To Love Jason Thorn (17 page)

“Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!”

“Go away,” I groaned, tossing a pillow over
to where the sound was coming from.

“You have to get up, Olive. You’re all over
the internet.”

Of course it would be Lucy trying to wake
me up. It was never the sweet Char. Why, you ask? Because Char wasn’t a cruel
person. Not like Lucy. Lucy had a real problem with people sleeping peacefully.
She
was a problem all on her own.

“Awesome. Goodnight,” I mumbled. I turned
my back to her voice.

The bed sank with her weight when she sat
next to my hip.

“I don’t think you’re getting it, Olive.”
Her hand gripped my shoulder and she forcefully turned me on my back. She also
had the power of a she-hulk even though she was only five foot three.

“I don’t want to get it. My head hurts,
Lucy,” I pleaded, narrowing my eyes at her as I slowly pulled the covers over
my face. “Come back in a few hours and I’ll listen to whatever you want. I’ll
even nod.”

“Fine. I guess you don’t care that your
cozy pictures…with Jason Thorn…are plastered all over the internet.”

“What?” I shouted as I sat up a little too
fast for my poor brain. “Ow, ow, ow.”

“Here.” She placed her laptop on my lap and
waited for me to take a look with an annoyingly awake and excited face.

As I scrolled down, with each picture I
saw, my eyes got bigger and bigger.

“Holy shit,” I mumbled when I started to
read the article.

“I know, right? You’re gonna have Jason
Thorn’s dimpled babies. I’m gonna be the cool aunt. I’ll babysit. I’ll come and
watch your half-naked husband while I’m babysitting.”

I laughed; granted, it was a little forced,
but it still counted as a laugh. “Are you on something?” I scrolled through the
pictures again. I couldn’t stop looking. “What are you talking about?”

She looked at me as if I was stupid, then
sighed and made herself comfortable in my bed—
again—
by lying down beside
me.

“You have to stop getting in bed with me,”
I mumbled, trying to push her off the bed.

“He is in love with you, you are in love
with him. This is happening.” She brushed her palms together. “My dreams are
coming true!”

“
Your
dreams? Please, tell me what
you’re on so I can make it my life mission to join you in la-la land one day.”

“Oh, shut up.” A sneaky maneuver and she
was right under the covers with me, stealing my pillow. I pushed at her legs
and got down from the bed.

“What am I gonna do?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not Jason who looks in love in these
photos, Lucy, it’s me! Can’t you see that?”

“And…?”

“And he’ll never talk to me again. Dylan
will lose his head when he sees these.”

“Clearly you’ve gone blind from typing away
at all hours on your laptop.” She rolled her eyes and made herself even more
comfortable on my bed. “You both look smitten with each other.”

“Babe?” I heard a voice right outside my door.
I made my eyes go as big as they could.

“Jameson? Again?” I mouthed to Lucy.

Then Jameson’s head peaked in.

“Oh, here you are.” He didn’t even knock! “I
thought I heard your voice.” He opened the door wider, and I got a good look at
his naked chest, and then lower…

“Oh god! Jameson, your penis!” I screamed,
my eyes hurting. “Put some clothes on for fuck’s sake!” I groaned as I covered
my eyes with my hand.

“Oh, hi, Olive. I didn’t see you behind the
door.” He laughed. “I thought Lucy had sneaked into your room to get some
sleep.”

I peeked through my fingers. Lucy was just
lounging in the bed, enjoying the view with a satisfied smirk on her face. Then
I glanced at Jameson; I tried not to look down, but well, isn’t it always
impossible to do that? Well at least he was covering his man parts with his
hand, not that he was doing a good job of it.

I groaned louder.

“Babe, I have an early class. If you’re
good, I’m leaving.”

She shrugged and Jameson winked at her.

“Congrats on the book, Olive. Can’t wait to
see the movie.”

“Thanks,” I muttered, looking over his
shoulder instead of in his eyes. When Jameson finally left and I heard Lucy’s
door open and close, I turned back to look at Lucy. Her hair was all mussed up
and she had a mischievous grin on her face.

She wiggled her eyebrows. “He has a good
size on him, doesn’t he? Which is why we don’t call it a ‘penis’ like you just did.
That’s almost like an insult.”

I shook my head. She was impossible…but,
yeah, he did have a good size on him.
Good for her.
“Is that why you
made him your boy toy?”

“And you wouldn’t? Didn’t you see the size
of his monster just a minute ago? And those tattoos? Damn…even thinking about
it is ma—”

“If you finish that sentence, I’m going to
deck you, Lucy.”

She laughed and opened her arms. “Do your
best, mystery beauty.”

I groaned and leaned my back against the
door, just in case. I didn’t want to have a second look at Jameson’s man parts.

“What am I gonna do?”

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean nothing?”

She shrugged and patted the bed. I walked
over and sat down, trying not to fidget any more than I already was.

“You, my lovely friend, are going to wait
until Jason calls you,” she said.

“What makes you think he’ll call?”

“His people must’ve seen this already. Trust
me, he’ll call you when he sees it.”

***

It was three hours later and I was lounging
on the couch with my laptop glued to my fingers.

Someone unlocked the door and my head flew
up. Seeing that it was just Char, I greeted her.

“Hey. You’re home early.”

“Yeah, Professor Kindley had an emergency
and ended class early.” Tossing her handbag and her notebooks into her room,
she came to sit next to me. “What are you doing?”

“Blankly staring at the screen.”

“Nothing new, huh?”

“Nope. I start writing a few pages, but
then I go back and delete everything I wrote. I think I might be a one-hit
wonder. It’s like all my creative juices just dried up. Or maybe I was never
creative in the first place, and the one I wrote was just a fluke.”

“I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work that way,
Olive,” Char said as she started massaging her temples.

“Headache?”

“Yeah. I haven’t been feeling well ever
since I opened my eyes.”

“You want me to cook some chicken soup for
you?”

“Nah, I’m good. Thanks though. Do you have
any idea of what you want to write, or you just can’t find the first words?”

“Oh, I’m finding the first words, alright,
but I can’t get into the story and end up just tossing the whole thing.”

She looked at me with her bright blue eyes.
“Then it isn’t the right story for you to write. You’ll know when it’s the
right one.”

“I’m not so sure about that. My fingers are
itching to write, but I have absolutely nothing. Nada.”

“Let me know if I can help you with
anything. Plotting or otherwise.”

I put my laptop down on the floor and got
up. “I’m going to make you tea.” I said over my shoulder. “Your voice is
starting to crack.”

She groaned and reached for my laptop.

“Did Jason call about the photos yet?”

“Nope.” I filled the kettle with water and while
waiting for it to boil, I opened the cupboard to choose from the teas we had. “Do
you want herbal tea or just regular black tea?”

“I’ll have herbal tea, please.” She
whistled softly. “You should see the comments on these photos.”

I looked up to see Char scrolling through
the photos again. Taking down two mugs, I put the tea bags in them. “They’re
talking shit?”

“No,” she replied, looking over her
shoulder. “Actually they think you guys look adorable together. More than a few
say you are his new girlfriend, a new actress or something.”

I snorted. “I’m adding honey to your tea
and I don’t want to hear any complaints about it.” Char hated honey with a
passion; whenever she got sick we had to practically force it down her throat.
I reached for the boiling water and poured it in our mugs.

“Thanks, mother Olive.”

“You’re welcome, beautiful child of mine.”
Grabbing the mugs, I walked back to the couch and handed her the herbal tea.

The laptop still on her lap, she extended
her neck and sniffed at my tea. “What are you having? It smells better than
mine.”

“Just black tea, Earl Grey.” Sitting next
to her, I glanced at the screen.

“This one is my favorite,” said Char, scrolling
down to another picture, the one where Jason’s hand was out of sight and under
my shirt. “You both look lost in each other.”

“Well, we weren’t lost anywhere, I had weird
hot smoothie spilled all over me and he was just making sure I was okay. I don’t
know what kind of a creep took our photos, but they somehow managed to capture
something that wasn’t even there. They are a good stalker, I’ll give them
that.”

“I think I’m with Lucy on this one,” she
admitted, and I sharply turned to look at her, almost spilling hot tea all over
myself, again. “Ok, don’t kill me yet,” she said, lifting her hands as if to
ward me off. “I just don’t think you could capture something like this if there
was absolutely
nothing
there. I mean, it’s not like you are still in
love with Marcus, right?”

“Of course not. And well, we already know
that I’m still in love with Jason so both Lucy and you are seeing that.”

“Olive.” She closed the laptop and placed
it next to her. “You probably don’t want to give yourself false hope, but…”

“But…? But, what?”

“Jason isn’t really looking at you as if
you are just his best friend’s little sister. At least not in these photos.”
She gestured toward the laptop. “Of course I have no idea how he is treating you
when you guys are together.”

I waved her off and took a sip of my tea. “He
is just—”

My phone starting ringing and Char lifted
an eyebrow as I looked at her in panic.

“Where is your phone?” she asked.

“I don’t know, in my room?”

The phone kept ringing.

She tilted her head. “Well, aren’t you
gonna get it?”

I shook my head vehemently. “I’m scared.”

“Of what?”

The damn phone stopped ringing and started
back up again.

“It could be Dylan. I can’t deal with him
right now. God knows what he’ll say. When we were kids, he didn’t like me
running around Jason that much so he sure as hell won’t be happy about those
photos if he sees them.”

“What if it’s Jason?” she asked.

That was even worse. “Well, if it’s him,
what if he’s angry?”

“At you?” She frowned.

“Doesn’t matter at who.”

Thrusting her mug at me, she rose up.
“You’re being ridiculous.”

Both mugs in my hand, I yelled after her.
“Char, don’t look! I don’t want to know. Please.”

“Too late,” she said. Keeping her eyes on
me, she leaned against the door frame and answered my phone.

“Hi, Jason. No, I’m Olive’s friend,
Charlotte.”

Making a sad face at her, I shook my head
and whispered, “I’m not here. Out! Out! I’m gone. Say I vanished.”

Charlotte rolled her eyes. “Uh huh. Yes,
she is right here. Of course. Take care of yourself.”

I groaned loudly.

She dropped the phone next to me and
grabbed her mug from my hand.

“I’m gonna go and try to sleep this
headache off. Thanks for the tea. Talk to you later.”

“Traitor,” I announced. “The minute you
trust someone, they turn into a traitor. All of you people are traitors!”

She closed her door without a second
glance.

Sighing, I steeled myself and reached for
my phone.

“Hello?”

“Who is the traitor?” Jason asked in an
amused tone.

“All my friends,” I replied tiredly. I
closed my eyes, letting my heart do its own thing and flutter at the sound of
his soft yet still rumbly voice.

He chuckled. “How are you doing, Olive?”

“Still breathing, so that’s something.”

“You weren’t
that
drunk yesterday.
Still got a hangover?”

“No, no, I’m fine. It’s nothing, really.
I’m just having trouble writing.”

“Hmmm. Did you see the photos? Is that why
you can’t write?”