Page 102 of Count Your Lucky Stars
For a second there, she’d honestly believed she could have everything she wanted. As if wanting badly enough could translate into having.
Olivia dragged a hand across her eyes, ruining her makeup. Not that it mattered. No one was going to see it because she wasn’t going to make it to Seattle, not on time. Showing up late was better than not showing up at all, but what would Brendon and Annie think?Lori?God, goodbye promotion, goodbye raise. And Margot?
Her heart clenched.
Olivia didn’t want to say goodbye.
She hadpromised. One simple thing: show up. She couldn’t even do that. With the way she’d left, how she’d left things between them, Margot might think Olivia didn’twantto show up, when that wasn’t it at all.
How ironic that the moment she decided to get out of her own way, life had to toss umpteen obstacles in her path. How the hell was thatfair?
Olivia backed away from the door. Sunlight glinted off metal out of the corner of her eye. She sniffled and turned toward the side yard and—almost fell over.
The red Ford F-650 six-door pickup that she had failed to convince Brad he didn’t need—he’d had a perfectly good Ford F-150 he planned to keep—was parked in the grass beside the house. Nine feet tall and with wheel wells higher than her hips, the truck had intimidated the hell out of her to the point where she’d never evendreamedof getting behind the wheel. Why would she when she had her efficient, reasonable,reliableSubaru that could get her everywhere she needed to go?
She pinched her lips together and threw one last glance over her shoulder at the front door before crossing the yard. Her flats sank into the grass, wet blades tickling her ankles. She stopped beside the truck and held her breath as she reachedupfor the handle on the driver’s-side door. All she wanted was to see whether it was unlocked and—
The door cracked open, and her heart climbed inside her throat.
Holy shit.
She wet her lips and checked over both shoulders. The street was quiet, no busybody neighbors puttering around their yards wondering what Olivia was doing, breaking into her ex-husband’s truck. It wasn’ttechnicallybreaking into if he left it unlocked, right? Brad had never bothered to lock his car athome, something he could get away with in a town like Enumclaw.
He also a had a terriblehabit of leaving the keys to his truck under the visor because—who would be bold enough to steal a truck likethis?
Her pulse pounded in her throat as she threw her duffel to the ground. She gripped the door with one hand and rested the other on the leather seat. One foot braced on the footrail, Olivia levered herself up into the cab. The air was different up here. She snorted and with a shaking hand flipped the visor open.
Brad’s keys clattered against the dash, gleaming in the sunlight streaming through the windshield. She snatched them up and hopped down, landing in the grass with a soft squish, mud squelching under her feet and running up the sides of her flats. The metal was cold against her skin, sharp, too, as she ran the pad of her thumb idly over the teeth. Breaking into his truck was one thing; taking it was something else altogether.
You don’t need anyone’s permission to be happy.
All those years spentcompromising, storing books under her bed, giving, giving, giving, answering his calls even after their divorce, so much time wasted trying in vain to please Brad at the expense of her own happiness.
How did that saying go? Better to ask for forgiveness than permission?
She reached inside her purse for a pen and a piece of paper.
Brad owed her one.
Chapter Twenty-Four
12:49 p.m.
Hey, this is Olivia! I can’t come to the phone right—
Margot ended the call.
Elle winced. “No answer?”
Margot shook her head. No answer, just like the last five times she’d called. Four rings followed by voicemail and each time the pressure inside Margot’s chest swelled a little further, squeezing her heart until it hurt to breathe.
“There’s still time,” Elle said.
Right. Eleven—no, ten minutes until the rehearsal started.
Elle was right. Olivia was cutting it close, but she could still make it.
Unless Olivia wasn’t coming.
