: Chapter 15

I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO idea how to behave around Lola. And clearly, neither does Joe.

I hadn’t seen her in the store in over a week, and when she finally walks in the morning after our awkward talk at Fred’s, immediately making her way back to the Marvel section with only a wave in my direction, Joe doesn’t even call out to her or propose in front of the entire store. I can feel him watching me, gauging my reaction.

“Lola’s here,” he says finally, lifting his chin to where she’s disappeared down the aisle.

My heart has swerved to the edge of my chest. “So she is.” She’d asked me to come home with her last night—and fuck it was tempting to imagine putting it all aside and falling into bed, relishing the sex—but not in a hundred years could I have said yes. I could practically feel her guilt, her regret last night, but Lola has no idea what she wants right now; she’s an emotional land mine, and not one I’m prepared to walk over willingly.

Joe comes around the counter to stand beside me. “You’re not going to go over there?”

“Not that it’s your business, Joe, but no. Maybe in a little bit, but it looks like she’s here to look at books.”

“I don’t get you two at all,” he says under his breath.

“I’m not going to fret over the opinion of a man who spent much of an evening out watching cows being milked before moving on to videos of men pulling trucks using ropes tied to their dicks.” It’s easier to joke, because what more can I say? Right now I reckon I don’t understand, either.

There’s a part of me—the adoring part that has long felt like Lola can do no wrong—that wants to take responsibility for all of this, sensing that I should have anticipated her panic over work versus us, that I should cut her some slack for what she said, that having dinner with Allison looked bad. But the conversation in her bedroom—where she wanted me to simply hang around while she focused on getting her work done—showed me how young she really is. Naïve, even. I knew it, truly I did, but I never really thought how it might slap me in the face.

Naïve myself, I suppose.

I want Lola to have all the success in the world, but am still bewildered over why she thought I would somehow get in the way of any of it.

And maybe more than a little wounded. I’d been Lola’s biggest fanboy and loudest cheerleader—hell, I even wear my Razor Fish T-shirt whenever it’s clean. I was the most devoted lover, too . . . even though it was only for a week. It stung to be so easily set aside.

Still, with her near, I’m aware that I’ve never needed or wanted anyone like this. It’s a pull, nearly a physical draw to be close to her. Just knowing she’s in the store, a swarm of bees has taken over my chest until it feels like I’m shimmering inside. Her hair is down, lips full and bare. I remember the drowsy tilt of her head, watching me kiss my way down her body, the feel of her thighs over my shoulders, the honey of her cunt on my tongue.

Lola looks up from behind her comic, catching me staring, and waves limply. I wave back, then turn and find Joe right behind me, his eyes skipping from me to Lola before he shakes his head.

“Well this fucking sucks,” he says.

“It’s fine.” I crack open a tube of pennies and dump it into the register drawer.

“Fine?” he asks. “A week ago, she walked in and climbed you like a tree, and today she acts like you’re the resident librarian.”

“Things are . . . complicated,” I sigh. I love her, but I don’t want to be with her just now. I want her to do better.

“She’s still into you, you know.”

Shutting the register, I give him an exasperated this-isn’t-your-business look. “I know, Joe.”

But Joe is undeterred. “And?”

“And I’m beginning to wonder if she was right to worry that we’d screw everything up,” I tell him. “Maybe we were better at being friends.”

I greet a customer who walks up to the counter and Joe steps aside while I ring him up. With his purchase paid for and in a bag, I smile and hand it over to him. Joe is still watching me, expression disapproving.

“Maybe you’re forgetting the part where you’re in love with her,” he says.

I lean against the counter and scrub my hands over my face. “I haven’t forgotten.”

“Then what the fuck are you doing over here when she’s back there?”

I shake my head and stare with tired eyes to where she’s flipping through a comic, listening to someone on the phone. “Joe, it isn’t your business, and it isn’t that simple.”

“Are you going to go out with Allison again?” he asks.

My stomach recoils. “It was just dinner.”

He nods in understanding. “It’s like how you grow up eating Hershey’s chocolate, and think, ‘This is delicious chocolate.’ And then you have Sprüngli and are like, “Dude, Hershey’s is shit.’ ”

I glance at him. “Sprüngli?”

“Swiss chocolate place,” he says with a vague wave of his hand. “My folks have a place in the Swiss Alps.”

Now I turn and fully stare at him. “Who the fuck are you?”

Laughing he says, “I’m definitely not a guy named Joe.”

“Don’t tell me,” I say, holding up a hand. “It’ll ruin the mystery.”

With a little shrug, he walks back toward the office. The bell over the door rings and I see Finn and Ansel walk in.

“G’day, Finnigan,” I say. “I didn’t know you were sticking around today.”

He throws me an aggressively patient look at this nickname while he takes off his jacket. “I’ve got the rest of the week off.”

Ansel cuts into the small talk. “Are we going to lunch? I’m starving.” Finn and I exchange amused looks: Hungry Ansel is the only version of our friend who is ever sharp.

“Yeah, just let me—” I start to say, but Lola picks that moment to wander up from the back of the store.

“Hey,” she says to each of them, before finally looking to me. Her cheeks grow pink, smile widens. “Hi.”

“Hi,” I say, heart beating, throat constricting, muscles tight.

I fucking love you.

Finn turns to Lola. “You wouldn’t by chance have spoken to my wife in the past hour, would you?”

“It will never stop being strange hearing you call her that,” Lola says, shaking her head. “Mia is someone’s wife. Harlow is someone’s wife.”

And Lola was mine, for twelve hours. Then she was something else, something even better, for only a matter of days.

Finn stares at her, mouth pressed in a straight line while he waits for her to answer his question.

“And actually yes,” she says, reaching up to pat his head. He slides his eyes to me as if I’ve somehow put her up to this. “She was driving up to Del Mar to get some signatures from . . . someone . . . and you know how bad the reception is up there.”

Finn nods, reaching over the counter to grab a snack-size Snickers from my secret stash under the register.

Ansel sees and practically knocks him over to get one for himself.

“Lola,” Finn says, tearing into the packet. “Let me ask you something.”

Her eyebrows rise expectantly and the expression is so sweet, I have to look away before I step closer.

“I’m planning to take Harlow up to Sequoia for the weekend. Camping, quiet, you know. Do you happen to know if she’s working?”

Lola smirks up at Finn at the same time I feel my own eyes widen. “You’re driving?” she asks.

He nods.

Lola glances at me and for a moment, the weirdness between us is gone and we’re on the same team. “You’re driving six hours,” she says, “to take Harlow camping in the woods for an entire weekend.”

His brow pulls tight as he turns to look at me. “Those are the bullet points.”

“Have you met your wife?” Lola asks.

Finn’s mouth curves into a cocky smile. “She’ll get into it.”

“If you say so,” she says with a wink. Fuck. My chest does a tight twist at the playful side of her coming out. “And yes, I think she has the weekend off.”

“Lola, you’re still here,” Joe says, walking out from the back room with a banana, peeling it suggestively. “Ready to run away with me yet?”

“Not quite,” she says, grinning.

“What were you doing all the way back there, anyway?” he asks.

She stares at him, before glancing quickly to me. “Browsing. And then Benny called. I have something big due next week. So . . . I’m changing the trip I had scheduled to L.A. for the week after.”

I file this away. I didn’t even know Lola had a trip coming up, let alone one she needed to postpone. I hate this distance between us—the pointlessness of it all, the absurdity—the way things seem to be moving forward in both of our worlds and we aren’t compulsively sharing any of it. I miss her.

Fuck. I need to get over it.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here,” Joe says, “because I wanted to show you something.” He walks to where he was just a moment ago, pointing Lola’s attention to a shelf. “Look what came in.”

“Oh my God,” she says, and moves to get a closer look. From where I stand, I can’t see what they’re looking at, but Lola adds excitedly, “Can you get it?”

Joe smiles over at me. “Oliver? Can you reach the new consignment item?”

“I got it,” Finn volunteers, taking a step toward the ladder, but Joe stops him with a hand to the chest.

“I think Oliver knows what I need.”

I give him a warning look, sensing he’s up to something. But as soon as I get on the ladder and glance up, I know immediately what they’re talking about. Joe has somehow managed to find a set of the action figures based on Lola’s book, and placed it up on the shelf for her. I start to tell her that I haven’t even been able to get these new yet, but when I turn to hand it to her, I realize that her eyes aren’t on the box at all, but on my bare stomach, where my shirt is riding up.

I clear my throat and Lola blinks back up to my face, before turning about six different shades of pink. Joe is already laughing, and wearing the smuggest I told you so face I’ve ever seen.

“You are such an asshole,” she says under her breath to Joe, laughing and punching him in the shoulder before taking the box from my hands. I’m half-irritated with him, half-amused at his persistence.

“Where did you get this?” she asks, avoiding my eyes.

I shake my head, having never actually seen one in person before. They’re not even available online yet. “I didn’t know we had one.”

“I bought it today,” Joe says proudly. “It’s the first one I’ve seen.”

“Someone was selling this?” I ask, and notice that even Finn—a guy who looks like Superman but probably couldn’t differentiate Catwoman from Batgirl—has moved in for a closer look. Even Ansel is interested.

Joe shrugs as if it was no big deal, and takes a bite of banana. “Yeah.”

“They made this for the book?” Ansel asks, peeking over Lola’s shoulder to get a better look.

Nodding, Lola says, “It’s part of the promo for the paperback release in a few months. I don’t even have one of these. I’ve been waiting to hold one for weeks now.”

I love that she feels this way, and love even more that I’m here for this moment because work has been shit for her lately, and she needed this little victory. I reach over and take it from her, before dropping it into a fabric shopping bag with the store’s logo on it. “It’s yours now.”

Her mouth drops open. “I can’t take this.”

Joe shakes his head. “The guy brought in a bunch of stuff. I get the sense he swiped it from a random assortment of promotional goodies sent to his work, and had no idea that it hasn’t been released yet. I didn’t pay much for it.”

“I could kiss you guys,” she says, looking down into the bag, and then quickly realizes what she’s said. Her bottom lip is pulled between her teeth and she stares at the floor.

Despite the mess she’s made of things, something primal comes to life in me, and I have to look away.

“I would totally let you do that,” Joe says, “but I have a date. Oliver can have my share, though.”

It’s like an elephant has been dropped in the center of the room, and everyone suddenly finds something to study, intensely.

Joe groans. “Please,” he says. “I don’t know why you two are fighting this. You’re never going to be just friends.”

And with that, he reaches for his Greenpeace key chain from behind the register and walks out the door.

Nobody says anything for what has to be the most awkward ten seconds in history.

Finally, Ansel clears his throat. “So . . . lunch. Lola, would you like to join us?” he says, smiling sweetly at her.

Her eyes go wide and she looks at me as if for guidance. I smile, hoping it looks better than it feels because inside I am a giant ball of uncertainty. I want her near me, but I want her to figure her shit out first.

Lola’s phone chimes in her hand and she glances down, reading. We all watch as her shoulders slump and she exhales a quiet “Fuck.”

“What?” I ask, the whiplash instinctive protectiveness roaring to life.

“It’s Greg,” she says, turning off the screen with a sigh. “Ellen broke up with him.” Looking at Ansel, she says, “Thanks for the invite, but I’ve got a couple of calls to make then I need to go over to my dad’s.”

“I hope everything is okay,” I say, and Finn and Oliver quietly echo the sentiment.

She throws me a tiny, shy smile, holding up the bag. “Thanks again, Oliver. This means so much to me.”

The bell over the door rings again as she leaves and the three of us watch her make her way down the footpath.

I’m a tangle inside, hating to see her walk away, wanting to be close to her even when I’m angry, but still feeling the need to build a cage around my heart.

Turning back to my friends, I say, “Remind me to fire Joe the next time I see him,” I say, scratching the side of my neck.

The store is empty, the afternoon is dead. I reach for my keys and turn the sign to read CLOSED, and motion for them to lead the way.

WE WALK THE few blocks to Bub’s near Petco Park and are led to a table near the patio.

“How are things with Lola?” Finn asks, looking at me over the top of his drink. “You guys seemed . . .”

“Tentative,” Ansel finishes for him. “Which, I’ll tell you, is really strange to watch.”

“It’s about the same.” I stab at my ice water with the straw. I haven’t really felt like talking about it much since the conversation went down, but I’ve told them both enough to know things with Lola aren’t great. “We’re still ‘on pause.’ ” I hesitate. “I think she wanted to unpause, though. She asked me to come over, last night at Fred’s.”

The waitress stops at the table and we each order a burger and rings. When she steps away, they’re both looking at me expectantly.

“I mean, of course I said no,” I tell them.

Silence rings around the table.

“Because obviously she needs to figure her shit out,” I say.

“She can’t do that with your penis in her mouth?” Ansel asks, and Finn punches his shoulder. “What? That was a serious question.”

Finn lifts his chin, asking, “Has the thought occurred to Lola that she might be even busier in four months? They aren’t even filming yet. I mean, I go a week at a time without seeing Harlow, and it sucks, but I know it won’t always be this way.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I can’t pretend to know what’s going on in her brain right now.”

“I always felt like you two had a secret language,” Ansel says.

“Me, too,” I admit. Our server sets the giant basket of onion rings down in the center of the table. “And because I’m a total asshole, I made things worse by going out with Allison Wednesday night.”

Ansel’s eyes widen. “Hard Rock Allison?” I nod and he lets out a burst of air and reaches for his beer. “Why the hell did you do that?”

Shrugging, I admit, “It was just an impulsive thing. She came by and asked if I wanted to grab dinner. I was pissed at Lola and said yes.”

“Did she think it was a date?” Finn asks.

“Yeah. She did.”

Finn studies me. “You didn’t fuck her.”

“No,” I say quickly, “I clarified where I stood as soon as we sat down. But I still feel like I cheated because I knew it would make Lola jealous if she knew. I wanted to rip my skin off by the time I got home.”

“And if Lola had done the same thing?” Finn asks.

My skin flushes hot again at the idea of Lola with anyone else. “I’d want to rip his skin off.”

“Does Lola know?” Ansel asks, wincing.

“Yeah, she came here looking for me. Fucking Joe the brain surgeon told her.”

“You would have told her, though,” Ansel says, and then furrows his brows. “Right?”

“Of course,” I tell him, giving him an exasperated look. “I nearly called her in the middle of it because I felt so guilty. But then I didn’t, because I thought, What if she’s working and actually gets pissed off at me for calling her to confess that I’m having a platonic dinner with another woman?” I run my hand over my mouth. “It’s a mess. Clearly I am more concerned about all of this than she is. I don’t know how to interact with Lola anymore, and that just feels . . . wrong.”

“You’re both idiots,” Finn says. “Lola is a mess, too, for what it’s worth.”

“But that’s what falling in love does to you, okay?” Ansel says, grinning. “I’m a happy idiot because of Mia.”

“I . . .” I start to say, and feel laughter bubble up inside me. Despite everything, being around Ansel is infectiously uplifting. “Lola is hands down one of the smartest people I know and I fear she is, to borrow a phrase from Harlow, extremely relationship-dumb.”

“Mia mentioned that Lola tends to always put her comic stuff first,” Ansel says, folding his arms in front of him. “That she’s been that way even when they were teens.”

Protectiveness tightens my chest, and I defend her: “She had a rough time. It wasn’t easy for her, that’s all.”

“Well, shit, Oliver, maybe that’s the point,” Finn says. “Maybe she needs to know that this . . . thing between you isn’t all-or-nothing. That you’re not cutting her off completely just because she’s still figuring it all out.”

I grab an onion ring and give him an amused smile. “It’s nice to hear you sounding so wise on the topic, Finn.”

He lifts his chin to me, grinning back. “It’s nice to see you guys fucking up, too, Oliver.”

THE SKY IS getting dark by the time I manage to wrap up at the store and get to the loft. I’m relieved to spot Lola’s car almost immediately—she hasn’t left for her dad’s yet—and I pull into the first guest spot I see before I get out and make my way to the main door.

Their lobby is usually busy by now, the elevators full of people getting off work or headed out for the evening, but it’s strangely quiet tonight. I’m alone in the lift as the floors tick up on the illuminated dial overhead, alone with my thoughts as I try to figure out exactly how to have this conversation.

I’m still not really sure what I’m going to say. I just want to see her. Maybe simply apologize again about Allison; that was shitty, especially since I was pretty sure Lola would hear about it somehow. Maybe just tell her, now that I’m calmer, how—even though it wasn’t what she intended—it was brutal to be so immediately shuffled aside, a distraction, an obstacle.

I don’t think we’re ready to jump back in to where we were before everything melted down. I just need her to talk to me. As terrible as it sounds, it was good to see her so upset at Fred’s because at least I could tell it was hard for her, too. I used to feel completely safe with Lola; even without talking about our feelings, I knew where I stood with her by how she sought my company, my opinion, or even just eye contact. She was the first American woman I’d never had difficulty reading. Lola’s always been deliberate in her decision making, and it was no different when it came to us. So I was blindsided when she ended it sort of hysterically right after I felt things click for us.

I know I hadn’t been the only one deeply in love that last night at my house.

I know I didn’t imagine how profound it was in bed, all night, in the shower.

My steps are light as I move along the concrete hallway and I stop when I hear Lola’s voice through the sliding steel door. I pull out my phone to check the time. I didn’t see London’s car outside and it’s definitely late enough that she’d be at work. Harlow is supposed to be in Del Mar all day, and I might be wrong but I think Mia teaches around this time. So who could she be talking to? Her dad? Benny?

I stop just outside the door and am trying to decide if I should knock and run the risk of possibly interrupting her with someone, or whether I should come back all together, when she gets louder.

“I know,” she says, with a definite edge to her voice. “And we talked about this last week. Like I told you then, I’ve got deadlines of my own to meet. I’m sorry you feel like this is going to cut into your schedule. But if you and Langdon would have actually engaged in this conversation every time I attempted it in the meeting I took an entire week off to attend, you’d have heard me telling you the same thing I’m telling you now.”

I feel frozen in place. I’ve never heard Lola talk this way to . . . well, anyone. The logical part of my brain is telling me to turn around and call her later, and that nobody ever heard anything they liked while eavesdropping. But a larger part of me is intrigued, dying to know who she’s talking to and fascinated by this side of her.

There’s a rhythmic thump on the other side of the door, the sound of her boots as she paces back and forth across the wooden kitchen floor. I’m just about to leave when the sound comes to an abrupt stop.

“No, I absolutely understand what you’re saying. But what I’m saying is that Razor wouldn’t do that. I know there’s a certain feel you’re going for, but it’s in direct contrast to anything the main character would do.”

My eyes widen and my stomach evaporates into nothing. She’s talking to Austin. Holy shit. There’s a minute of silence punctuated by “Uh-huh” and “Yeah,” and “I see,” and I’m holding my breath, wondering if she’ll stick to her guns or let him turn the conversation around and manipulate her into getting what he wants. My heart is pounding so hard in my chest I briefly worry she’ll be able to hear me from inside.

I didn’t realize until right now how badly I needed to see her take charge of her career again. It was eating her alive. It was changing her.

“Listen,” she says, and I can hear the forced calm in her voice, “I feel like I’ve been really accommodating about a lot of the changes you’ve asked for, and like I told you, I understand where you’re coming from, I do. You make movies. I don’t. But what I do do is write stories and create characters and build worlds, and the two characters in this world are not in love with each other. There’s no romance angle to play up, no sexual tension. Change that and Razor’s motives and every one of his actions can be called into question. He does the things he does because he sees what she can become, not because he’s in love with her.”

I press my hand to the doorframe and feel my chest unwind. And despite everything that’s happened between us the last few days, I’m smiling, knowing Lola is fighting for the things she loves. She can take care of herself. If Lola can handle a studio full of film executives, she can fight her way back to me.

Finn’s words replay in my head and although he made a few good points, I know Lola. She might be inexperienced when it comes to relationships but when she wants something, she knows how to fight for it. She doesn’t need saving. If I went in there now and tried to walk her through everything between us, I’d always wonder if she’d have come back to me on her own.

I have to believe she’ll fight for us, that I’m not wrong about her. I have to believe that I want to be there for her, always, but that she doesn’t need me to be.

I move away from the door and turn back toward the elevator, the sound of her voice growing fainter and fainter with each step.