AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Dad wasn’t just cultivating superior taste in me all those years, like he said. He was cultivating a sense of superiority. He was smart, but did he really think I was smart or that we had so many things in common? Or did he just want his daughter to reflect his intelligence? Maybe he never loved us at all. He just wanted his whole family to reflect how successful he was, how he was the doting father and provider, so his wife didn’t have to work and his daughters were daddy’s little girls. When he called me “mini me” or Lily his “little princess,” did he see us at all, or just his own greatness reflected back at him?
He’s the one who bought me a black Nirvana t-shirt when I asked for a smiley face t-shirt in first grade because all the pretty girls had tie-dye pastel shirts with big yellow emojis on them. Maybe we were never mirrors of his cleverness, but creations of his own hand. Maybe his delusions of grandeur had no more basis in reality than Lily’s make-believe world where she actually is a princess. After all, if he was such a superior intellect, how come he got caught?
“For the lady,” Oliver says, handing me a heaping bucket of popcorn. “To drink?”
I stammer out a thank you and an offer to pay, but he insists, retrieving my drink from the concession worker a minute later. We make our way down the hall behind the happy couple, who toss kernels of popcorn into the air and laugh as they try to catch them, leaving a trail behind for the cleaner to pick up. I can’t even look at Oliver in my embarrassment. At least his brother is being as obnoxious as my cousin.
We step into the theater, Oliver holding the door for all of us.
“We’re going to sit at the back,” Meghan announces.
I remember her gross butter-hand-job comment and glance at Oliver. “We can sit in the front,” I assure her. He looks annoyed but doesn’t protest, and I wonder how much he hates me by now. We take our seats at the front railing in the second section while the other two climb the steps to the top row.
“Sorry about her,” I say when we’re settled into our seats. “She’s not normally like that. I mean, when it’s just us, she’s not. I guess maybe she’s always like that around guys.”
Oliver shrugs, frowning at the screen. “My brother’s always like that.”
Damn his accent.
I glance at him from the corner of my eye, nursing my straw as he stares straight ahead at the previews rolling. Awhile later, he reaches for the popcorn in my lap, and I jump a mile, but he doesn’t even glance my way. He seems completely absorbed in the terrible movie, and I guess I was too, since I forgot I was holding the food. Now I can’t stop thinking about it as his hand dips back into the bucket a minute later. It’s not the same torment of desire I get when I sit next to Chase, but I’m definitely hyperaware of his presence beside me. I find myself torn, half of me wanting Oliver to make a move on me and half of me wanting to pull away if he does.
Of course I would pull away. I have a boyfriend. Shit. Does he know that? I told Meghan to pass that along, but did she?
I twist around and glance back at them. When I only see one head in the back row, I want to die. I twist back around quickly, my whole body flushed, and pray Oliver doesn’t turn around and realize what my cousin is doing back there.
I keep watching him from the corner of my eye, wondering if he’s sneaking glances at me too. If he thinks is a date, he must at least think I’m cute enough to go out with.
Or maybe he thinks he’s the one throwing me a bone, that it’s a pity-date because he felt sorry for me and his brother needed a wing man. Am I the one he’s taking for the team, so his brother can go out with my cousin, who’s obviously more desirable since she can string more than four words together in their presence. If he looks back there right now, will he wish he was the one with her, getting head in a movie theater?
I have never felt more pathetic.
I comfort myself with the thought that his brother is the hotter one too. Oliver is definitely cute in his button up shirt and jeans, and he’s a fraction taller than his brother and has the beauty mark above his lip. But his brother has that chipped tooth, and his hair is a little longer and more unkempt, and he has a shade of stubble that adds to the roughness around theedges, the sexiness that made me call him the Rogue. Plus, he’s got an overabundance of confidence that made Meghan go for him and leave me Dimples, the one she said no one would want to sleep with.
He’s not so bad, though. If I didn’t have a boyfriend, maybe I’d sleep with him. He probably wouldn’t ask me about my lack of experience. He’s not much of a talker. I think he’s just shy, which in my very limited experience with guys is a totally foreign concept. Among my group of friends at school, there is not one person I would use that word to describe.
After the movie I have to find an excuse to escape without looking like a total loser who has to report home to Mommy. Which I am, but I don’t want guys to know that, especially since I’m kind of enjoying the picture Meghan painted of me being a cool college chick studying music. The last thing I need is for Oliver to see me climbing into Mom’s minivan when she comes to pick us up.
Luckily, Meghan’s date seems more interested in bending her back against his Jaguar and shoving his tongue down her throat than looking for our ride. When he’s done, he hops in and guns the engine, drowning Oliver’s protests about leaving us alone. Meghan points vaguely to a few cars parked a few rows over and tells him we have our ride, and he finally gets in. The car peels out with a roar and a squeal of tires, and I can finally breathe and stop having a minor stroke at the thought of Mom showing up and catching us on a date.
When we get home, I turn on my phone, hoping for a call from Lindsey. No word from her, but I have a message from Todd telling me to call before I go to bed. I’m immediately overcome with guilt over my non-date with Oliver. I crawl into bed, doing my best to ignore the haunted yearbooks, and hit call on my phone.
He answers even though it’s nearly midnight.
“Were you sleeping?” I ask.
“No,” he says, “I was waiting for your call.”
Aww.
“How is skiing?” I ask, unsure what to say now that I’m talking to him.
“It’s good. It snowed today.” He pauses. “I just wanted to hear your voice.”
Doubleaww.
An awkward silence follows. “So, how’s Faulkner?” he asks.
“I haven’t been back. We’re still at the lake. We just watched a movie.”
