Page 84 of All Bets Are Off

I was torn when I followed her, the food clutched against my chest. Should I sit across from her or next to her? I wanted to be able to touch her, so even though there was a chance she would consider it weird, I climbed onto the bench and settled myself at her right. No words were necessary, but I felt the need to explain my choice all the same.

“This way we can both see the water,” I said lamely.

She smirked. “Good idea.”

We dug in and Olivia was a leg and thigh deep before she started talking. “I’m guessing your parents never took you camping,” she said as she wiped the sides of her mouth. “You know that people love camping in this area, right? Regular people.”

“Should I take that to mean you don’t think I’m a regular person?” I teased.

“I think you were a deprived child.”

That threw me. “Um … I grew up in a mansion,” I reminded her.

“Money is not the same thing as experience. You didn’t get to experience a lot of the stuff other kids your age were experiencing. Is that why you stuck with Rex the way you did?”

I forked up some macaroni and cheese, considering. “Your house was like a magical world to me when I was younger.”

“How so?”

“Your parents didn’t have your lives carved out for you. There was no pressure.”

“We were expected to get decent grades and stay out of trouble.”

“Yeah, but your parents never demanded you be the best at everything. I wanted to be on the baseball team when I was in middle school, but I was in the middle of the pack. I was decent,but not great. My father insisted I quit before somebody found out I wasn’t the pitcher.”

Olivia stilled. “Are you being serious?”

I nodded. “I could never just be one of the guys. With your brother, he never treated me differently. A lot of the other guys in school wanted to be my friend because of who we were. We had a pool. They didn’t like me. They wanted to use me.

“As I got older, it was worse because the girls who wanted to date me did it for status, not because they actually liked me,” I continued. “I guess it’s good I’ve always been hot because that smoothed the way.”

She snorted, and I poked her side.

“I just wanted to be liked for who I was, not what people thought I could do for them,” I explained. “People like you because you’re you. Tallulah is loyal to a fault, and you don’t ever have to worry about her feelings changing if you lose your job or don’t have enough money to cover a round of drinks at the bar.”

“I get it.” Olivia grabbed another piece of chicken. Apparently, she was hungry. “Rex doesn’t treat you differently.”

“He’s one of the only ones.” I cast her a sidelong look. “And you.”

She held my gaze, something heavy passing between us. Then she shrugged. “I was in love with you when I was fifteen. I thought you walked on water. How is that not treating you different?”

“You had a crush on me for me, though. Also, I think it’s normal to have a crush on your older brother’s friend. That’s simply how it works. You didn’t like me because of the mansion, did you?”

“I didn’t even know about the mansion. I mean… I guess I wondered where you lived, but you were always at our house. I never really thought about it.”

“And why did you have a crush on me? It’s because I was hot, right?”

“It’s because, when Rex would leave the room for a minute, you would ask what I was doing. You wanted to know what I was reading … and what I was watching on television … and even how I was feeling. You were the only one.”

I stilled, surprised. “Your parents were interested in what you were doing.”

“Yeah, but they’re parents. Rex wasn’t interested in that stuff—especially when you were around. I mean, I guess he would tease me about the books I was reading. Once, when Tallulah was over for a sleepover, he realized we were watching romcoms, and he teased me for a month about wanting to be inThe Notebook.”

“Is that when you started writing poetry?”

A strange look moved over Olivia’s face. “I never wrote poetry.”

“Um, you did so. I remember one day when Rex was trying to get you out of the basement so we could play pool. In reality, he wanted to talk about his crush on Sasha Huntzinger, but he didn’t say that part out loud. You said you were just going to sit in the corner and write poetry. You had a notebook and everything.”

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