It wasn’t that she’d been clumsily oblivious to the glass, it was that she was so present in her own story that she hadn’t had time to notice the expensive crystal stemware that might be in the way.
She was less shitshow and more about living in high-definition, wide-awake, full-on color. Or something more poetic than that. But once I’d seen it, I couldn’t unsee it. It was in everything she did, and it was why everyone was drawn to her the way they were.
For example, after Liv spilled her wine, she didn’t wave over a waiter. No, Olivia pulled a pack of Kleenex out of her purse and tried cleaning the mess herself. When I’d shaken my head at her fruitless attempts, laughing in spite of myself at her ridiculousness, she’d erupted into giggles at her situation.
When the waiter saw what she was doing, he was clearly touched. Because among the crowd of affluent, entitled customers all demanding excellence, here was a laughing minx who apologized to him profusely while cleaning her own mess.
After that debacle we played a game where I told her the ridiculous memories I had of her from our childhood, and she corrected me on how wrong I was and how things actually had been. She snorted at one point, smacking my pointing finger as I accused her of being the one who stole my purple Cubs baseball hat when I was in the third grade, and I was charmed to a pathetic degree.
We were both laughing when my grandparents appeared next to the table.
“Colin!” My grandmother smiled down at me for half of a second before looking over at Liv. Dammit. I swallowed a curse and stood to hug her, not happy with the timing of this little reunion.
“Grandmother.” I immediately stood up. I kissed her cheek and said, “Nice to see you.”
My grandparents were nice people, but very traditional. Serious. If a dog had barked in the direction of my grandmother, my grandfather probably would’ve driven over it with his Mercedes and complained to the ma?tre d’ to clean up the menace in the parking lot.
“This is my friend Olivia Marshall.” I looked down at her smiling face and said, “Olivia, these are my grandparents.”
“Nice to meet you both.” She stood, and I saw my grandmother’s eyes roam over Livvie’s dirty sweater and the hole in her tights. She shook both of their hands and said to my granddad around a smile, “I see where Colin gets his great hair.”
My grandfather laughed and teased her about how the women in our family were responsible for turning it silver, and though my grandmother smiled, I could tell Olivia’s disheveled state had captured her full attention.
“We’ll let you get back to your dinner, dear.” She patted my hand and said, “Come by the house this week.”
“I will.”
As soon as they walked away, Olivia said out of the side of her mouth, “Your grandma definitely noticed the paw prints on my sweater.”
I shrugged and picked up the lowball glass of whiskey that reminded me I still owed Nick a bottle of scotch. “Who cares?”
Her eyebrows crinkled together. “You’re very mellow tonight, Beck.”
“Maybe it’s all the sex I’ve been getting lately. Makes me super chill.”
She rolled her eyes while laughing and pushed back her chair. “I’ll be right back, weirdo.”
After she disappeared our food came, and just as the waiter was filling her wineglass, my phone lit up.
It was Olivia.
Texting Wrong Number.
From the ladies’ room.
Olivia: I need to talk to you. Can I call you later?
I double-checked that my phone was on silent and put it in my pocket. What in the hell? She was out with me but thinking about Nick? Texting Nick from the bathroom?
I knew Mr. Wrong Number wasn’t an actual person and that Nick wasn’t attached to the number, but my gut burned at the thought of her wanting to talk to him.
Olivia
I rubbed my lips together and put the gloss back in my purse. I felt better now that I’d put Mr. Wrong Number on notice, and now I could go enjoy the rest of the night without feeling so guilty.
Because from the second Colin had grabbed my hand by the elevators at our building, I’d felt like a snake. Nothing was going on with Mr. Wrong Number, but it felt wrong to have a secret textual relationship that he didn’t know about.
The truth of the matter was that even though Colin might just be a “fun fling,” if he were doing the same thing—if he had his own Misdial who he talked to on the regular—well . . . that would not be okay with me.
Even though technically we’d never talked about exclusivity.