More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
If he hadn’t reached out and stopped her with a hand on her wrist. If he hadn’t immediately pulled that hand back and stared at it with an appalled expression, as if shocked that he’d dared to touch her without asking for permission first.
“Olive. If you ever need anything, anything at all. Anything. Whenever. You can come to me.” His jaw worked, like there were other words, words he was keeping inside. “I want you to come to me.”
When he pressed his lips against her forehead one last time, she felt her love for him swell fuller than a river in flood.
Olive would never have a chance to talk to him again, and all that he’d meant to her would end… In a lie. A lie, after a lot of lies. So many lies she’d told, so many true things she could have said but never did, all because she’d been too scared of the truth, of driving the people she loved away from her. All because she’d been afraid to lose them. All because she hadn’t wanted to be alone again.
Oh. His voice. And his eyes. And the way his hands came up, as if to touch her, to make sure that she was intact and really there—though right before his fingers could close around her biceps he hesitated and let them fall back to his sides. It broke her heart a little.
“I’m going to kill you,” he gritted out, little more than a growl. “If you say another word about the woman I love, if you look at her, if you even think about her—I’m going to fucking kill you.”
He cradled her head with both hands, fingers sliding through her hair and holding her tight as he lowered his forehead to hers. He was warm, and smelled like himself, like safe and home. His thumbs swept through the mess of tears on her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know, and I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”
Adam exhaled. Then he pressed a long, lingering kiss to Olive’s forehead before reluctantly disentangling himself.
“I am going to take care of this,” he told her. There was something determined, earnest in his eyes. Olive had never felt safer, or more loved. “And then I’ll come find you, and I’ll take care of you.”
She was anxious, as twitchy as a damaged nerve, and she wanted a hug. Preferably from Adam.
“I have better things to do.” “Like what? Olive’s coming, too.” “Leave Olive alone. She’s tired, and we’re busy.”
If you don’t want to hang out with me, you can just be honest.” “I don’t want to hang out with you.” “You little shit. After the week we just had. And on my birthday.” Adam recoiled slightly. “What? It’s not your birthday.” “Yes, it is.” “Your birthday is April tenth.” “Is it, though?”
“Pumpkin spice is Satan’s dandruff, harbinger of the apocalypse, and it tastes like ass—not in the good way.”
“Wasn’t Adam a dick until, like, twelve seconds ago?” “How the turntables,”
“You two met the year before you started your Ph.D. here, when you came for your interview, and he’s been pining after you ever since.”
“I’m not going to eat a piece of cardboard because it hurt your feelings.” “You’re a shit friend.” “According to the fortune cookie industry, you’re a shit boyfriend, so—”
“I should never have trusted him with you. I’m sorry.”
He said it—“with you”—like Olive was something special, uniquely precious to him. His most beloved treasure.
I’d been thinking about you. For years.
He’d been going on and on about this amazing girl for years, but he was concerned about being in the same department,
Her stubborn, mercurial fake boyfriend. Wonderfully, perfectly unique. Delightfully one of a kind. Olive felt her heart overflow.
There was a tear, one single tear that she could feel sliding down her cheek. Adam saw it and mouthed her name.
He wasn’t very good at it. At standing there and doing nothing while her eyes welled fuller and fuller. She could tell that he felt useless, his hands dangling in fists at his sides, and she…she loved him even more for it. For looking at her like she was the beginning and end of his every thought.
“Olive.” He pulled her closer, pressing his lips against her forehead. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever it is that you’re crying about, I will fix it. I will make it right. I—”
“Sweetheart,”
“I just want her to be safe. And happy. And to have what she needs.”
I like no one, absolutely no one, but I liked you from the start. I liked you when I didn’t know you, and now that I do know you it’s only gotten worse. Sometimes, often, always, I think about you before falling asleep. Then I dream of you, and when I wake up my head’s still there, stuck on something funny, beautiful, filthy, intelligent that’s all about you. It’s been going on for a while, longer than you think, longer than you can imagine, and I should have told you, but I have this impression, this certainty that you’re half a second from running away, that I should give you enough reasons
...more
And after the last few days, weeks, years, all Olive needs is to have a little quiet. A safe space. A place to run to, not from.
She laughs. Like the one thing that scares the shit out of him and keeps him awake at night—that she’ll get hurt from this thing they’re doing, that there are signals he’s not picking up on, that he is harming her or taking advantage—is little more than a funny joke.
He needs to be better, because this is not about him. He promised himself at the very start that his time with Olive would always be about her,
You don’t like being touched, dickhead, he reminds himself. You hate it, in fact. Remember who you were, back when your life wasn’t a montage of the times this girl touched you because she had to?
He’ll hopefully make it good enough, and tomorrow she’ll act like nothing happened. Adam’s life won’t ever be the same.
Of course Adam is in love with Olive, of fucking course. And that’s why this is nice, too. Just being with her. Near her. A little painful, maybe, but a whole lot nice.
She’s in love with someone else, and these things take time. But next year they’ll be both here in Boston, and maybe, if she already trusts him, Adam could convince her to let him take care of her. He doesn’t want anything in return. She doesn’t need to fall for him, because he loves her enough for the both of them. But if she trusts him—
In this moment, he has everything. Every last thing he needs.
She smiles at him, happy, hopeful, beautiful, and says, “Hey.” Adam smiles, too, and thinks, This is it. He thinks, I love you. He thinks, Maybe, one day, you’ll even let me tell you. And he says, “Hey.”
