Page 135 of Fly with Me

“I’m sorry all this is happening.”

She rubbed her temple. “I was going to tell her I was in love with her tonight. Before…”

“You can still do that.”

“She’s going to freak out about this. Her job’s the most important thing to her. What if this puts it in jeopardy? I can’t believe I forgot about that stupid key. It hadn’t even occurred to me that she would do this… I’m such an idiot.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“It is one hundred percent my fault. And everything’s going wrong.” Tears were threatening. She couldn’t fall apart yet. She absolutely could not fall apart here. Tonight was too important.

“What’s wrong? This isn’t just about Lindsay.” A pause. “Olive. What’s happening?”

“Jake passed away. My d-dad called. I guess my mom is really not good. I was going to tell you tomorrow, b-but I couldn’t tell you today.”

A strangled sound came out of Derek. He took a few deep breaths. His voice shook slightly when he found it again. “I-I’m so sorry.” His voice steadied into something low and soothing. “You still went to the party?” There was no judgment, just concern and shock.

“My dad said—” Her voice shook. She squeezed the phone harder. “I couldn’t do anything for him. Or for them. I didn’t want to flake on Stella. I wanted tonight to be good. I needed a distraction.”

“Does Stella know?”

Her silence was enough of an answer.

“She would’ve understood, Olive. She’s a good person.”

“I know she is. I know. But I don’t want her deciding to be with me out of pity.” She rubbed her knuckles over her brow ridge. “I—I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Talk to her? Tell her what’s going on.”

“I don’t know.” Olive said goodbye and ended the call. Olive’s chest was tightening, and not in a floating-happy-in-love way or even a heartbroken-grieving way. It was in a pre–panic attack way. In a she-might-actually-puke-her-brains-out kind of way. When Olive returned to the large banquet hall, Stella was locked in a conversation. There were people everywhere. So many people. There was only one part of all of this Olive might be able to fix. She had to try.

Stella’s eyes found hers. With a small, bewitching smile, she beckoned Olive over. The person with her turned. It was an executive. Olive couldn’t remember her name, but she remembered her photo from the binder. The binder goddamn Lindsay had stolen.

“I’m s-sorry. I need to make a call.” She patted Stella’s arm. She didn’t want Stella to come looking for her in the lobby. “You stay. I’ll be right back. Need to go outside for a sec.” Outside was better. She needed air.

Olive couldn’t face the walk back through the crowd to get to the front doors. The crowd that had felt friendly before now seemed littered with land mines. She followed the exit signs back through the kitchens to a loading dock alleyway. At the first corner, she pulled her phone out of her clutch and swiped to her blocked numbers list and then held the phone to her ear.

“Hello there, Olive,” Lindsay said in a sugared voice.

“Take it down.”

“Stella’s charade is pathetic, and it might even be fraud. None of it added up. I knew she was using you. I just didn’t realize anyone could be that selfish.”

“You’re saying she’s pathetic when you broke into your ex-girlfriend’s apartment and stole something?”

“If you must know, since you refused to give me back my stuff, I went there when I knew you wouldn’t be there. I didn’t expect to find a psycho binder detailing a bogus relationship. Is Stella actually living with you?”

“Why do you care?”

“Was letting her pretend to be in a relationship just a way for you to try to convince her that she really liked you?” Lindsay’s tone became pitying. “You thought maybe if she needed something from you, you could convince her to stay?”

Olive leaned against the concrete as the accuracy of this picture sank in. Was she truly just as pathetic as Lindsay was saying?

“Derek probably loves you too much to tell you the truth about this. If Stella is using you to get ahead at her work, she never wanted you. Playing house for a few weeks doesn’t make it real.” Lindsay’s voice slowed down, but the venom kept flowing. “No one at your job is going to give a shit that I put this online, but Stella deserves to get fired for this. If I’m the only person in your life willing to say this, I have to. She’s never going to want you that way.”

“Just stop.” Olive held her fist to her forehead as if she could stop herself from wondering if what Lindsay said was true.

“I’m just being honest. How long were you going to let this go on? Really, at some point it just seems like you’re creating the drama. Like with your brother, why not just let your mom have her way? No, Olive Murphy always needs to make everything harder for herself.”

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