“Yes, I’m here for Olive.”
“You’re not seeing her,” Dylan said as he took another step toward me.
The bastard was just itching to get his ass kicked.
“Dylan, that’s enough,” Logan cut him off again. “Simmer down.” Turning to me, he said, “Let’s have a talk before you see her, is that okay?”
“Of course,” I agreed as we both sat down on the porch steps. Wisely, Dylan chose to stand next to the door instead of getting in my face. If he thought he even had a chance of stopping me from going in to get Olive, he was in for a surprise.
I would fuck him up without a second thought.
“Olive is not saying much, so you’ll have to be the one to tell me exactly what’s going on here, Jason. I want to hear it in your own words, not some speech your people prepared for you.”
I frowned. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know. I won’t hide anything from you.”
“That’s not the vibe I got from Olive. I think she was trying to share as little as possible with us.”
I shook my head and rubbed my forehead. “That was before.”
“And now? Did something change?”
“Yes.” I rubbed my forehead some more. “Yes, everything changed.”
“You married Olive so it would look good for you, is that true?”
I flinched. Jesus! An interrogation was not what I needed.
“Yes.” I sighed. “Yes, my publicist thought it would save my career after everything I’d done. When I saw Olive and acted like…and then everyone else saw us together…”
I didn’t finish my sentence.
“I see. And now? What is different now?”
I lifted my head and looked into his eyes. I couldn’t decide if he was angry with me or not, but I answered honestly. “I fell in love with your daughter, sir.” Looking over my shoulder, I gave Dylan a hard look. “That’s what changed.”
“And you think my daughter loves you too?”
Breaking eye contact with Dylan, I faced forward again. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I’m hoping that the answer is yes.”
“So why is she here? We saw the news. If you are in love with her like you say you are, what happened?”
I told him everything that had happened the night before, except the part where my dick was roaring to get into his daughter’s tight little body in public, of course. That I kept to myself.
The more I talked and explained everything—not just that my drink had been spiked, but everything that had happened between Olive and me—the more Dylan’s stance relaxed and he got closer to us.
After I talked for I don’t even know how long, Logan smiled, patted my shoulder, and rose up from the steps.
“I’ll leave you two friends to catch up. Olive is sleeping, but you can stay here tonight and talk to her in the morning, Jason. I’m sure Emily would love to see you, too.”
Stopping next to Dylan, he added, “She isn’t a kid any more Dylan. She is old enough to make up her own mind about Jason. Don’t interfere.”
When he got inside and closed the door, Dylan took his dad’s spot.
“So you really love her, huh? Have you told her that?” he asked, sounding tired.
I already felt dead on my feet.
“How nice of you to believe me now,” I said a little pointedly as I glared at him. Fuck, I was too damn tired to fight with him if he decided to be a jerk about this. “Give me a break. I just realized it today. I spent my entire day trying to find out where she was hiding.”
“You sound surprised every time you say it, and you keep saying it over and over.”
“If you have a problem with me being in love with her, keep her out of it. I don’t want you to say anything that will upset her,” I grinded out, looking at the house across the street. I wondered if Mr. and Mrs. Kealey still lived there.
“You’re protecting my sister from me?”
“Yes,” I said simply, giving him a hard glare. “You never knew how to keep your mouth shut around her. I won’t let you say something stupid and break her heart. I don’t care if you are her brother or not.”
He cocked an eyebrow and gave me a look I couldn’t even begin to name.
“Huh,” he grunted.
We were silent for several moments.
“What are you doing in San Francisco, anyway?” I asked when the silence became too heavy. I wanted to go in and talk to Olive, but Logan had said she was sleeping. Was she okay? Was she angry? Sad? Disappointed in me?
“My wife’s best friend had a baby. We’re visiting for the weekend.”
That made sense.
More silence.
“Did you feel anything for her when we were kids?” Dylan asked.
I had asked myself the same question over and over again, but I still didn’t have an answer.
“I don’t know,” I said with a sigh. “I don’t think so. I mean she was my Olive, too, you know. I was your friend, but I enjoyed being around her as much as I enjoyed being around your sorry ass.” That made him chuckle, so I relaxed more. “But, no. I wouldn’t call it love. She was too young. Yeah, maybe she had a crush on me, but it was probably because I was the only boy that was around. I don’t think it was anything big.”
“You would think so,” he said as he kicked a small stone with his foot.
“What does that mean?”
He shook his head and rubbed his face. “It was more than just a crush, man. I was constantly warning her away from you without being too obvious about it. Do you remember a girl texting you, just before your…before you had to move?”
I thought about it, but I couldn’t remember anything specific.
“Someone from our class?”
“No. A random girl.”
“How the hell am I supposed to remember that?”
“It was Olive.”
“What?” I turned my head to look at him so fast that I heard something snap. Then I chuckled. “I think I would know if Olive texted me. I had her number.”
Another annoying sigh. “I think she borrowed the phone from her friend or something. My point is, she was trying to talk to you. Even back then, she was taking risks just to be close to you. I have no idea what her plan was with texting you, but—”
“And you know this how, again?”
“I’m trying to tell you, you idiot. You told me you were texting with a girl, then when you were downstairs I went into Olive’s room to check on her and found a phone in her bed. Since it wasn’t her own phone, I poked around, and imagine my surprise when I found your texts.”
“What did you do, Dylan?”
“What do you think I did? I took your phone and texted her.”
Chapter Thirty-Three Olive
When I first realized that I’d fallen asleep, there was still daylight outside and I could hear Dylan’s raised voice coming from downstairs. Ignoring him, I pulled the covers over my head and resumed my sleeping. I didn’t want to do anything else anyway.
The second time, I woke up because I was suffocating under the covers and it was still daylight. Switching to a lighter cover, I lost some of my clothes, too.
The third and fourth times were because I was uncomfortable in my own skin.
Then I started tossing and turning too much. I simply hated everything. At least it was finally dark outside.
The fifth time… The fifth time I woke up because someone was getting in bed with me.
I didn’t open my eyes, but I knew it was Jason; I’d know his scent anywhere. My body tensed, but I tried not to make it too obvious and tried even harder to keep my breathing under control.
Dylan was pissed off enough for the entire family; he wouldn’t have let him in the house, let alone climb up in bed with me, so what was he doing here? I didn’t have to wait too long for an answer.
“Your mom fixed me the couch, but I sneaked up to your room,” Jason whispered. “We have to be quiet so your idiot brother doesn’t bust in here trying to protect my wife from me.” He paused. “You have no idea how weird it is to be back here, Olive, but to be sneaking into your room like this…for some reason that doesn’t feel weird.”