Waking Olivia(17)

"I can't stay long," I tell her. "Thought I'd just stop by for a second and check on the horses."

My mother knows me well. And she knows this is what I do when I need to work something out in my head.

"How did Olivia do?" she asks.

I can't stop my smile from spreading, creeping out from the corners of my mouth. "She broke the course record."

"I really liked her," she says.

This I knew. Olivia brought out the maternal in my mother the way a  newborn would. She was one step away from putting Olivia in a high chair  and spoon-feeding her. "No accounting for taste," I reply.

She clucks her tongue. "Now what kind of thing is that to say? She was lovely."

"She's a nuisance."

My mother glares at me in a way I haven't seen in a long time. "In what possible way is she a nuisance?"

She's totally right, of course. Olivia wasn't a nuisance in any way.  Sure, she still didn't listen for shit about anything-the horses or the  dishes or even the eating, because for all her complaints she barely ate  anything. But it was oddly  …  easy, her being here, unexpectedly so. It  felt as if she'd been here her entire life, and perhaps that's what made  her dangerous. It made me let my guard down, and suddenly things like  that moment in the kitchen happened. The length of her pressed against  me and that mouth of hers ripe and waiting …

Disliking Olivia is a hell of a lot safer than the alternative.

"I thought you were going to Jessica's after the meet?" my mother asks.

I sigh. Yes, Jessica, my girlfriend, the one I completely forgot existed several times last night. "I'll get there."                       
       
           


///
       

"But it's going well?"

"It's fine. It's good."

"You've dated her for quite a while now. Don't you think it ought to be better than fine?"

"What are you getting at?" I ask tersely.

"Nothing, I just think that Jessica is a little more serious about this whole thing than you are."

"Mom, we've only dated for a year and we're both young. I've already told her I'm not getting married for a good long time."

"Just because you've said it," my mother warns, "doesn't mean she believes it."

I go to the stables, suddenly feeling like there are now too many things I have to avoid thinking about. All of them female.

I work until I'm too tired to think. At one time, I'd used climbing to  accomplish this, but it feels self-indulgent now, with so much to be  done here. By the time I emerge from my worry and begin to feel steady  again, the sun is setting.

Which means I am very, very late.



Jessica made dinner. It's cold.

I apologize and tell her I had to go to my mom's, which isn't  technically true, but I can't exactly explain that going to the farm  makes me feel peaceful, and coming to her apartment does not.

"It's okay," she says. "I'll just warm it up."

"You didn't have to do all this. I thought we were eating out."

"We can't eat out all the time," she tsks. "You ought to let me take care of you more."

I suppose I should feel grateful, but instead the statement makes me  slightly anxious. There's something a little pointed about Jessica's  domesticity these days. She even offered to do my laundry a few weeks  back, though I refused. I've told her so many times that I don't want to  settle down. I've even implied that I'm not sure I ever want that.

Yet now I find myself worrying that my mom might have been right.





26





Olivia



I can tell something has changed when I get to the track on Monday.

It's the women's first win in over five years, and there's this buzz in  all of us, a renewed dedication. Everyone works hard, pulls from a  reserve we never guessed was there. It's not until practice ends, as we  go to gather around Will, that all that good feeling dissipates, at  least for me.

"Finn, if you take first again next week we will totally place," gushes Nicole.

I wish she hadn't said it. I guess everyone was thinking it anyway, but  now it's out there and it's official. They all need me to take first and  if I don't, they'll be disappointed. It's entirely on me, and I don't  want it to be.

"There's a 50% chance she'll just pass out in the middle of the course  instead," snorts Betsy. She's right of course, and it's probably because  she's right that it makes me so angry.

"If that happens you could pick up the slack, right Bets?" I snap. "Oh  …  No, wait, you've never placed, have you?"

"I'm not willing to become anorexic just to win some dumb race," she replies.

I laugh. "You are far from anorexic."

"That's enough, you two," Will says. "Olivia, I'd like to speak to you for a moment. Now."

If Betsy were a smarter girl, she'd wipe that smug smile off her face  because she's about 30 seconds from getting it punched off.

When everyone walks away, I explode. "You always blame me. She started it. You heard her."

"Yeah, I heard her."

"So why am I the one over here?" I demand.

"Because you're the only one who's off the team if there's another  incident, remember? If you're going to lead this team, you're going to  have to do better. And maybe that starts with realizing that Betsy's  jealous and giving her a pass."

"I don't want to lead this team," I reply. "I want them to stop depending on me."

"I know you do," he sighs, "but it's only because you're not sure they  should. Well, I'm sure, Olivia. I'm sure they should. And if I do  anything this season, it's going to be making you believe that  yourself."



The next Friday we're once again heading to his mother's house after he  gets off work. "You're sure this is okay?" I ask as he takes my  overnight bag from my hand.

"Why wouldn't it be?"

"Because it's a lot ... Your mom can't be fired up about having me there again so soon."

"Get in the car. My mother likes you. She's excited you're coming today."

I glance over at him in surprise. Will doesn't lie, I know he doesn't, but this seems hard to believe.

He sees the look I've cast his way and shrugs. "It's as much a mystery to me as it is you."                       
       
           


///
       



When we arrive, there's a beat-up Honda Civic in the driveway that I don't recognize. I look over at Will.

"Brendan," he says, sounding not entirely pleased. "My brother."

From the little I've heard, Brendan sounds like a bit more of a wild  card than Will, but then who isn't more of a wild card than Will? I've  seen pictures of him-a cute kid with a kind of impish smile. I get the  sense that the impishness is still there, and that while Dorothy enjoys  it, it's an irritant to Will. As am I …

Maybe Brendan and I will get along just fine.

I don't have to wait long to meet him. The man himself comes running out  of the house and tackles his completely unaware older brother while I  look on. Brendan is a rangier version of Will. He has the same ice blue  eyes, the same light tan, the same wide mouth, but there's something  boyish about him that no longer exists in Will.

Brendan jumps up and whoops, then runs in a circle shouting "Vic-tor-y! Vic-tor-y!"

"Brendan," sighs Will, climbing to his feet, "stop being an idiot and say hi to Olivia."

It's only then that Brendan seems to see me at all. "Oh. Holy shit. I  mean, hi." He laughs at himself. "Sorry, I wasn't expecting you. I mean,  I knew Will was bringing a student home I just didn't know it would  …   Wow. I'm sorry. I'm gonna stop talking now."

"Good plan, jackass," says Will, picking my bag up and slinging it hard at Brendan, who staggers backward.

"Hey!" I object. "Don't use my bag as a weapon. What if it had been full of priceless glass objects?"

"Yeah," smirks Will, "you seem just like the type who'd collect priceless glass objects."

"I can totally see you collecting priceless glass objects, Olivia," says  Brendan with a wide smile. Brendan, like his brother, is insanely hot.  Also like his brother, he seems well aware of it.

"More the type to beat up priceless glass objects," mutters Will. "Put her bag in my room."

Brendan raises a brow and has a smile on his face so dirty that there's no doubt what's going through his head.

"It's not like that, dickhead," says Will, pushing me inside.

"You should come out with us," Brendan says to me, ignoring Will entirely. "We're going to Jimmy's, in town. Have you been?"

"She's not going drinking the night before a meet," snarls Will, which sort of irritates me. It's not like I was going to agree.

Brendan glances over at me, giving me another of those sly half-smiles.  "I don't have to leave right away," he says to his mom. "Maybe I'll stay  for dinner after all."