Page 17 of Finn Rhodes Forever

I nodded, blowing a long breath out. “I can explain.”

8

Olivia

“We don’t knowwhywe hate him,” Avery said with eyes narrowed at me as we moved into the living room, “but we do.”

My mouth twisted as I held back a smile. These women, they were so fucking cool. They always had my back. I hoped they knew that.

Hannah shot me a tentative look. “You don’t have to explain anything to us, Olivia.”

“Yes, I do,” I said.

“Yes, she does.” Sadie poked my foot with hers. “What’s going on?”

I dragged in another breath. “I need Finn Rhodes to dump me.”

The women were silent.

“He thinks we’re soulmates,” I continued, rolling my eyes. Soulmates. Like that was even real. There was no chance in hell that Finn was mysoulmate. “And he’ll never stop thinking that unless it’s his idea, so I agreed to get back together with him, and now I’m going to make him regret that.”

Sadie’s eyes lit up with excitement. “Oh my god. Olivia. You’re a genius.”

I shot her a wry smile.

Avery grinned. “This is going to be fun.”

“I don’t know.” Hannah wrinkled her nose.

I stared at her. “You blackmailed Wyatt with a European music video where he was dressed as a merman. He wore silver body paint.”

“I wasn’t going to do anything with the video.” She winced. “Okay, I see your point. And Finnisreally stubborn.”

Avery nodded with a small smile. “Yeah, we can help with that.”

Sadie jumped up and returned moments later with a pen and notepad, and the four of us came up with ideas to get Finn to lose interest in me.

“You should hit on other guys,” Hannah added half-way through the list, smiling shyly as we all gawked at her. Her smile turned cat-like. “Wyatt got really jealous when I went out with Beck.”

“Oh, yeah,” Avery said, narrowing her eyes as she remembered. “I forgot about that. Beck is so sweet, you should ask him out.”

“That guy’s like my brother.” I thought about what Finn’s face would look like watching me flirt with another guy, and a thrill ran through me. “And that wouldn’t work on Finn.”

Hannah nodded. “Probably not. It would make him super possessive.”

Sadie tilted her head, watching me. “Which we…don’twant?”

“Right,” I emphasized. “We want to gross Finn out. We want him to look at me and lose his lunch. We want him to get bored and lose interest. We want him to walk away and say,phew,bullet dodged.”

“Are you ever going to tell us what happened?” Sadie asked, tucking her feet under her legs on the floor.

Their gazes swung to me while I sat there, squirming. The words locked up in my throat, and tension twisted through my entire body as my mind flashed back to graduation night. In my lap, my hands made fists.

“Did he cheat on you?” Avery asked quietly.

“No,” I said quickly, frowning at my hands. “Nothing like that. He, um.”

The room was quiet as they waited. I took a deep breath.

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