Someone poked my cheek. “Wakey wakey, sleepyhead. It’s time to get up.”
“Go away,” I murmured, digging my head deeper into my pillow.
“It’s almost nine o’clock,” whined Lucy above me. “You have to get up.”
I opened my eyes and saw Lucy’s upturned face looming over me with an overly bright smile. Quickly, I closed my eyes shut.
“You’re like those annoying house cats we always watch on Facebook,” I mumbled. “Why do I have to get up? I don’t have a class today.”
“Because we need to get out and celebrate yesterday’s meeting. And I’m not a cat—I’m offended, woman. I’m a cute puppy everyone wants to take home.”
Unable to stop myself, I yawned again and reluctantly opened my eyes. Thankfully, she was no longer inches away from my face.
“What time is it?”
“Nine.”
“We’re celebrating at nine in the morning? Whose brilliant idea was that? I’m gonna say no. Come back at a reasonable hour.”
“Come on, Olive.” She pulled at my covers. “You don’t have a class, but I do. So get up, get up, get up.”
“Jesus, you are like a five-year-old.”
“If you don’t want me to dump a bucket of cold water on you, you’ll get up, get yourself together, and be by the door in less than half an hour.”
“Fine,” I snapped as I swung my legs down and pushed at her shoulder. “Get out of my way.”
She clapped her hands. “That’s the spirit I was looking for!”
In twenty minutes, I was all ready to go out, but neither Lucy nor Char were ready.
“I’m about to go out and celebrate on my own,” I yelled, standing by the front door.
“I’m coming!” Lucy yelled at the same moment Char opened her door and slipped out of her room.
“You have a class, too, Char?” I asked, noticing the big bundle of books she was carrying.
“Unfortunately, yes. Then I have another study session with the girls.”
“You sure are working hard lately. Is there anything I can help with?” Char was a shy and sweet blonde who was an English major like me, but unlike me, she had no interest in creative writing.
“That’s nice of you to ask with everything you’ve got going on. I might take you up on that offer when finals are getting closer.”
“Of course. Actually, it would help me a lot, too.” As much as I hated giving in to Marcus’ words, I didn’t want him to be right about what he said, especially when I was so close to graduating early.
“Your book is still doing amazing on the rankings!” A jumping and screaming Lucy came barreling toward me.
“Here we go again,” Char muttered with a smile in her voice as I braced myself for impact.
Two seconds later, Lucy’s arms were around my neck and we were jumping up and down, celebrating her excitement over my book for the…thousandth time? If it wasn’t already the thousandth, we were surely getting pretty close.
The truth was I was staying away from checking reviews and rankings and all that stuff because I was scared shitless that all of it would tumble down on me at any moment. Lucy was like a bloodhound anyway; she had refreshed those pages almost every hour, on the hour ever since the book had gone up on Amazon two months before. My fear was also the reason I was trying to lock down my excitement about the possibility of seeing Isaac and Evie on the big screen. Once Dream Catch Studios provided me with the contract—if they were serious about it—and I signed it…then I would either sit down and cry for a few days—happy tears, of course—or I would pull a Lucy and go crazy all over the town—naturally, with her by my side.
“Still in the top hundred?” I asked, the slight tinge of hope in my voice more than clear.
She flicked her hair over her shoulder. “Try top five, woman. You’re still killing it.”
I’d stayed as the number one bestselling book on more than a few platforms for almost six weeks, and I was still in the top five after two months? I gave in to the urge and completed another jumping session with Lucy, not noticing Marcus leaning against the doorframe and watching us.
Then we were out of there to celebrate with lattes and croissants.
It was well worth every damn calorie that went straight to our hips.
***
It was almost four o’clock when Jason’s name flashed on the screen of my phone. I was alone, sitting in our living room, staring blankly at an empty word document, trying to figure out which direction my mind and heart wanted to lead me this time around. Needless to say, neither of them was speaking to me at that moment.
Urging my heart to stop fluttering around like a wild bird in my chest, I took a deep breath and answered the call—at the same time wondering if it was weird of me to get so worked up over a simple phone call.
“Hi.”
“Hey, little one. I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”
“Nope. How can I help you?” I asked before tipping my water bottle against my lips to wet my suddenly parched throat.
“So formal.” He clucked, and I could almost see him shaking his head as a small smile stretched across his face. “Soon enough, I’ll win you over. You already loved me once; I’ll make it happen again.”
Sputtering water all over the cheap Ikea coffee table that was stationed in front of the couch, I coughed until I could speak without gulping breaths.
“What?” I wheezed out when what I wanted to say was, Oh, Jason, I’m still head over heels for you, maybe even more so.
“What’s going on, Olive? Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah,” I replied in a rough whisper. “Just water down the wrong pipe. I’m fine.”
“Well, okay. You scared me; I thought someone was strangling you.”
“Yeah, nothing that exciting.”
“Being strangled is exciting to you?”
“Not for me, but definitely for some people. Don’t knock it ’til you try it and all that.”
He seemed to think about it for a second, then cleared his throat before speaking again. “Ok, we are not going anywhere near that. You shouldn’t even know about stuff like that.” I did a ladylike snort but he ignored me. “You never answered my texts last night.”
“Yeah, I didn’t want to bother you.” I got up and went to stand next to the window, counting the cars that passed on our street.
“I was the one who texted you; why would I be bothered when you actually went ahead and answered them?”
“It was late. I just thought you would be occupied, or out. Why did you say you were calling again?”
“You’re terrible at trying to change the subject smoothly, little one. From now on, you can answer my texts whenever. I forgot to tell you yesterday, but please make sure no one else gets my number from your phone, all right? It’s pure hell when somebody gets a hold of it.”
“If you are worried about my friends, don’t be. Lucy is the only one who knows my password and she would never do anything like that. She might’ve looked a little crazy with all the jumping and screaming yesterday, but she isn’t someone who would steal your number and then bother you.” I paused and thought about it for a second. “However, she might grope you if she ever sees you again so you can worry about that if you want to, but that’s as far as she would go. Still, if you are regretting giving me your number, I can delete it right now.”
“This trying to get rid of me thing is a huge blow to my ego, little one. I hope you’ll stop before you do some permanent damage.”
“I didn’t mean to sound…well, mean, I just don’t want you to worry about it.”
Feeling too wired to just stand in one place, I started pacing the living room from wall to wall. Why wasn’t he just telling me what he thought of the book? Even if he’d read a few pages, surely he would have an opinion on it.
“I’m not worrying, and the reason I’m calling right now is because I wanted to let you know that I talked to Keith, the guy from the movie studio, and they will send the optioning agreement to my agent instead of directly to you.”
I stopped my pacing. “What? Why would they do that?”
“Because I don’t want them to take advantage of you. Tom will go over the contract for us then we’ll meet at my house so you can sign it if you are happy with everything they are offering. Just let me know when you’ll be free and I’ll arrange it. It needs to be in the next few days because I have to leave for Canada on Friday. I’ll be out of town for a few months.”
“Oh,” I mumbled, mostly to myself. That little piece of news settled down in the pit of my stomach, so I bit down on my thumb and tried to come up with the right thing to say. “This is too much, Jason. Despite what I said yesterday, I’m sure you don’t have this kind of time on your hands to babysit your old best friend’s little sister.”
He coughed and roughly cursed on the other end of the line.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Yeah. Sorry. Look, this isn’t about Dylan. This is about you. Wouldn’t you let Dylan help you if he was in my place? At the very least, you can see me as a stand-in for your brother. I won’t let anyone take advantage of your work, Olive. You’ll get what you deserve and nothing less.”
What he’d just said hurled me back to my heartbroken fifteen-year-old self again. It looked like no matter how much I grew up, he would never see me as anything but a sister.
I dumbly nodded and realized he couldn’t see me through the phone so I forced my mouth to open and give him the words.
“Thank you, Jason. I appreciate it,” I said, in a dull tone. “Uh, I have to go right now. My friends are waiting for me, but I’ll text you to let you know which days I’ll be free. You can arrange the time according to your schedule. I don’t want to be a bigger burden then I already am.”
“Little one,” he said, softening his tone. “You couldn’t be a burden to me even if you tried.”
“Thank you. Goodbye Jason.”
Before he could say anything else, I ended the call then powered off my phone completely.
It was a childish and stupid move, but I didn’t want to risk hearing his voice again on the off chance he decided to call me back while I was busy feeling sorry for myself.
Later that night, after I had a long talk with my mom, I learned that she had asked Jason to look after me. Since he was being cast as Isaac, she had thought we would be working together. I had to explain to her that I wouldn’t be involved in the filming process.
After doing some research on the subject, I’d already learned that no director wanted the author to get in the way of how he wanted to shape the movie. He was the big dog and it would mean nothing to him whether the author was happy with the process or not.
Details of the movie aside, I wasn’t sure how I should feel about Jason helping me out as a favor to my family.
I spent some time thinking about what I should do…okay, maybe not a lot of time. After all, who in their right mind would pass up the chance of spending more time with Jason Thorn in his own house? I mean…come on. Even though I wasn’t as brave as Lucy and wouldn’t grope him at first contact, there would be no stopping me from ogling his body and that damn dimple of his.
I was done feeling sorry for myself.
“Bring it on, Jason Thorn,” I muttered with a renewed confidence in myself. After all those years, I’d become the master of loving him from far away. It would be stupid of me not to take advantage of our situation.
Reaching for my phone, I sent him a quick text letting him know that I had no classes on Thursday.
After I went through my nightly routine and returned to my room, his answering text was sitting pretty in my inbox.
Jason: I’ll pick you up at 6 PM and we’ll wait for Tom at my house. Until he can join us, please try not to bruise my ego more than you already have, little one.
I fell asleep with the biggest grin on my face.
