Chapter 17

OLIVER

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After fifteen minutes with Rick in RockWater Mall, I quickly realised why he actually called me over for shopping.

We were in a clothing store, and turns out, his pants had a small cut along his thighs. It’s hardly a cut enough to warrant buying another pair of pants.

When I asked him about it, he kept joking about how everyone would see his junk even with that cut.

I had smiled, “Vanessa might enjoy it.”

Rick then proceeded to change subjects faster than relationships were at evading me. Anytime I asked him about Vanessa, his eyes would get flighty and his hands would get jittery before changing subjects again.

He threaded his fingers over a pair of pants in the woman’s section. “Maddie would love this.”

Maddie was his ex. They’d been dating for roughly six months before Rick found her texting a bunch of his soccer friends suggestive messages. A fight ensued. Glasses were thrown. Hearts were broken. Rick absolutely refused to look at another girl for two months until he met Vanessa in a Subway in New York.

Yep. Their love was founded in the subway.

Anyways, he had stopped mentioning Maddie since the dinosaur age. Why was he mentioning her nowadays?

I guess I must have been eyeing him with a weird look because he looked at me funny before clearing his throat.

“How’s things with Lionel?”

I stiffened. Nice one. I couldn’t have been more proud.”What do you mean?”

“He’s basically being avoiding me since last week during practice. Acting all weird. Did something happen between you two?”

I looked at a waistline of a pair of denim nearby and remembered how his hands felt revolting on my waist.

“Can we not talk about that?”

“Infact, everytime I utter your name, his face pales. Literally becomes milk.”

“Like how your face becomes when I mention Vanessa.” I said, raising an eyebrow. “Did you guys have a fight?”

Rick clammed up. I could see it in his eyes that he was fighting a lot of emotions. Not that I cared why because those two have been fighting a lot recently evidenced by the fact that he was training a lot more than normal. Taking days out to walk. Not mentioning Vanessa as frequently. Mentioning his ex a lot more frequently…

Actually, I did care. I’m gonna call Vanessa for some tea in a restaurant one of these days. Pun intended.

After a moment, Rick sighed. “We’re not fighting per se. She just blew up three days ago because she found a picture of Maddie wearing my jersey on my phone.”

“I swear it was a pic from before I started dating Vanessa,” he added hastily after I began glaring at him.

I crossed my hands. “And why was the pic on your phone in the first place? People tend to, you know, delete pictures of their ex because, you know, they’re your ex.”

Rick rubbed his head. “I forgot.”

This was so bizarre. Rick was never the cheating type. He’d shower you with gifts, romance you with cheesy poems and basically worship the ground you walk on if you happened to be dating him.

I couldn’t jump to conclusions that he was cheating. I needed Vanessa’s side to make that decision.

We moved to the men’s section where Rick scrounged for some more pants before settling on some black cotton ones. “These look good right?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not a fashion expert.”

” Well, you’re no help. I should have called Casey.”

“Well, I should have told you to call him before I came but I forgot, ” I gasped. “Oh wait. I did.”

Rick rolled his eyes. “You’re insufferable.”

He moved to another pair. This time they were bell-bottom jeans. He would look horrible in them but before I could tell him that, he uttered a question that almost took my breath away. “Is my brother hot to you?”

What the actual hell? Where on earth did that question come from?

I stood completely still, not daring to change my current expression. Rick was excellent at reading people.

“Nope. He’s average to me.”

“Really?”

I suddenly remembered what I had been doing before he called me. Was Rick a mind reader? There’s no way he knew I had been stalking Jude on social media a few hours ago.

Rick ventured on. “Did something happen between you two after that night we played Dare or Scare?”

Keep a straight face, keep a straight face.

“What makes you think that?”

“For starters, after that dare you both started acting jittery especially when I mention your names in front of each of you. I mean, normally when I mention Jude’s name you act like I mentioned a useless word like discombobulate because you don’t like him-“

“Wait,” I made a cut it gesture, “What made you think I don’t like him? Did Casey tell you?”

“Come on Ollie I’m not stupid. It’s so clear you guys don’t like each other. Or at the very least Jude doesn’t care about you. I know he makes fun of you by calling you a wimp, sissy, girlish, a person whose body got an update to be a girl but only got processed to 75%-“

“Ok I think I get it.” My jaw ticked. It almost felt like he enjoyed that.

“So I have heard.” That bastard betrayed a smirk before continuing, “but anyways, after that night a lot changed.”

You got that right, I muttered indignantly.

“You haven’t come to my house in weeks. Are you avoiding him? I mean more than usual.”

What I thought;
Gee, Rick what do you think? Maybe I am because your brother who I had no slight attraction to and absolutely disliked now is so hot and attractive to me that I basically want to do to him everything I want to do to Manny Jacinto and kiss every part of his body- and I mean every part and even his presence makes my body temperature spike but in the right way and I have been thinking about his gorgeous hazel eyes that could possibly cure cancer and-

What I said;
“I don’t find Jude hot. And nothing weird is happening. That night occurred. We played games. That’s it. No underlying feelings.”

“Mmmmh.” Was all he said which sounded like the most unconvinced ‘mmmh’ I had ever heard.

He held up a pair of skinny jeans. “Maybe I should wear these.” He said, knowing how much I hate skinny jeans. “I’d look more fuckable.”

Normally, I’d have laughed or smacked him for that dumb joke. Hell I would have even gone for the jugular and said something like, “like how Maddie looks nowadays.”

But his words echoed and I was soon hearing Lionel’s words in the bathroom, telling me how good I looked in the skinny jeans I wore. My heart pounded and I turned from Rick, my back angled to him.

My knees shook. Why couldn’t I forget his touch? I hated it. Hated why I couldn’t forget it. Despised how disgusting his fingers felt on me. I could literally feel him inching his fingers towards my groin, trying to unbutton my pants.

I heard Rick move towards me, his voice full of concern. “Ollie. Ollie what’s wrong…”

When his hand touched my arm, I flinched. The room started to spin.

Rick’s eyes were full of confusion. I’d never reacted that way to him. He tried reaching out to me but I stepped back again.

“I need some air.”

Rick’s jaw clenched. He nodded, a look of understanding crossing his face. “I’ll be at the Chinese restaurant across the mall if you need me.”

I rushed out of the store, barely making my way out of the mall. There was a fairly large park at the back and the fresh breeze was just what I needed.

My fingers scratched my arms and legs. I knew it was imaginary but Lionel’s smell seemed to wrap around me. I wanted nothing more than to scrub it away. Then and there.

The park had no one there which was such a relief. I collapsed hastily on one of the lounge chairs, hearing a slight crunch, as I clutched my chest, counting from 1 to 100. My breathing began to ease.

Roughly ten minutes after that, I was basically back to normal more or less but my mind was still trying to wrap around the fact I had my first anxiety attack.

Yayyy.

“Could you get off that seat, you just crushed the bag of chips I put there.” A voice came up from behind me.

A voice I was unfortunately so familar with because my mind kept replaying it in my head and reminding me how deep and reverberating it sounded. I swear I think I’m orgasming right now on that bag of chips.

I turned and Jude was standing behind my chair, looking down on me with a poker face. He was wearing a cream, light hoodie and black shorts. His hair was beginning to grow out which was odd since he had a buzz cut not too long ago. I don’t know whether that made him hotter or not but he was definitely not ugly.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him.

“I came here with Rick. Both our training ended at the same time so we stopped here on our way back home.” He glanced at the mall before asking, “What are you doing here?”

“Rick called me to help him choose some pants.”

“Oh.”

The next few minutes turned awkward. None of us knew what to say next. I was half expecting him to start calling me insults about how unmanly I was, like he normally did, but he was staring at my face intently with that same neutral face.

I thought maybe its because I was still sitting on his bag of chips so I stood and muttered an apology. But he was still giving me that look.

“Is something wrong?”

No answer.

A few minutes later, i was starting to grow tired of this. “I think I’m gonna go. Rick’s waiting for me.”

“Wait,” he said as I was about to turn.

I looked at him again, waiting as patiently as he had said.

“Can I kiss you?”

Author’s note:
This was a longer chapter than usual lol.