Page 54 of The One I Love
“I asked what time you could meet on Friday?”
“Oh. Yeah. I get off at four.”
Do I? I’m not entirely sure, but I can deal with that later.
“Perfect,” Oliver says as he claps his hands. “This is going to be great. I know she’s going to love you guys. Even Simon.”
“That’s it!” Simon yells, but not in an angry way. In his dramatic, I-like-to-cause-a-scene way. “I can take it from Shane. And Wes. But et tu, Brutus? I’m leaving. And I might show up on Friday, I might not.”
“See you Friday, Simon.”
“Fuck you, Wes. Fuck all of you!”
We all hold in our laughter until the moment Simon slams Oliver’s front door. Then all hell breaks loose.
“I can’t stop,” Betsy says, holding her stomach.
“He’s just too easy to mess with,” Amelia says.
“Should I be worried he’s going to do something on Friday?” Oliver says in between laughing fits.
“Of course,” I say, taking deep breaths to calm myself down. “But it’s Simon, so it should be harmless.”
Should is the operative word.
“You know what? I don’t even care,” Oliver says as he sits back. “I’m married. I love my wife. She mostly likes me. What more could a guy ask for?”
We laugh as Oliver goes into more details, the ones he remembers, anyway. Pictures are of course part of it, because no person on the planet takes more pictures than Oliver Price. He showed us some earlier, but these are the rest of the trip. It looks like he and Izzy had a good time. Just a couple enjoying themselves on vacation.
I glance over to Amelia again, who is laughing with Betsy as Oliver goes through fifty different photos of Caesars’ Palace. I’ve thought a lot about Amelia and I over the years, but I’ve never really thought about things that could happen if we evergot together. I don’t know why, but my brain never let me go down the road of what-ifs.
So I never thought about doing things like a vacation. I know just from being her friend that she’d take the beach any day over the mountains. I know she’d want to do every tourist activity possible. I’d also make sure we had time for us. Going to dinners. Dancing under the stars. Making love until the sun comes up.
I want that. Fuck…I want all of that. Now I know why my brain would never let me go down this path—because now that I’ve imagined it, I want it more than I want anything. I want to show her the world. I want to experience everything I can with her. I don’t want another memory to happen without her.
“Shane! For fuck’s sake, dude, what’s up with you tonight?”
Shit…I really need to stop drifting off. I realize then that everyone is staring at me. Except Amelia. She’s trying not to laugh.
“Sorry,” I say. “Just a little tired.”
I have a feeling Wes is about to call me on something when Oliver’s front door comes flying open and Simon marches back inside.
“What the hell, you guys! Not one person is going to follow and try to bring me back?”
We all look at each other, wondering if anyone was even considering that. Judging by the blank stares, the answer is no, we were not.
“Actually, Simon,” Amelia says, standing up. “I do need to get going. I have the early shift and should probably get some sleep. Want me to stomp out with you?”
“Thank you, Amelia. You’ve always been the best out of everyone,” he says. “But in protest, I’m going to sit right back down and make these motherfuckers regret their decisions tonight.”
“You do that,” she says, walking over to Oliver and giving him a kiss on the cheek. My fists start tightening as I watch this unfold. I’m not jealous of the act—Amelia has given Oliver innocent kisses like that our entire lives. And she could give me one. It wouldn’t be weird. It has happened before. But right now it’s too risky. Because if she does, I’ll grab her by the waist, sit her on my lap, and kiss the living hell out of her. And by the look she’s giving me right now, she knows exactly what I’m thinking.
“Bye, Shane,” she says, giving me a little wave. “Wes. Betsy. I’ll call you guys later this week and we can set up the situation for the kids.”
“What? No goodbye for me?”
“My apologies, Simon, how could I forget?”
