Page 21 of All Bets Are Off

“Lean back,” I ordered when she struggled to sit up straight. “You need to be relaxed. It will be better for you if you allow yourself to drift.”

“Oh, I’m drifting.” She giggled as she closed her eyes. “I can’t believe we’re married.”

“Weird, right?” I agreed.

“So weird. I never thought, when I decided I hated you in high school, that we would ever get here.”

I was interested despite myself, and since she was so close to slipping under, I figured now was as good a time as any to get the information I’d desperately wanted for fourteen years now. “Why did you decide to hate me?”

There had been a time when Olivia had followed me around her house like a lovesick puppy. It drove me crazy … and maybe it puffed me out a bit. She was too young, though. On top of that, she was Rex’s sister. He was the one person in my life who didn’tkiss my ass because I was a Stone or expect me to be something I wasn’t simply because I had an important last name. He was fine with me being me, so I couldn’t lose him. Olivia’s attention, however flattering, was a danger to my relationship with Rex. Somehow, I recognized that at a young age and held Olivia at a distance because of it.

Still, even knowing it was the right move, I’d hated it when she stopped talking to me. She’d shut me out of everything. She didn’t even try to hang around us in the basement when we played pool. She just decided I didn’t exist … and that somehow hurt almost as much as I imagined Rex ending our friendship would hurt.

“I had to,” she said in a sleepy voice. She was essentially slurring, and it made her look vulnerable, which in turn had me gripping her hand, my fingers tracing over her wedding ring.

“Why did you have to?”

“Because it hurt too much when you were mean to me.”

I made a protesting sound with my tongue. “I wasn’t mean to you.” Saying it made me feel icky. Actually, I remembered being mean to her a few times. It was a self-defense technique, though. Rex did not want the three of us hanging around together. I had to make a choice, and I did.

“You took Sara Lipscomb to the homecoming dance your senior year,” she noted, her eyes still closed. “Do you remember that?”

“Vaguely,” I replied. “Why was that such a big deal?”

“Because Sara used tomato juice to stain my pants during gym class, and she told everybody I started my period and was too afraid to use a tampon to contain it, and I was the laughingstock of the school because everyone thought I was starting my period for the first time at a really late age.”

I cocked my head. This felt out of my realm of expertise. My sisters were all older. I’d heard period talk when growing up, butI hadn’t paid a lot of attention to it. “That sounds … stressful,” I said finally. “That still doesn’t explain why you hated me. I didn’t do it to you.”

“Sara knew I had a crush on you.”

It wasn’t a surprise, but I still jolted when she said it.

“She knew I had a crush on you and she taunted me with the things you said about me,” she continued.

“What things?”

“How I was a baby … and not pretty … and the only reason you even knew who I was is because of Rex.”

Anger toward a girl I hadn’t thought about in more than a decade flared to life. “That’s not true, Olivia. I never said those things.”

She let loose a wistful sigh, barely hanging on. “It doesn’t matter. We still got married. I’m totally sending Sara a wedding announcement just to be spiteful.”

I smirked and nodded as the dentist came into the room. “I think that sounds like a fabulous idea. The dentist is here now. He knows what to do. When you wake up, you’re going to have the teeth you always wanted.”

“Finally. Maybe then I won’t feel ugly any longer.”

I wanted to shake her. How could she feel ugly when she was gorgeous? Instead, I just brushed her hair away from her face. “I’ll see you soon,” I said.

She didn’t respond. She was already gone.

“Take care of my wife,” I said to the dental team, marveling that the words didn’t feel odd on my lips. “She’s got a big few months in front of her. Make everything perfect.”

“We’ve got it, Mr. Stone,” the technician assured me. “You have nothing to worry about.”

Wouldn’t that be a nice change of pace?

5

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