Livvy (32 page)

“They probably went to Matty’s. His door was open.”

“How could you think I would do that to you, Jon?”

“I couldn’t see her, Liv, I’m sorry. Try to see it from my side. He’s got his arms around someone who has her arms around him. They’re clearly kissing. It’s your apartment–”

“You knew she’d be here! You knew I went to get her! You know they like each other!”

“I didn’t know they’d be making out on your couch!” he says loudly, defensively. “Shit, Livvy, cut me some slack.” He walks back into the kitchen, picking up some bags he’d set down on the hardwood floor at the studio entrance.

I once again focus on the painting, testing the paint mixture until it’s the perfect blend of white and blue. I paint over the errant stroke meticulously, continuing to work even after I hear Finn and Katrina come back into the apartment. I can’t hear what the guys are saying. Katrina finds me in the studio, walking along the wall of windows to get here.

“Hey, you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I tell her.

“I’m really sorry–”

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Kat,” I assure her. I put down my brush and wipe my hand on the smock, turning around to face her. “He has to trust me.”

“He made a false assumption,” she tries to stick up for him. “It was a gut reaction, I’m sure, Liv. He feels like an idiot.”

“He should,” I mumble stubbornly.

“That’s pretty,” Katrina says, filling the growing silence and motioning toward the canvas. “How do you do that?”

“Paint?”

“Come up with ideas for what to paint. My brain doesn’t work like that.”

I shrug. “Sometimes I don’t think my brain has much to do with it. It sort of just comes out of me. I can’t explain it. I used to think of it as a physical embodiment of my feelings. Not that that makes any more sense.” I sigh, picking up my brush and getting back to work. I know I should stop, since my emotions are completely altered from what they were ten minutes ago. That always leads to confusing works of art. Most people don’t recognize the discord, but I do, and I hate it.

“Sorry we were making out on the couch,” Katrina says softly.

I glare at her playfully over my shoulder. “Yes, you have a guest room for that,” I remind her. “Katrina, it’s fine. I’m sorry I got upset. This has nothing to do with you two. Just promise me that there will be no danger of me seeing Finn naked in my loft, and we’re good.”

“Because I have a guest room for
that
?” she asks me brazenly.

“Really? Nervous to naked in thirty minutes? You move fast, girl!”

“I’m kidding,” she says. “No nudity. Not this trip.”

“Whatever,” I tell her, not wanting to think about it anymore, and not wanting to make a big deal out of it one way or the other.

“Olivia, can I talk to you?” Jon stands at the other entrance, just beyond the concrete flooring.

“We can go somewhere,” Katrina offers.

“You’re fine,” Jon tells her, walking toward the guest bedrooms. “We’ll go over here.”

I set down the brush for good this time and untie the smock, slipping it off my shoulders carefully. “I need to wash my hands,” I tell him as I follow him. I go into the guest bathroom. He steps inside, too, closing the door behind him. With my hands lathered, I scrape the paint from my skin. He sits on the edge of the bathtub, and we look at each other through the mirror.

“I’m not expecting you to apologize anymore for what happened, Olivia. I don’t want you to live with that burden. I don’t want you to think I need that, ever. It was a concussion, and you’ve atoned for your actions a million times over, in my opinion. But I made an honest mistake today, and I jumped to a very wrong conclusion. I’m sorry about the implication, baby. I
do
trust you. And, hell, I even trust
Finn
, for some reason. He’s a good guy. My heart just stopped and my brain ceased to function for that split second.

“In that second, I thought I’d lost you again, and if there’s anything I know for sure, Liv, it’s that I can’t. I can’t lose you again.”

“This is it,” I remind him, turning around and drying my hands with a nearby towel.

He grins, repeating what I’d said. “This is it. Good or bad, this is it.” He stands up and takes a step toward me, but I stop his progress.

“Not bad,” I tell him. “Just good. We’ll always make it good. Right?”

“Of course. We will make this what we want it to be. You and I are in total control. Not your parents, or my mom. Not Finn. Not some stranger we may meet in the future. If you want to be with me, I’ll always be here for you.”

“I’ll always want to be with you.” I close the gap between us.

“I’ll always want to be with you,” he confirms as he puts his arms around my shoulders. I hold him tight against me, happy that he said everything he needed to say to make this okay.

“Where did you go?” I ask, my ear pressed against his chest.

“The market. I went to buy fruit,” he says. I pull back and look up at him. “Because we said we’d bring fruit tomorrow.”

“I love you,” I tell him softly, putting my hands on his face. I drag my thumb over his lips, and he kisses it gently.

“Love you, too.” We hug once more, then he takes my hand and opens the door, leading me back into the loft. “Where’s your ring, baby?” he asks, touching my finger.

“At school,” I tell him.

He stops before we reach the main living room. “Why don’t you wear it anymore?”

“I didn’t want to assume anything,” I explain. “You made new promises last time.”

He frowns a little. “That makes me sad, knowing we’ve fluctuated so much that this is the third time I’ve asked you to wear it. It lessens the meaning.”

“No, it doesn’t,” I assure him. “Not really.”

“I’m not that capricious, Liv. The reason I’m still here is because I can’t not love you.”

“I know, Jon. You don’t have to explain anything to me, okay? You didn’t take it off my finger, you know? I did that. I made that choice.”

“Because of me.”

“Because of
me
,” I correct him. “I can’t wait to put it back on, though. I’ve stared at it almost every night since you gave it to me, whether I’ve been wearing it or not.”

“Please put it on when you get back to school... and don’t ever take it off again.”

“I don’t plan to.”

“But you never planned to,” he says.

“I won’t. Better?”

“Yes.”

“If you want that thing off my finger, you have to take it off. Deal?”

“Deal,” he laughs. He hugs me again, and this time kisses me before we finally get back to the kitchen. “Sorry, guys,” he says to Katrina and Finn, who are sitting on two different chairs in the living room, watching television. Finn’s back is to us, and doesn’t acknowledge us. “Sorry for the weirdness.”

“It’s okay,” Katrina says assuredly.

“Dumb ass,” Finn mumbles just loud enough for us to hear. I watch Jon as he stares hard at the back of his head, looking confused. My friend finally looks over his shoulder and grins. Jon picks up an orange and tosses it at him. Finn struggles to catch it with one hand before it hits him in the head, but he only has time to move out of the way, letting the fruit hit the coffee table. “Thanks, I wanted one of those.”

“Should we make reservations for dinner tonight?” I ask Jon.

“Yeah,” Finn answers for him. “Odeon?” he asks.

“Mmmm, warm donuts.” My mouth starts to water just thinking about one of my favorite desserts.

“For dinner?” Jon asks.

“Dessert. The food’s good. It’s casual. Oh, Katrina, their macaroni and cheese is to die for.”

“I’m in,” she says. Finn fishes in his pocket for his phone and comes into the kitchen with me and Jon. With the phone on his ear, he starts to peel the orange. I look through the fridge to see what kind of fruit Jon bought.

“Pomegranate?” I ask him as if he’s crazy. “Classy Thanksgiving side. Here, let me take a bite of fruit salad and spit the seed back out. Yum!”

“Hey,” he warns me playfully. “That’s for me. You don’t have to eat it... and I’m surely not sharing it with your family.”

“We don’t want it anyway,” I say smugly, sticking out my tongue.

“Yeah,” Finn says with his mouth full of an orange slice. He chews hurriedly so he can talk. I turn away, not wanting to watch his bad-mannered way of eating. When we were kids, it was funny. He only does it now to screw with me. “I need reservations for four. Tonight. Eight o’clock. Eleven? Are you kidding?”

I turn around and shake my head at him. “We’ll go somewhere else,” I tell him.

“This is for Livvy Holland,” he says to the restaurant. He turns away from my annoyed glare. “She’s home for Thanksgiving, and this was the one place she said she wanted to eat.”

“Finn!” I whisper loudly, picking up another orange and tossing it up, debating whether or not I’ll throw this one at his head, too. Jon catches it mid-throw, setting it back in the bowl on the island.

“Yes, eight. For four. And she doesn’t like the booth in the back corner,” he states. “Thank you. Yes, we will see you tonight.” He sets his phone down confidently. “You’re welcome,” he says.

“Yes, thank you for using me.”

“It worked! Now you can get your dumb donuts.”

I smile, remembering the fruit-filled delicacy. “Warm donuts,” I sigh.

“Speaking of being capricious,” Jon jokes with me. I back-hand his chest lightly.

“Help me find something to wear tonight,” Katrina says as she walks toward the guest room.

That evening, as we pull up to the restaurant, a line is formed outside the door. I’ve seen it busy before, but never like this. As soon as the valet opens the passenger door for me, I’m blinded by flashbulbs. I cover my eyes as I turn my back to the crowd, waiting for Katrina to get out.

“Livvy! Over here! Livvy!” I hear people shout.

“What’s going on?” Katrina asks. Jon meets me at the curb and puts his arm around me, guiding me into the restaurant. Finn helps Katrina inside.

“Jon! Jon Scott!” someone yells.

“Is that him?”

“Of course!” another person says. “Are you and Livvy officially back together?” We both stay quiet until we’re inside. I give Finn a harsh look in the entrance.

“Can we be seated?” Jon asks the hostess impatiently, wanting out of the mass of people waiting to be seated.

“Do you have reservations?” she asks. My arm wrapped around his bicep, I feel him tense up at her question. I look up at him as he forces a smile.

“Yes. Four for Livvy Holland. I’m not sure if you can hear the clamor, but I’d like to get her away from this mob.”

“I didn’t recognize her, I’m sorry. Right this way.” He pushes me in front of him, keeping one hand on my hip. I see the booth in the corner, wishing I could sit there instead of the table by the window where they seat us, even though I’ve felt claustrophobic when seated there in the past. A nearby waiter sees the ruckus outside the restaurant as people stare at me, and he pulls the heavy curtain to block us from their view.

“And that, Finn, is why I don’t use my name to make reservations in restaurants.”

“I don’t understand what’s going on.” My roommate looks utterly confused.

“Livvy’s Manhattan royalty,” my friend tells her.

“You okay?” Jon asks. “We can get out of here. Pick something up to go, maybe?”

“It’s fine,” I tell him. “I don’t want to keep Katrina indoors the whole time she’s in New York.”

“It’s okay with me,” she says graciously.

“Are you uncomfortable?” I ask her.

“I don’t mind,” she says. “I just had no idea what your life is like.”

“Most of the time, it’s normal. But when people know where I’m going to be, or where my dad’s going to be, it’s a total circus.” We each take a menu and start to look over our choices.

“Did you hear people yelling for you?” Finn asks Jon.

“Yeah, and Jon’s apparently making a name for himself, too,” I tell her as I nudge my boyfriend. I massage his tight shoulder, sensing he’s still irritated with the situation. He shakes his head and rolls his eyes.

“By association only,” he says. Although I’m sure he’s partially right, people are still interested in him when he’s not with me.

A chef comes to our table. “Miss Holland, thank you for choosing my restaurant,” he says with a French accent.

“You’re welcome.”

“I know what you’re having for dessert, but have you decided on your dinner yet?” I look around the table, getting nods from all of my friends.

“I just want the goat cheese salad,” I tell him.

“Can I get the macaroni and cheese?” Katrina asks. A waitress next to the chef scribbles our orders into a notepad.

“Bacon cheeseburger,” Finn says. “Always the bacon cheeseburger. Medium rare, with french fries.”

“The tuna burger,” Jon answers. “And mixed greens.”