She doubted him on a regular basis.
Why the hell was she in love with him?
He was scattered and forgetful and inconsiderate and messy.
“You need to fix this, Oliver,” Aiden finally said. “We can talk to her. Try to offer her more money or beg her or whatever, but I don’t think it will matter unless it’s coming from you.”
“Really?” Ollie asked, his annoyance with Piper falling for him spilling over. “Why would it matter if it comes from me? Either she falls out of love with me or I say ‘yeah, sure, let’s be in love and live happily ever after.’ Those are the only ways to fix this.”
“So say that,” Dax said.
Ollie looked at his friend. “What?”
“Say that to her.”
Dax was the most laid-back person Ollie had ever met. Ollie hadn’t even realized how much he needed laid-back in his life until he’d met Dax. Dax had given him space, literally, in their dorm room to be messy and unorganized. He’d also given him figurative space to be unorganized and scattered. Oliver forgetting things and misplacing things had never bothered Dax. He rolled with things and living with him had felt like taking a huge, deep breath of refreshing, restoring air. A breath of fresh air had taken on true meaning for Oliver when he’d met Dax.
Dax Marshall had saved him. More than Dax would ever know.
So when Dax got serious, Oliver paid attention. Everyone did.
He looked serious right now.
“Ollie,” Dax said, meeting his eyes directly. “If you’re not in love with Piper, you’re a complete moron. And I know that’s not true. That woman is amazing. And she’s good for you.”
Ollie couldn’t argue with any of that.
“It doesn’t always work that way,” Grant pointed out. “There’s loving someone and there’s being in love with someone. There has to be a spark. A chemistry.”
Ollie looked across the table. Grant was studying him.
A spark. Chemistry.
He remembered every single thing about kissing Piper last night. Every touch, every inch of skin, every sigh and moan.
The spark wasn’t a problem. But he’d felt it for the first time last night. Or he’d let himself feel it for the first time. Or something.
Still… not a problem.
“There’s chemistry,” he finally said simply.
“Then there you go,” Dax said. “Go get her.”
The conference room door opened and they all looked over hopefully.
Clearly everyone thought it was possible that Piper had changed her mind.
Except Ollie. He knew it wouldn’t be Piper. And he rubbed his hand over the painful spot on the left side of his chest.
“Morning, everyone,” Whitney greeted as she swept into the room. She stopped by Cam’s chair and leaned over to kiss him, but then continued to her usual chair beside Aiden.
She took her chair, opened her folder, clicked her pen, and looked up.
She glanced around the table. “What’s going on?”
“Piper quit,” Cam said.
Whitney immediately focused on Ollie. “What did you do?”
He sighed.
“She’s in love with him,” Dax summarized. “Oh, and they kissed. But she threw him out before they had sex.” Dax looked at Ollie again. “Wait, right? That’s what you made it sound like.”
Ollie nodded. He was feeling a really weird mix of miserable and horny.
Dax looked back at Whitney. “Yeah, she got tired of talking to him before there was sex. We were just telling him that he should go sweep her off her feet and marry her this afternoon.”
Whitney had her phone pulled out and her thumbs were flying over the screen. Clearly, she was texting Piper. The women had become friends since the guys had taken over Hot Cakes. The two had a lot in common in their love for organization and hard work. Piper had confidence in spades where Whitney had needed to grow into hers a bit, but Ollie knew they’d been out on a few girls’ nights.
He wondered if they’d talked about him. Then figured, if so, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to know what had been said.
“I can’t believe you kissed and she didn’t tell me,” Whitney said, almost to herself.
“Hey, Whit,” Cam said.
She looked up at her boyfriend. “Yeah?”
“Maybe some advice? Like how Ollie can get her to come back?”
Whitney looked from Cam to Ollie. And frowned. “Oh.”
“Just oh?” Ollie asked.
“Well…” She looked at Cam again and winced. “Not sure he can.”
Ollie had been expecting that, but it stabbed to hear Whitney confirm it.
“There’s nothing?” Aiden said. “An apology?”
“An apology for being him?” Whitney asked. She glanced at Ollie. “No offense.”
“None taken,” he said dryly.
“She’s just…” Whitney sighed. “I don’t know how much to say.”
“Say it,” Ollie said. “Whatever it is.”
“She is in love with you,” Whitney said, lifting her shoulder. “And she said she knew at some point there would be a time when she couldn’t deal with being near you every day and not having more.”
Ollie felt that painful area in his chest twinge.
“I’m not that great,” he said.
No one at the table argued.
It wasn’t that he thought they thought he was a bad person or a loser, but he wasn’t exactly charming or anything. He wasn’t particularly thoughtful or sweet. Lots of twelve-year-old boys thought he was pretty close to God because of Warriors, but even that he knew had a lot more to do with Dax and his online and conference personality than Oliver. Ollie’s name was on the game as the creator, and that gave him a certain amount of notoriety. But, like all of the good things in his life, Dax had even given him that. Without Dax, all of the Warriors characters and stories would still just be scribblings in Oliver’s notebooks.
“She said she’d come back if she gets over me. I guess we’ll just wait for that to happen.” Surely that wouldn’t take long.
There had to be about a dozen better-than-him guys just waiting to ask her out.
As long as none of them were Drew fucking Ryan.
“Oookay,” Whitney said slowly.
She didn’t sound convinced. But she and Piper were new friends. It was possible that she didn’t actually know how easy it would be for Piper to get over him.
“You’re not going to go tell her you’re in love with her, then?” Aiden asked.
He sounded resigned.
“Piper can do better than me,” Ollie said.
Again, no arguments from around the table. They all looked worried, but no one jumped in to say, you’re the perfect man for Piper.
Exactly. He would make Piper crazy. Not in a good way. Crazy like he had his mother.
“You need to go after her and either fall in love with her yourself or make her fall out of love with you,” Grant decided.
“I’m not going after her for either of those things,” Ollie said, feeling very grumpy. Dammit. This wasn’t his fault. He’d just been minding his own business, being his usual fuck-up self, not kissing her, not noticing her breasts and eyes and legs—much—and she’d gone and fallen in love with him anyway. And she’d kissed him. This was not his fault. He hadn’t done anything wrong.