Page 110 of Waking Olivia

“Oh, what’s that?”

I grin, pulling her in behind me and not bothering to turn on the lights. “My bedroom is the only part of this apartment you’ll see until daylight.”

78

Olivia

Isupposeit’s because Will and I have spent so much time together at his mother’s house that there isn’t anything awkward about staying with him. About waking up in his apartment. Drinking coffee in his bed. Telling him I have a final in an hour so he’d better get undressed fast.

No, all theawkwardhas been saved for outside of his apartment, for the time when word about the two of us gets out.

And itwillget out, eventually. The track team is a little too close-knit and a little too gossipy for it to escape everyone’s attention.

Our biggest concern, of course, is Jessica—a problem Peter solves with a single phone call to her boss. It turns out that threatening to make the university look bad when you work in the public relations department is frowned upon. Jessica could still tell one day when she no longer cares about keeping her job, but the whole thing is not much of a story, given that Will has already quit.

So while our secret is safe for a while, I do tell a few people, and Evan is one of them. Even though we barely dated, I knew from Will that he’d been worried when I disappeared. It only seems fair that he know the truth. Not the part where I slept with Will during the banquet I attended withhim, just the rest of it. And he isn’t surprised.

“I kind of guessed it around the time you disappeared and Will went batshit crazy,” he admits.

I also tell Erin and Nicole. Erin, because she already kind of knows, and Nicole because she’s way too nosy not to figure it out on her own.

“I wantallthe dirt,” Nicole says, slightly too eagerly.

“You’re not actually saying you want me to talk about, like, physical stuff, right?” I ask.

She looks at me blankly. “Of course I am. You think I want to know what he eats for dinner? You’ve at least got to tell me how big his d—”

“I’m sure you can guess,” I say, cutting her off. “And that’s the very last detail you’ll request, ever. Understand?”

She ignores me entirely, turning to Erin. “I told you he’d be huge, didn’t I?” she crows.

The daythat I officially become an adult coincides with the day I officially stop living alone. On December 21st, we return the furniture Will borrowed from various people and take the last of my meager possessions to his apartment. Erin and Brendan both come to help, though Brendan’s version of “help” involves a lot more lying around than you might imagine.

“I still can’t believe you’re doing this,” Erin says in wonder as we enter Will’s apartment together. Brendan is, at the moment, “helping” by watching TV. “I mean it’s weird, right? Isn’t it weird?”

“How so?” It doesn’t feel weird to me at all. Now that we’re together it feels as if it was always inevitable.

“It’s just so random. I mean, I knew you guys were tight but it’s like finding out that Brofton is sleeping with the woman who scans our IDs at the cafeteria.”

I choke on a laugh. “In what possible way is this like Brofton sleeping with an obese Polish woman?”

“That was a bad analogy,” she concedes. “Okay, it’s like finding out Brofton is moving in with Angelina Jolie. It’s just, you know, he’sWill…”

“Yeah.” I smile. “I know.” Sometimes I look over at him, when he’s in the kitchen or getting dressed or stretched out on the couch waiting for me to lie beside him, and I can’t really believe it either.

She throws her arms around me before I can back away. “This is the first decent break you’ve ever gotten, Finn. Don’t fuck it up, okay?”

I promise her I won’t, and though I’m not much good at keeping promises, I feel pretty good about this one.

There isa small birthday dinner at Dorothy’s later that night. Will had wanted to take me out but I insisted we go to his mom’s. “But we eat there all the time,” he objected.

“Ilikegoing to the farm.”

“You do realize that it’s supposed to be me pushing you to go visit my mom and youreluctantlyagreeing, not the reverse?” he asked. “You’re turning 21. It should be something special.”

“Maybe,” I suggested, “you can focus on making itspecialwhen we get home.”

Surprising no one, he liked that idea.

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