Olivia (7 page)

*  *  *

Mitch got his first commission check from New Holland the following Friday. On Saturday, he celebrated by taking Olivia out to dinner and to the movies. It was his money so she let him pick the movie, and he chose to see
Shutter
. Mitch knew she hated scary movies but picked it anyway, even though the much milder and more Olivia-friendly
Dr. Seuss’s Horton Hears a Who
was playing in the theater right next door. They shared a tub of popcorn with extra butter, some Junior Mints, and a gigantic Coke while Olivia had the pants scared off of her for eighty-five very long minutes.

When they left the theater, Olivia’s over-active imagination kicked into high-gear. She managed to convince herself there was someone with a knife hiding in the jump seats of the pickup cab, waiting to hop out and stab her to death in the mall parking lot. She clung onto Mitch with a death grip as they crossed the parking lot, and when they got to the truck, Mitch had to wrestle her in kicking and screaming. He quit being gentle about it after she accidentally kneed him in the groin.

She wasn’t any better when they got back to her trailer. Mitch tried to distract her between the sheets, but after an hour of Olivia jumping at every sudden noise or movement, and accidentally-on-purpose kneeing him in the groin again when he screamed at her to shut up, his level of irritation hovered just below the breaking-point. Pissed off and sexually frustrated, Mitch went home to his apartment before he completely lost control of his temper, leaving Olivia all alone in an empty trailer with only her fears to keep her company.

While she stood at the window watching him speed off, a black car drove past her trailer real slow. She kept watching, and a few minutes later it drove by again, even slower than before. She tried to convince her fear that the driver was simply lost in the maze of trailer court roads, but when it drove by the third time, she knew she was about to die a horrid, violently bloody death.

Shit!

She tried calling Mitch to come back and take her home with him, but he didn’t answer.

“Because he’s already dead,” she whispered to the empty room.

In full-on psychotic-breakdown-mode, she ran from room to room, turning on every single light in the trailer and double checking the locks on the doors and windows. Then, armed with the biggest knife she owned, she tried to find a place to hide.

She started out in her bed under a pile of blankets, but decided it was the first place a mass murderer and rapist would look for her. She tried under the bed, but it was already crammed full of stuff she didn’t have anywhere else to put and there was no room left for her. She tried the closet, the bathroom, wedged behind the fridge, and shoved into the corner between the sofa and end table, but they were all too vulnerable. Feeling caged, she skipped the hiding and ran.

Barefoot and wearing only a t-shirt and panties, she grabbed her car keys in one hand, gripped the knife tighter in the other, and made a break for her car. She had the Buick in reverse before the engine fully turned over, peeled out of her driveway, slammed the car into drive and floored it out of the trailer court.

As she raced across town, she kept both eyes on the rearview mirror watching for a tail. When headlights suddenly flashed on behind her, she screamed. She may have even tinkled a little. With the car full of killers closing in fast, she jammed her foot onto the accelerator and high-tailed it to the safest place she knew.

The lights were out at Kitty’s, but George’s truck was still parked outside. She swung into the alley and slammed the car into park, flew out of the driver’s seat and ran for the bar, leaving her engine running and the car door open.

“
George!
” Tears poured down her face as she burst through the back door. Fear had her hair standing on end, and her heart thumped like Thumper in her ribcage, making it hard to breathe as she ran down the short hallway to the office. “
George!
”

The door to the office stood slightly ajar, a dim light shining through the crack, and she dove for it, slamming it right into George. His face was white with shock, quickly exploding into red as his nose burst from the force of the door smacking into it. Olivia jumped for him to catch her, but he wasn’t ready and they ended up in a tangled pile on the floor.

“
Ow!
” George cried out in pain, his hands flying to his nose too late to protect it. “What the hell—”

“Someone’s following me,” she said, her voice coming out in a hushed, panicked whisper. She untangled herself from his limbs and crawled over his chest to peek out into the hallway. “I think I lost him.”

“Who’s following you?” George remained flat on his back with his hands to his nose and Olivia still sprawled across him as she peered into the hall.

His lack of urgency appalled her.

“Well, I don’t know who! If I knew
who
, I’d have gone to the police! But for all I know they’re in on it, too!” She dared another peek down the hall then slammed the door closed.

“In on what?” George shoved Olivia off him and sat up. “Shit, Liv. I think you broke my nose.”

“In on trying to kill me!” She jumped to her feet.

“Who the hell would want to kill
you
?”

“The killers!”

“What killers?!”

“The ones trying to kill me!” Olivia shrieked in frustration. Man, George could be dense sometimes. “You have to protect me!”

“From
who?
” he bawled out in his own frustration. He squeezed the bridge of his still-bleeding nose, and tipped his head back to try to get it to stop. “Shit, Liv.”

“Goddamn it, George! Aren’t you paying attention? There are murderers out there—chasing me—trying to kill me. They were at my house. They followed me here. Now get off your ass and save me!” Olivia grabbed his arm and tried to pull him to his feet, but he wouldn’t budge.

George squeezed his eyes shut and sighed. “Go home, Liv.”

“I’m not going home! Are you
insane
? If I go home they’ll kill me for sure!”

“Go home, Liv,” George repeated.

“Fuck you, George,” Olivia said and let go of his arm. “I’m not going anywhere.”

She flounced to the sofa and crossed her arms over her chest as she sat. She alternately glared at him and darted her eyes to the door. George pushed himself to his feet and looked for some paper towels to catch the blood that was no longer gushing, but still trickling out of his nose. His eyes shot to Olivia as he searched. If looks could kill, Olivia would be a dead woman. But she would much rather die by George’s hands (or eyes) than by an unknown crazed assailant, so she stayed put.

“I’ll be right back,” George muttered when his search for paper towels came up empty.

He opened the office door and Olivia jumped up to follow him, but he stilled her with one finger and another deathly glare. He closed the door behind him, leaving Olivia all alone in the empty office.

The lights were low, the shadows long, and something was making a noise in the walls. As the minutes slowly ticked by, Olivia pulled her knees up to her chest, and whimpered. Time slowed down even more and she wrapped her arms around her legs, pulling them in tighter. When the theme music to
Jaws
began to play through the speakers of George’s stereo, her eyes bugged out and the little hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Time stood still and Olivia tucked her head down into her arms and closed her eyes tight. All the while, her heart kept thumping away and her imagination kept churning.

“Here,” George said right by her ear.

She screamed.

When she managed to scrape herself off the ceiling, George handed her a beer. “Now, tell me what you smoked, snorted or shot up tonight.”

“Huh?”

“Are you high?”

“No!”

“Then what the hell is wrong with you?”

“I don’t know!” she cried.

And then she started to cry.

And George started to laugh.

“Damn, Liv. What the hell am I going to do with you?” he asked, his voice laced with amused love instead of the anger Mitch tended to dole out.

He pulled her into his arms and held her while she sniffed and sniveled and soaked his t-shirt with tears. He rubbed her back and stroked her hair, and whispered words of comfort. His arms were her security, his love her anchor. She curled up against him and listened to the soothing cadence of his heartbeat. Slowly, the fear washed away. Humiliation took its place. She shifted to pull away, but he only held her closer.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he said softly as his lips brushed against her ear. “Not until you tell me what happened.”

“Mitch took me to the movies,” she said on a whimper.

“And?”

“That’s it.”

“Mitch took you to the movies?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Was it a scary movie?” he guessed.

“Uh-huh.” She nodded, feeling like the biggest fool on the face of the planet. “I get freaked out easy. It wasn’t even a bad one and it still scared the crap out of me.”

“Are you still scared?”

She shrugged. “No.”
Yes.

“Liar.”

“Can I stay here awhile?”

“Yeah.”

She looked up at him, at the skin around his eyes already darkening into purple bruises. She ran a light touch over the sensitive area. “I’m sorry about your nose.”

“It’s fine,” he assured her.

“Liar.”

He smiled. “If you tell anyone I got this from you, I’ll have to kill you. I’m sure you understand why.”

“Unfortunately, I do.” She smiled back.

He let out a light laugh and leaned down to place a soft kiss on her lips. Instead of pulling away, his lips hovered over hers as he drew in a deep breath of her air, and then he kissed her again—slowly, gently—in a way that sent a shiver up her spine. It wasn’t their usual fast, hot, frantic, “I want you so bad” kind of kissing. His kiss was a leisurely yet intensely erotic kind of kiss—the kind of kiss she had always imagined would precede the kind of love making that would create the first of her two-point-five kids in Northside.

His hand slipped under her t-shirt and skimmed across her stomach until it reached the base of her bare breast, and then stopped. He pulled away from her the slightest bit. The conflicted look on his face as his eyes roamed her features confused Olivia. Everything about the kiss confused Olivia—the speed, the heat, the purposeful intensity of it—but the look in his eyes was most unsettling.

“George?” she whispered.

“Yeah?” He breathed the word from deep inside as his eyes stayed on her lips and he took slow, deep breaths that gradually sped up as his eyes darkened in desire.

She didn’t know how to ask what she wanted to ask. She didn’t know if she even knew what she wanted to ask him, and she didn’t know what she would do with the information once she got it. She didn’t want to offend him in case she was wrong. And she felt like it would be cheating on Mitch even to hope for it.

“Never mind,” she said with a little shake of her head.

His hand traveled around to her back and that shiver went up her spine again, electric fire.

“Baby Girl?” he asked in a whisper. His eyes were still focused on her lips, his body temperature a feverish high. His fingers slowly skimmed along the waistband of her panties then traveled up, tracing her spine.

“George?” she managed to exhale on a whimper. Her mind clouded, she could barely think past the way his touch made her body feel.

“If I tell you something, do you promise not to freak out on me?”

“No.”

“You know how Izzie set me up with her friend, Yvette?” His eyes finally moved away from her lips and met her eyes. She didn’t like what she saw in them.

“Yeah.” She choked on the word and her blood turned to ice.

“I…” His eyes closed. “We…”

Her heart slammed in her chest, knowing what he was about to say. Her entire body tensed in his arms and the room started to spin.

“Liv…”

“George?” she gasped and pushed away from him. His hand fell out of her t-shirt, and she felt frozen without it. “Please tell me you didn’t…”

“Just hear me out, Liv,” he pleaded, and grabbed for her as she struggled to get away from him.

“You
bastard!
” She hit his chest, and his arm, and then hit him again. And again. The tears came back in a flood. “Damn you, George!”

“Liv! It’s not what you think. Give me a minute to explain—”

“Explain
what?
That you’re not gay? That you
lied
to me? That you knew how much I wanted you—how much I
love
you—but you’re so appalled by me that you had to pretend to be gay?”

She jumped off the sofa and started to pace, her mind racing in fury and humiliation.

“I’m not pretending,” he stated simply. His eyes remained adverted from hers, his shoulders slumped.

“What is so disgusting about
me
that you had to make up such a massive lie?”

“Let me explain,” he repeated. He scrubbed his face with his hands in frustration and pushed up off of the sofa. He reached for her, but she backed away.

“No,” she said, and shook her head.

“Please, Liv.”

“No!”

“Just listen to me!”

“No!” Hot tears poured down her face. She closed her eyes tight and covered her ears with her hands. “No! No! No!”

He grabbed her hands, ripping them away from her ears. “Damn it, Liv! Let me explain!”

“You don’t get to explain.” She stood straight and tall, her face setting into stone as she sealed her heart to his betrayal. “You get to go to hell.”

She turned on her heel and slammed out of the office. She left the bar as fast as she had come in, but this time she was fueled by anger instead of fear. Her car door was still open, the engine still running when she went outside. She slid in and pulled the door shut behind her. Before she could put it into gear, George burst through the doorway.

“Liv!”

“Leave me alone!” Her hand closed around the shifter.

“
Liv!
” he yelled out again, but she didn’t hear him.