I grin, sensing the small hole in her defenses and offer my hand. “By the way, it’s nice to officially meet you.”
She stares at my fingers for a couple of seconds before slipping her hand into mine.
“So, where are you really from?” I ask.
“Texas, just outside of Austin. Where are you from?”
“What makes you think I’m not from here?”
“Your accent’s thicker than mine.”
I shake my head, a laugh hitting my lips. “Only to you. No one even assumes I’m not from here. But I’m from Jersey. It’s nice to meet you, by the way.”
She nods, raising dark eyebrows as her lips curl with amusement. “Are you done shaking my hand?”
“I was just about to ask you the same question.”
“Oh, yeah?”
I nod, pulling my hand free. “I thought you were offering me help since I look like a gimp.”
She chuckles, her cheeks pulling high.
“I even found you a Brighton Tee,” Rose says, appearing with a bunched shirt in one hand and the kitten in the other. “Also, we should probably get some necessities because Junior here just defiled a dress shirt someone left.”
Olivia shakes her head. “This is a bad idea.”
4
Olivia
“Maybe,” Rose says with a smile. “But, you know me and bad ideas.”
Unfortunately, I do. My best friend is a magnet to bad ideas. It’s why we spent our homecoming dance senior year walking back to the school after her date, Mason, drank too much and still got behind the wheel. I’m pretty sure we defied death that night as she cheered and whooped for the first five minutes and then threatened him with bodily harm for the next ten until he finally pulled over with the option for us to walk. It also was the reason we trespassed and spent a sleepless night at the North Head Lighthouse in Ilwaco. For some reason—or possibly many reasons—Rose is attracted to the idea of bad and dangerous.
“You can use my room or the bathroom or just give us some eye candy,” Rose says, handing the shirt to Arlo.
He laughs easily—comfortably. “I keep telling you, those rules of yours are futile.” He winks, his smile turning seductive, his eyes smoldering. This guy seems to have a has a sex switch that he flips on in a second. His flirtatious attitude has them both laughing as he hobbles toward my bathroom.
“Who is this guy?” I whisper. “I’ve never seen him before, and now he’s here twice in one day.”
Rose shakes her head. “It’s not what you’re thinking. He’s cool.”
“Define cool.”
She rolls her eyes, her smile teasing at my modesty. I refrain from the safety discussion and instead plunge into the territory I know will make her listen—her independence.
“Seriously, Rose, this is not a good idea. If we get caught having this cat, we’re going to get kicked out. Can you imagine trying to find an apartment mid-semester? Basically impossible. We’d end up living in a van down by the river all because some guy you know from a class asked you to look after a cat. And not even his cat! A cat he literally just found.”
I see the doubt spark in her eyes, but then she glances down at the kitten asleep in her crossed arms. She pulls in a deep breath through her nose. “We’ll make it work. Do you think it’s old enough to eat food? It’s so tiny.”
“I know nothing about cats,” I tell her, already reaching for my phone to research cats because, like all of Rose’s bad ideas, I always follow her down the rabbit hole.
Arlo emerges from the bathroom with the red Brighton tee taut over his shoulders and biceps. His forearms are fully exposed. I swear his silver watch winks at me as it catches the light, knowing I admired the view this morning. I turn away as Rose laughs at the sight. “Your Hulk shoulders don’t exactly fit.”
He shrugs. “One day, I’ll tell you a story about my buddy losing his pants to a game of strip poker and the shorts he had to go home in. This is a million times better than those.”
Rose flashes a smile. “Are you hungry? We ordered too much, and Olivia won’t eat leftovers.”
His eyes round as he looks at me. “You’re failing college if you don’t eat leftovers. Pizza is always better on day two.”
“It’s soggy.”
He shakes his head. “You can’t put it in the fridge. You’ve got to leave it in the pizza box on the counter.”
“To increase my chances of getting food poisoning? No thank you.”
Arlo grins, and t’s similar to the smile Rose gives me when she thinks I’m being a prude—borderline taunting and neighbors to patronizing.
“So, interesting fact,” Rose says. “You actually know Olivia’s dad.”
Arlo’s brows go up. “Oh, yeah?”
Rose nods. “Her dad’s Coach Harris.”
His brows fall the opposite direction, bunching as he looks at me, his lips faintly parted.
“Arlo’s a running back for Brighton,” she explains to me.
I can feel my guard erecting. Each stone carefully balanced to prevent any holes or cracks. The last thing I want to discuss tonight—or ever—is if I can get my dad to help someone on the football team out.
“I’ve never seen you,” he says. “Your mom and brothers have been to games and events…” the skin between his eyes bunches as he works to recognize me. “But, I’ve definitely not seen you before…”
“She’s not my mom.” My voice is curt and likely rude, shifting the mood and the conversation.
Arlo’s gray eyes study me, hearing my reaction and likely the fact I snapped rather than responded to the actual question.
“We’re not really football fans,” Rose explains. “Olivia hates being cold, and I don’t know what’s going on half the time. Plus, cleat chasers aren’t my scene. Those girls get possessive and crazy.”
He grins.
“We should eat,” Rose says, fading toward the kitchen in an attempt to move things back to easy.
“I never say no to food,” he says.
Rose laughs like she finds this endearing or maybe enchanting. Arlo grins in return, comfortable in this scenario. Often, I can’t decipher if my best friend is flirting or not—ax that—often, I can’t tell if my best friend is intentionally flirting or not because flirting comes as easily to Rose as breathing. She grabs a plate from the cupboard with one hand, still holding the sleeping cat in the other.
“What are we going to do about feeding it? And it’s going to need to go to the bathroom again,” I point out.
Rose hands the plate to Arlo, her green eyes focusing on me. “I saw some people train their cats to use the toilet on YouTube.”
“And I’ve seen alien abductions on YouTube. Are we really going to cite this as a credible source?” I ask.
“It’s true. Remember that guy Beau?” Rose’s voice rises in volume as her smile grows in size.
“No.” I met Rose in our junior year of high school, and after two weeks, I stopped trying to remember the names of guys she talked about when I quickly realized how brief their shelf life was.