Page 67 of Finally Home

I can’t allow myself to go down that road right now. My number one priority right now is to shower so I can bullshit my way through a conversation I don’t want to have and get Payton out of here. Stepping under the warm water, I feel the tension leave my shoulders, destroying my plan to take a quick shower. The couch might be great to fall asleep on every once in a while, but much longer and I’ll be as tense as a rock.

A slap against the bathroom door causes me to jump. “Ollie,” my sister calls from the other side.

“Yeah?”

“Just making sure you didn’t drown yourself in there. You’ve been in here for a while.”

I mutter a “dumbass” under my breath. “I’ll be out in a few.” Choosing not to give Payton another chance to barge in here, I quickly wash off the stench of what…was it she said? Whiskey and bad decisions?

The bathroom is super steamy by the time I get out. Thankfully, my sister is nowhere to be found when I go to grab clothes from my closet. I throw on jeans and a T-shirt before making my way to the kitchen, where I can hear my sister on the phone. Her back is to me, but I can see the tenseness of her shoulders.

“I know. It’ll be fine. I already reached out to my professor. My brother is more important.” She lets out a heavy sigh. “I gotta go.” No guesses necessary who she’s on the phone with. When she hangs up, she lets out a small dance of frustration.

“Trouble in paradise?”

She yelps at my voice. For someone so determined to put herself in my life, you’d think she would have heard me approach.

“Everything’s fine.” She walks over and slides a mug of steaming coffee across the counter to me.

“Are you sure there’s nothing you want to talk about?”

She smirks. “Oh, there is. It’s just not my love life I’m interested in talking about.”

Well, I walked right into that one. “Then I guess it’s a good thing I don’t have a love life to talk about. Guess you can go on your way.”

She fakes a smile. “Nice try, asshole. Keep up the attitude and you won’t get breakfast.” I glance over and see the ingredients out for what I assume is BLT with avocado slices and fried eggs.

“Bacon and hash browns are in the oven,” she confirms, following my gaze.

Damnit, this woman knows the way to my heart—through my stomach. I take a sip of the coffee and sigh as it flows through my veins like Popeye and his spinach.

Payton takes a seat beside me. I know the silence is killing her, but I also know she’s waiting me out to talk.

“I’m not sure what you want me to say, Pay.”

“How about the truth?”

The truth?I glance over at her and see that she knows more than she’s leading on. Did Hollie tell her everything?

Payton places her hand over mine. “I’m not going to judge you, Ollie. I just want to understand. You guys were so good together.”

“She was always going to leave. It just happened a week earlier than we expected.” I give her exactly what she wants—the truth, starting from the beginning. She listens the entire time I talk, even while she finishes putting our breakfasts together on aplate. Her lack of shock when I say we started out fake dating only confirms that she already knew some of the truth.

“Ol, I’ve never known you to not go after what you want. And if you ask me, based on all your moping around, Hollie is what you want. Am I wrong?”

My silence only confirms her assumptions, so she continues.

“So please explain to me why you didn’t ask her to stay or, I don’t know, tell her how you feel. Did you seriously let her leave here thinking you couldn’t tell her you’re in love with her? And again, you can’t deny that you didn’t love her because Mom saw it, Archer saw it, Rhy saw it, and I saw it. Anyone with fucking eyes could see it.”

“How could I ask her to give up the life she created to live here with me? What makes me any different from her family that wanted her to fit into a planned life?”

“Oliver, I love you, but you are so fucking dumb. That wasn’t your choice to make. That was her decision. And you took that away from her. You are nothing like what I know of her family. She wouldn’t be giving something up, she would gain so much more. Something that she’s been searching for. You gave her a home and then just took it away.”

Fuck. I hadn’t thought of it like that. Why didn’t I just tell her? Why did I let her go? “God, I’m a fucking dumbass.”

My sister throws her head back in laughter, and I narrow my eyes at her. “Now he fucking gets it.”

“I need to fix this.” The barstool nearly knocks over when I get up so fast. “I’ll call Archer and make sure that Logan can cover my shift tonight.” I construct a plan as I head back to my room and grab a duffle bag out of my closet.

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