When in Paris... (Language of Love) (33 page)

OLIVIA

Monday’s rehearsal is a bear. I miss two stage cues and flub my lines in the scene between my character and the captain of the baseball team when they clash in the locker room in act four. Everything about my performance is off and Miss Ramsay lets me know it. I should have these things nailed this late in the game.

By the time we leave for the night, I’m annoyed that I’m letting what’s going on with Zach—or in this case, not going on with Zach—ruin my concentration and in the process jeopardize the integrity of the play. I’m the lead, it’s up to me to set the tone and raise the bar—or at least not let the bar fall. I can’t let the rest of the crew down.

When I return to the dorm it’s after eight, I’m starving and April’s sitting on her bed, books open all around and she’s wearing her glasses, which means her eyes are revolting against her contacts. She only wears her glasses when her eyes are tired or when she’s going for the studious look. It’s a good thing both look good on her.

I dump my stuff on the floor and hook the strap of my purse over the desk chair.

April peers up at me over the top of her rimless glasses. “How’d rehearsal go?”

I say nothing and plop my butt on my bed.

“That well, huh?”

My heavy sigh is the only answer she needs before she starts doling out advice I didn’t ask for nor do I need.

“Jesus, Liv, why don’t you call him?”

Like I didn’t already do that after the party.
Coward that I was, I blocked my number and got worse than having him
not
pick up if he’d known it was me calling, he’d chewed my head off before a conversation could even start. That had been all it’d taken for me to hang up. So no, calling him is not an option.

“This has nothing to do with Zach,” I lie.

Her tongue clicks in disbelief, her shoulders drop and she treats me to one of her
give me a break
looks. “Oh come on, Liv. You slept with the guy—gave him your virginity—and now you’re not talking to him. How can you possibly say this funk you’re in doesn’t have everything to do with him? You need to quit lying to yourself.”

I know she’s right, she knows she’s right and she knows I know she’s right but it doesn’t stop the sting of her words.

As for lying to myself? I take great offense to
that
because I’m not lying to
myself
, I’m lying to the rest of the world. And there’s an ocean’s difference between the two as far as I’m concerned.

“You’re a fine one to talk about
me
lying to myself,” I charge back, in self-righteous indignation—warranted or not.

April’s eyes snap wide as she swings her legs from the bed and plants her feet on the floor. “What the hell does that mean?” Her back is now up as high as mine. Comparing us to cats will only reinforce the whole feline female stereotype, so I won’t.

“You talk about me and Zach. When are
you
finally going to admit you’ve got a thing for Troy? That you’re in love with him?” There, I said it and it’s out. No more beating around the bush, no more coaxing, just the facts the way I see them and that I know in my heart to be the truth.

Her mouth sags open. She’s looking at me like she can’t believe I said it, can’t believe that I went there.

No expressive claims of denial, my charge is met with dead silence.

I can tell by how still she’s holding herself that her mind is working furiously. The second her chin comes up and a calmness seems to steal over her, dousing the recent frantic look in her eyes, I know what she’s going to say.

“Troy is my best friend. Of course I love him.”

I snicker. April never disappoints. “I said in love, not love.” She knows what I mean.

For a second, I think she’s going to fight me on it, deny it ’til the cows come home. And then all of a sudden her stalwart expression crumbles and a glassy sheen of tears fill her big green eyes.

Horrified at what I’ve done, I leap off my bed and cross the short distance over to her. “Oh April, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to make you cry,” I say, my arms going around her and holding her tight.

“I’m not crying,” she denies, despite the solitary tear making a wet track down her flushed cheek.

“What happened with Troy?”

She shakes her head, as if incapable of speech. More tears fall. I’m more than a little alarmed because the April I know never cries. Not ever.

“Tell me,” I insist, concerned and heartsick for her.

Slowly her head comes up, a cascade of curly hair obscuring half her face. I gently smooth it aside and over her shoulder.

“He doesn’t like me that way,” she mumbles, barely coherent.

Troy reminds me of Zach in that sometimes it’s really hard to read him. But I’m pretty sure she’s wrong about that. Every now and then I catch him watching her with something other than just friendly interest in his eyes. But maybe I’m seeing what I want to see, just like with Zach. Projecting my own wishes onto them.

“How long have you had a thing for him?” There was certainly no sign of it six years ago. But of course they were only twelve. A whole lot has changed since then.

Cheeks flushed, her gaze darts away from mine. “Sophomore year in high school,” she whispers.

I take both of her hands in mine and squeeze. “April, you’re smart, sweet and giving and absolutely gorgeous. Any guy in his right mind is going to want you back. How can you possibly
know
he only sees you as a friend?” I’ve always thought of April as the sort of girl who could just snap her fingers and get any guy she wants, no matter their race, nationality or orientation. Seriously, she and her sister could probably turn a gay man straight, I used to joke.

“We had sex—”

Whaaaaat?!
I drop her hands and jerk back.

I don’t hear anything else until, “…nothing. We’ve never really talked about it. Just kind of pretend it never happened.”

“
No no no no. Go back. You had sex?”

I’m floored. I’m flabbergasted, dumbstruck, incredulous. My mind is having the time of its life trying to digest this; wrapping my brain around the sheer enormity of what I just heard.

April sends me a sheepish look. “Just the one time a couple weeks ago. We were both kind of drunk.”

Suspicious, I narrow my eyes at her. “You were drunk?” My best friend doesn’t get drunk. She barely drinks.

A guilty blush washes her face. “Alright, maybe I wasn’t exactly drunk. I guess you could say I had a bit of a buzz.”

“But you knew exactly what you were doing, didn’t you?”

Pouty pink lips pulled down in a frown, she nods mutely.

“And Troy?” I ask gently, my heart filled with compassion.

Shaking her head, she replies softly, “He blames the alcohol and chalks it up to a mistake. We haven’t spoken about it since.”

I sigh. “I think you really need to talk to him about it.” It won’t be easy but I don’t know how long she’ll be able to keep it all inside. And if he had sex with her, I’d definitely say he’s interested, even if for whatever reasons he won’t admit it to her right now.

“I can’t.”

I laugh softly, taking in her bent head and the forlorn expression on her face. “You’re telling me to talk to Zach yet you don’t want to talk to Troy.”

She peers up at me. “We had sex and he’s not breaking down my door for anything more. I think I’ve dealt with more than enough rejection than I can handle from him right now.”

Rejection. That is the heart of the matter. Which I completely understand. There’s nothing worse than opening yourself up to someone, revealing your feelings only to have them reject you.

“Honey, sometimes we have to take the risk and put ourselves out there even if we end up getting hurt. What if he doesn’t reject you? What if he’s always been in love with you and that night meant as much to him as it did to you? Wouldn’t it be good to know that now instead of always wondering
what if
?”

It’s always so much easier to give advice than to take it. But this situation with April is different than the one I have with Zach. I know exactly where he stands. He doesn’t want anything serious. He’s more in the screw-and-run mode. I’m pragmatic enough to know I couldn’t handle a relationship like that—not with him. Never with him.

April shakes her head, her hair flying about her shoulders in a series of soft
swishes
as her eyes leak tears. “No. I don’t ever want him to know how I feel. Things are awkward enough between us. Plus, he’s seeing someone else now.” Her sniff becomes a hiccup in her facsimile of a laugh. “It hasn’t even been a month since he broke up with Katie and he’s already seeing someone. Don’t you think if he wanted to be with me, he wouldn’t be with someone else?”

Questions like that are like landmines and the last thing I want to do is step on one of them. “Have you ever thought that maybe he has the same fears that you do? Maybe he thinks that
you
think having sex with him was a mistake.” Of course I can’t be one hundred percent sure, but I lay good odds that’s exactly what the deal is.

April sniffs and I take her hands in mine and give them another reassuring squeeze.

“No you don’t understand, Troy knows me. He knows I’d never have sex with a guy if I didn’t have serious feelings for him. He knows that.” Another wave of tears track steadily down her cheeks.

Maybe she means, he
should
know that.

But at this point I don’t know what to say so I just pull her into my arms and murmur words of comfort. I tell her that she’ll get through this. We’ll get through this together.

After thirty minutes of tears and abject misery, April pulls herself together. An hour later we’ve abandoned homework and studying to the more worthy calling of getting ourselves out of the doldrums. Dinner together. Just us. Best friends forever. No talk, discussion, conversation of guys allowed. At least not for tonight. Tomorrow? Well, that’s another day.

***

ZACH

It’s Monday, which means French…and Olivia. It’s the one time I know I’ll see her. I hate admitting to myself how much I’m looking forward to it.

I get to the class earlier than usual. Maybe it’s my sixth sense at work but somehow I know she’s going to be sitting there at her desk, a row separating ours, her desk two desks to the right of mine.

She’s not alone, the guy with the crew cut is sitting in the front row, his body turned toward her and he’s smiling. I catch the tail end of him asking her what she did this weekend.

Their heads both swivel to the door when I enter. The moment she sees me, her head spins back around so fast I’m afraid she’ll suffer a serious case of whiplash.

“
Hey, man.” Jon acknowledges me with a quick tip of his chin before he switches his attention back to Olivia.

“
Hey.” I’d probably think Jon was a good guy if he wasn’t hitting on Olivia.

Mine.

Does that make me sexist, a chauvinist, medieval? I don’t know, I just know that’s how I feel, territorial and possessive.

I continue to watch her as I drop my backpack beside my desk and sit down. She looks good. So good. No curls or ponytail today, just a silky curtain of straight blonde hair. She’s wearing the cream mohair sweater she bought in Paris. She’d made me feel the damn thing. It looks good on her.

Right now her back is straight as a board, her body more rigid since I sat down, and despite Jon’s efforts, she’s fallen silent except for the odd reply. It takes a bit, but the guy finally gets the hint and turns around, abandoning all attempts at conversation. I’m not shedding any tears about that.

This war of silence we’ve got waging is definitely not going to be broken by her. That much is obvious. If she were Ashley, my cell would’ve been ringing 24/7. I would already have gone through the tears, the hysterics, the recriminations and would be wallowing in guilt. She’d have worn me down.

But Olivia seems as far removed from Ashley as feasibly possible. It’s hard for me to really gauge how she’s taking it, but if her freeze-me-out expression is anything to go by, she’s an ice fortress.

Half the time I tell myself—try to convince myself—it’s for the best. That I should just let her go. But when I’m lying in my bed, when my thoughts are my own, they constantly go to her. Every second I spent in Paris with her seems like a dream. And the sex. Goddamn the sex was great. Fuckin’ fantastic. I hadn’t been lying when I told her it had never been that good for me. I’m sure she thinks I was throwing out a line but I meant it.

Call me a selfish bastard but I want her. I want the mind-blowing sex. I liked it when we curled up on the bed watching movies and eating popcorn in my hotel room. I love that I can talk to her. Carry on a
real
conversation with her. Our goals, our family, and we even managed to broach the topic of politics without it breaking out into a full-scale war. I guess it helps that we both share similar political beliefs.