Page 31 of In For a Penny
The next day, I inviteOliver to come with me to visit Allie at work and get my weekly banh mi fix. I wasn’t able to get it yesterday because of my trip to Stonehenge and Salisbury with Josh. I enjoy spending time with Oliver and haven’t been able to see him much this past week, so we planned on some “bonding time.” When he isn’t a pain in the ass, which is a lot of the time, Oliver is great company.
We walk up toward Notting Hill Gate together, taking our time. Oliver is a surprisingly good shopping partner, patiently waiting while I go in and out of vintage clothing vendors, never complaining. You can tell a girlfriend has trained him—any other guy would have lost it by now, but he hasn’t so much as grumbled once.
I’m in the middle of buttoning up agorgeousvintage cashmere Burberry coat (that is obscenely out of my budget) when Oliver comes up behind me in the mirror and asks, “How was Stonehenge yesterday? Did you have fun?”
I shrug. “It was cool,” I say.If you like your ancient history tourism charged with whatever uncomfortable tension was felt most of the trip.I pull my hair from under the coat and adjust the garment on my body. “You know, you could’ve told me you couldn’t make it. It just ended up being me and Josh on the trip.”
“Oh?” he asks coolly, avoiding my gaze.
“Mmhmm. Chloe and Jane canceled as well. Even Michael and his French friend, Guillaume. I mean,oneof you could have at least communicated to me that you weren’t going.” I think about this for a second. Ithadbeen bizarre that no one had texted me to let me know that they were passing. I mean, it’s common courtesy, right? I would have probably canceled too if I had known no one else was able to join us. We could have rescheduled and gone as a group as planned.
“Josh had planned the whole thing for us to go as a group. It was really rude of you just to cancel and not let me know.” I sniff, caring more about howIfelt about them bailing than how Josh must have felt.
“Yeah, um, sorry. I should’ve—weshould have texted you as well and not just Josh. You’re right. But you had fun, right? On your date?”
I turn quickly around to look him straight in the eye. “What do you mean‘date’?” I ask accusingly. Oliver’s eyes widen with concern. “Did Josh say it was a date? Because it wasn’t a date. Oh my God, was it a date? Didhethink it was a date?”
“Oh, wow, okay,” he says, backing up a step and raising his hands as if I were about to shoot. “Would you take a fucking breath? I haven’t even spoken to him about yesterday.”
I raise an eyebrow menacingly at him.
Looking back on what had happened yesterday, my biggest fear is that I had given Josh the wrong impression of what we are to each other, which is nothing more than friends. Yes, we went on a day trip, just the two of us, but that was only a consequence of everyone else’s flakiness and inability to stick to a plan, not because I was interested in anything other than a friendship.
“Glad to know you’re completely relaxed and calm about this, though.” He says sarcastically and laughs. “Jesus, you can be so uptight sometimes, you know that? You need to relax a little bit. Lose some control from time to time. Might be good for you.”
I ignore him and continue to stare at myself in the mirror. I’m so tired of Oliver telling me I need to relax and “lose control.” I can’t even begin to imagine what losing control to him even means. To me, it means getting drunk more than three nights in the same week (which is close to becoming the norm at this point, if I’m being honest). He’s probably referring to hedonism parties.
“So, it wasn’t a romantic trip, then? Nothing happened between the two of you?” he asks, genuinely curious. “There was no handholding or romantic viewing of the sunset together?” he asks with a smirk.
Confused about his line of questioning, I turn back to the mirror to knot the coat belt tightly around my waist. I look at myself sideways and put my hands in the coat pockets, sighing wistfully at how cozy and stylish this Burberry is.
I need this in my life.
I’m having a moment, wishing I had enough cash to take this home with me right now.
Mostly, to be honest, I’m stalling. I don’t want to talk about yesterday.
The truth is that, even if the trip was not romantic or a date, ithadfelt weird at times. We weren’t dating, that much was obvious, but it was like we had crossed some strange obscure line yesterday that needed to be redrawn or redefined. The charged moments of silence, the way he just knew who I was and what I needed, left me reeling. I haven’t had enough time to break it down myself, so I know I am definitely not ready for a full download of information right now. Things are weird, and I still need to process and analyze what went down on our trip.
I turn to look up at him. “I can’t afford this,” I say, trying to deflect. “I don’t want to take it off, though. I can’t bring myself to do it.”
He grinned. “Letmehelp.” He reaches out for my belt, and we both stare into each other’s eyes as he slowly unties the knot without breaking eye contact.
Oh, shit.
I can feel myself blushing, my skin feeling a little like it’s on fire—and not from the coat.
That was kind of hot.
It’s been a while since someone has tried to undress me, if you know what I mean. My mind starts to go to mush, but I snap myself out of it before I let it wander anywhere stupid. I slap Oliver’s hands off the coat belt, and he laughs, dragging a hand down his face in frustration.
I frown and remove the coat as quickly as possible, placing it back on its hanger and rack. The need to move on from what just happened is so intense that I make the mistake of switching back to the Josh topic.
“Nothing happened between the two of us. We just toured around Salisbury, went up to Stonehenge, and then back to town to have lunch—which you would know if you had been able to make it,” I say haughtily. “What happened to you? Why did you cancel?”
He shrugs, casually browsing through the men’s racks. “Busy.”
I raise an eyebrow. “‘Busy’?” I parrot in a mocking tone. “Seriously? That’s your answer?”
