what happened and she wanted to keep it in the past.”
Dr. Conway? Medication? Visions of her pretending to take pills flooded. Our conversations flooded. “I don’t trust her, Ollie.”
Ollie maintained my gaze. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes.” In all honesty, yes, I did and would trust him until he gave me a reason not to.
The air in Ollie’s lungs blew out through his lips before he placed his hands over my head and ran them down the sides of my face. “You never have to worry, love. You have me completely.” He pressed his forehead to mine. “You so fucking have me.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“She was my heaven, I was her hell.”
—Oliver Masters
“MIA!” JAKE SQUEALED as my feet landed on the marble of Jake’s dorm room. It took a circus act to get us here, but with the help of Isaac, we made it. Ollie’s hand lingered around my waist as I observed my surroundings. It wasn’t the posters or pictures on his walls that got my attention at first, or the fact he had an actual comforter over his bed, but it was who was in the dorm.
Maddie.
Wearing black yoga pants and a matching sports bra, Maddie smiled from ear to ear, laughing as she flocked to Isaac as soon as we arrived.
“Do you want to leave?” Ollie asked in my ear.
“No,” I said, and he kissed the side of my head from behind me.