“About that. Can we go somewhere private for a second?” I say to Emmanuel.
“Of course.” I start to lead him to a guest bedroom.
“Olivia.” My stomach flutters again. I put my hand over it, enjoying the feeling, and turn back around to face the man who caused it.
“I’ll be right back,” I whisper to him.
I shut the door behind me when I get inside the room. “I was hoping we’d get some time alone,” he says, handing me a box that he produces from his back pocket. “Happy birthday.”
“Emmanuel, no... I can’t–” He pops open the lid to show me two diamond studs. I can tell they’re diamonds by the way they sparkle. I smile briefly at the sentiment, but close the box. “I don’t have pierced ears,” I explain. “But thank you.”
He takes my head in his hands and angles my face away to check my ears. “That’s easy enough to remedy,” he says softly into my right one. “It doesn’t hurt any worse than this–”
“No,” I say, pushing him away before he kisses it or bites it or whatever the hell he was about to do. “I don’t want my ears pierced. I don’t want the earrings. And I don’t want to... I don’t want to see you like that anymore.”
“Like what?” he asks.
“Like, romantically. Look, this doesn’t have to be weird. I like hanging out with you, so can we just stick to being friends?”
“What changed? That dickwad out there?”
“There’s no need to stoop to name calling. We’re all adults here, right?”
“So it is him?”
“Jon and I are getting back together, Emmanuel. I couldn’t love anyone like I love him.”
“Who said anything about love?” he asks, taking my chin in his hand.
I jerk away and walk backwards to the door, throwing it open. Jon, Finn and Andrew are all just outside the door. Not wanting to alarm anyone, I keep my composure even though the way he just handled me evoked genuine fear. “I did, remember?” I ask him, forcing a smile. “Can we just try to enjoy the party?”
After glaring at me for a few seconds, Emmanuel finally answers. “Sure.” He passes briskly by me and the three guys. I think he’s going to leave, but instead, he grabs a plate, loads it up with food, and returns to the living room. Clara makes room for him on the couch next to her, where he’d been sitting before I came in.
“Charmer,” Finn says to me.
“He reminds me of Brandon,” Andrew says, referring to his older brother. He kind of does. It’s the cockiness, I think.
“Him, Liv?” Jon asks. “Are you in classes with him?”
“He’s the TA in my photography class.”
“Does he know where you live? At school?”
“Yeah,” I tell him.
He shakes his head. “I’m not sure I like him.”
“Would you like anyone who showed interest in me?”
“I don’t mind Finn so much,” he says, half-joking. Finn looks up after stuffing two olives in his mouth and shrugs. “Anyway. Should we pour some champagne?”
“Will you have some with me?” I ask him.
“I’ll have a glass, sure. I feel like we have something good to celebrate.” He turns to the rest of the room. “Who wants to make a toast to the birthday girl?” Jon holds up both bottles, which brings everyone to their feet and into the kitchen with the rest of us.
When we realize there won’t be enough to go around, Clara, Andrew and Emmanuel go across the hall to find something else to drink. Lexi and Kyle pass out sodas to Camille and her boyfriend, then pour glasses for themselves. Having not said a proper hello to my former best friend, I move next to her, giving her a hug. She squeezes me tightly, telling me she likes my hair.
“Thanks for coming.”
“Now,” Jon says, holding out a glass for me. I take it, waiting to hear what he’s going to say. “Welcome to adulthood, Olivia. I hope it’s as good as your childhood.” Everyone laughs a little. “And I hope to be there with you every step of the way.”
I grin as a few of the girls make audible swooning noises. “Thank you. I hope so, too.”
Clara and Andrew return with pilsner glasses of beer, and I start to wonder if my friend decided to leave after all.
“Happy birthday, Livvy,” Lexi says to me, holding up her beverage. “And happy adoption day! I’m so happy Jacks and Emi brought you into this family, because I know my life has been better, knowing you.”
“Fourteen years...” I say, biting my lip as I smile. I wonder what Isaiah Grate would do if he knew his daughter was eighteen today... that he’d officially missed out on an entire childhood. How would any parent handle that news? I glance at Jon, who’s searching my eyes and sees the confusion in them immediately. He makes his way through the crowd of friends and pulls me into him, rubbing my arm. I swipe at the tear I couldn’t hold back.
As an awkward silence settles over the room, Emmanuel comes back in holding a tumbler with ice and a darker liquid. I’m guessing it’s scotch, because it reminds me of my father’s drinks. “That faggot bartender is a stingy little bitch,” he says with a laugh before he takes a sip.
I thought the silence from before was awkward. We all look around, disbelieving what we heard.
“What did you say?” I ask him.
“I said that bartender’s stingy.”
“Did you call my uncle a faggot? Do people still really say that word?” I ask him as my voice gets more elevated and animated.
“That guy’s your uncle?” he says with a laugh.
“Neanderthals,” Jon says, answering my question and ignoring Emmanuel’s. “Neanderthals still say it.”
Emmanuel takes one step towards Jon, but Finn stops him by putting his hand on his chest and taking the glass away from him. He hands it to Clara, as everyone starts to back away from him. “What, are you one of them, too?” Emmanuel asks Finn. “Get your hand off of me.”
“In your dreams,” Finn says, pushing him backwards.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Jon says, stepping around everyone and in between them.
“You back off, buddy,” Emmanuel says to him as he points his finger into Jon’s chest. Jon swats it away. “You think you’ve got her now, but she’ll come back to me. They all do.”
“Will you, Olivia?” Jon doesn’t take his eyes off of Emmanuel.
“Ooh, Olivia,” Emmanuel chides.
“Never,” I tell him, putting my palm over his right shoulder where his tattoo is. All of the tension leaves Jon’s body at my touch. He glances over at me. Emmanuel takes advantage of the distraction and pushes Jon away, hard. He stumbles into Rachelle and Maddie, but Finn and Kyle are quick to rush Emmanuel, pushing him toward the door to leave. Lexi’s level-headed husband does all the talking, telling him he can’t stay in the loft, explaining that he’s offended everyone in the room with his derogatory slurs.
“We don’t tolerate that here,” he says as he holds the door open for him. “We love our uncle. We fully support his way of life.” Kyle keeps an eye on Emmanuel until the elevator doors have shut. He turns to talk to me. “He can’t get back up to this floor without a special key, right?”
Jon moves quickly to the intercom and presses the button as Kyle goes across the hall to talk to Matty.
“Yes, Miss Holland?”
Jon answers. “Francisco, the guy who’s coming down... he’s not a guest of this party. Can you see to it that he leaves the property?”
“I’m so sorry. Of course, sir.”
“Francisco?” I add.
“Yes?”
“We’re not expecting any more guests.”
“Yes, Miss Holland.”
“Thank you.”
“I can’t believe he said that,” Rachelle says. “What an idiot.”
“I’m a little shocked, too,” I admit. I honestly thought I knew him a little better than that. I never would have guessed him to be homophobic.
Matty and Kyle come across the hall. My uncle is laughing. “Did he really call me that?” h
e asks. We all answer him as he scratches his head. “Gotta admit, Liv, he kind of gave off a vibe of his own.”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought he was hitting on me.”
I shake my head. “He’s just very...” I swallow hard. “...sexual,” I say softly. Jon looks away from me after I say it.
“Well, maybe he’s bi,” my uncle suggests. He shrugs his shoulders and thanks us for standing up for him.
“We wouldn’t have it any other way, Matty,” Lexi says. Nolan comes across the hall with one more bottle of champagne, setting it on the island.
“Matt,” he says, “the kids don’t want us here.”
“We don’t mind,” Clara says.
“He’s just being polite,” Matty says. “We want to go back to our adult party. But enjoy the rest of the bubbly.” He winks at us before returning to his apartment with his boyfriend.
“Now photography’s going to be really weird,” I say to Jon.
“I want to know if he bothers you at all,” he says. “You’ll tell me?” I nod my head, smiling at him, and noticing that he doesn’t smile back.
For the rest of the evening, Jon remains quiet, and I just wish I had never said anything about Emmanuel being sexual. It seems to have set Jon off for some reason. He was much better before that.
Clara decides to stay at the loft with my roommates and me after all the other guests have left. They’ve found a period drama marathon on TV and are all settled in their pajamas, huddled around the smaller television by my studio as Jon and I begin the arduous task of cleaning up. Katrina had offered to help, but I really just wanted time alone with Jon.
“What’s wrong?” I ask him quietly, watching him load dishes in the dishwasher.
“Just thinking about you being with that guy... and watching how close you are with Finn, it just...”
“Wait, what?” I put down the plate I’d been holding, suddenly shaking. “What are you saying?”
“I know it’s my fault, Liv. I know. But it doesn’t make it any easier to accept that you went out with other guys. That Manny felt so comfortable around you that he kissed your shoulder like that. It was intimate. Did he do that often?”
“Once,” I tell him. “Once, at the end of our date, and I slipped inside my dorm. Without him. Do I need to apologize for that?”
“Don’t be mad, Liv. It’s confusing for me, that’s all. I love you, first and foremost. But there’s collateral damage, and I don’t think we can just go back to how it was.”
I love you, but... It’s not the way I’d wanted to hear it for the first time in months.
“I forgave you,” I say passionately, believing that both he and I thought what he had done was much worse. “I thought you forgave me, too.”
He ushers me to the dining room table, holding out a chair for me. He sits in the one to my right, holding my hand.
“I’m sorry, Liv. I’m sorry to make you feel like I don’t. But I don’t need to forgive you. I don’t think you would have done what you did had the circumstances been different. It was the perfect storm of situations that pushed you a little too far. I was angry and I was hurt... but I won’t hold a grudge and I won’t be unhappy. Not anymore. I want to be happy, and you have always brought me happiness.”
“Except that day,” I mumble, feeling bad all over again, even though I wanted this feeling to be behind me.
“It wasn’t even a day... or an hour, or even minutes. They were mere seconds. And in the greater scheme of life, Olivia, those seconds are minuscule to the rest of the time we have together. I can’t forget what happened, but I can remove my emotional response to it. You may have given him a kiss, but you never gave him your love.”
“You’ve always had that,” I tell him. “No matter who I dated. And you always will.”
“Since we shared that workstation at the art room, I knew you were special. I mean, the concept of a girlfriend today is very different from what it was when I was ten. This was more than I’d ever hoped for. I thought I’d get a few dates with you–I didn’t think I’d get actual squares on a calendar. I was thinking I’d get to take you out for dinner... maybe hold your hand. I never thought March twenty-fourth last spring would become ours. I never imagined that June thirteenth of last year could be mine and yours. I never thought today would belong to us, but it does. If we want it to, it does.”
“Jon,” I tell him, my throat getting tight. He kisses the back of my hand.
“And the idea of claiming an entire year’s worth of days–not once, but over and over again–excites me and challenges me. The fact that we’ll get a re-do of June first makes what happened seem a lot less significant.”
“I don’t even want you to remember that date,” I tell him honestly.
“I do. I just want to remember it for something else. And I will. We both will.”
I laugh lightly. “I hope so.”
“We will. Come here.” He stands up, pulling me up with him. “Can I kiss you again, Livvy?”
I tuck my fingers beneath the waist of his jeans and hold him next to me as I feel his soft lips touch mine tentatively. We kiss gently, but I want him to know that there’s nothing tentative about the way I feel. I wrap my arms around him, sliding my hands up the back of his shirt and pressing his muscles with my fingers as I initiate a deeper kiss. His touch ignites me fiercely. I remember with perfect clarity the way he’s made me feel in the past when we’ve been together. I want him to make me feel that way now.
“Olivia,” he says, barely able to speak my name as our lips still move in sync, as if they’ve memorized every motion and know exactly what comes next in a routine we haven’t practiced in months.
“Jon,” I breathe, finally breaking away. “Please don’t ever ask permission again, okay? All of my future kisses are yours. Take them whenever you need them... and trust me when I say that I need yours, too.”
“Okay,” he says tenderly with one more, soft, sweet kiss. “If I don’t leave now, you won’t get rid of me... and we’ll need to find somewhere else for your friends to stay.”
I blush, understanding what he means. “Okay.” I stand on my tiptoes to give him one more kiss. “Jon? Will you come have dinner with my family tomorrow night?”
“Uhhh...” he hesitates. “Your dad didn’t seem too excited to see me tonight.”
I shake my head. “He wasn’t.”
“Fair enough,” he says. “Gotta face the music eventually.”
“Yeah. Meet me here at three?”
“I’ll be here. I love you, Livvy. So much.” That’s the way I want to hear it.
“I love you,” I return, feeling my heart swell. He places his lips on my cheek before grabbing his coat and walking quietly out the door. All is quiet in the hallway, so I assume Matty’s party has ended, too.
CHAPTER 9
After breakfast with my roommates and Clara, I head back to the loft alone to take a nap. Although Jon called me when he got back to campus last night, we didn’t talk for long. The emotional day had taken a lot out of me.
I had invited him to stay at the loft with me next weekend. He was open to the idea of spending the time with me, but had already made plans with Frederick and two other classmates to go to Philadelphia for an extra-credit project in his Public Works class. He promised me he’d discuss any weekend plans with me first from now on, but also explained that there would be times that he wouldn’t be able to give me all of his time or attention between his work and school commitments. I had told him that I understood, and I made the same promise to him. I could tell that we were both going far out of our way to be accommodating and considerate of one another’s plans and feelings, and I was looking forward to a time that we’d be more comfortable being ourselves again. He didn’t need to protect my feelings, but I knew why he was doing it, because I felt compelled to do the same for him.
At three, Jon meets me in the lobby of my building so we can go to my parents’ house before we go out to an ea
rly dinner with my entire family. As he drives my car to their home just a few blocks across town, we talk about the evening that I’d gotten the concussion by driving my car into a parking garage wall. He was impressed that there were no signs of damage to the car at all. I admitted that I had to pay the deductible from my artwork’s earnings.
Trey is stunned to see Jon when we walk in the front door. My brother had gotten used to him being around, and even though Dad always played catch with him and practiced batting, Trey would whine about how he missed my boyfriend. Jon was admittedly good with him, and I can tell from the way that he greets my brother today that he missed him, as well. Although Trey could never take the place of Jon’s own brothers, Will and Max, I knew that my brother filled a void while his family was two thousand miles away.
After pouring everyone drinks, we all sit around the living room, talking.
“How was your summer?” my mom begins.
“It was good,” Jon says. His expression, though, shows the remorse he feels. “My mom is doing really well. She’s sober and has a job. She’s even signing up for some courses at a local community college next semester.”
“I guess you got a lot of time with Will and Max,” my dad comments.
“Probably not enough,” Jon says. “I had a job all summer, but I did hang out with them most nights and weekends. I was building a house... this magnificent stone mansion that overlooks the hills. It was incredible. Grueling, really, but such a great experience.”
I realize the manual labor is probably the source of his newly sculpted muscles.
“But my brothers and I had a great time. They both seem settled, but they were sad to see me go. I know they want to come back to the city.”
“It’s a hard place to leave,” my mom admits.
“How has school been?” Dad asks.
“Wow. Since school has started, it has been a whirlwind. I don’t know if you remember, but the architecture firm I worked with last spring won that bid with the city.”
“I read about that,” my father says. “You had a hand in that, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, and the second I got back to New York, they put me to work. In all my spare time, I’ve been revamping some designs I’d done and helping sketch some other schematics. So sleep has been a rarity. School’s been good, but I probably haven’t been giving it the attention it deserves.”