Olivia’s frenemy Jocelyn is dating a guy who works as a sound tech at EastWest, which is how Olivia and Kit wind up at a hipster pickleball court in Santa Monica late Friday night celebrating the album release of a tatted-up underwear model from Michigan who’s currently reinventing himself in the ethical reggaeton space. Olivia is nibbling a vegan grilled cheez the size of a postage stamp and wondering about the feasibility of doing something in music, or at the very least music videos—do people even still make music videos anymore? Olivia hadn’t thought so, but they’re projecting the ethical reggaetonist’s latest offering onto the wall at this very moment, so she guesses she was wrong—when all at once she catches sight of a familiar face across the room. “Shit,” she says, gesturing with her chin in the direction of the bar, “isn’t that Nick?”
“Lilly’s Nick?” Kit asks distractedly, barely looking up from her phone. She’s been seeing this new girl from Eagle Rock who makes bespoke lampshades or some other unbearably boring thing, and the two of them have been texting nonstop all night long.
Olivia scowls. “He’s not Lilly’s anything,” she corrects. “They hung out for like two seconds literally last year.” She pops the rest of the grilled cheez into her mouth, wrinkling her nose at the plasticky aftertaste. He looks different from all the other guys in here in his plaid button-down and work boots, she notices, unfashionable in a purposeful way. She wonders how he got on the list. “She said they didn’t even bang.”
“Oh, well, in that case,” Kit says, in the voice of someone who thinks she’s a lot more than just fourteen months shy of being the youngest. “I mean, now that it’s January and all.” She finally deigns to look up from her phone, lifting one thick, drawn-on eyebrow. “I guess he’s fair game.”
“Whatever.” Olivia hates when Kit does this, acts like she’s so much more mature and sophisticated just because she’s had a marriage annulled and recently announced on Instagram that she’s pansexual. “I’m going to get a drink.”
She orders herself a mojito and waits for him to come over and say hello to her, but he doesn’t, so finally, after two cocktails and twenty minutes wasted listening to Jocelyn’s long, convoluted story about how she’s thinking of doing a threesome with the sound guy and a drummer he knows with a Prince Albert piercing, Olivia fluffs her hair and throws her shoulders back and marches over to where Nick is leaning against the bar. He’s drinking a whiskey with no ice cubes; there’s a cigarette tucked behind his ear. Olivia can kind of already hear what Lilly would say about that—that it’s a prop, stored there specifically for semiotics or whatever the fuck—but still there’s something about it that kind of does it for her, that feels romantic in an old-fashioned James Dean kind of way.
James Dean was manufactured by executives at a lunch meeting, same as the rest of us, Imaginary Lilly reminds her. Olivia drains the rest of her drink.
“I thought that was you,” she says, reaching out and putting one hand on his bicep. His skin is very warm through his shirt.
Nick turns to look at her, recognition taking a moment to settle over his features; his smile, when it comes, is equal parts lazy and pleased. “Olivia Benedetto,” he says, ducking his head to kiss her on both cheeks. Something about the gesture feels very adult to her—the faint scruff on his face, maybe, the way it rasps against her skin—and Olivia barely manages not to shiver. She’s been in the public eye at least in part since she was ten years old, and if she’s being honest there’s a part of her that still secretly feels like she’s still in elementary school most of the time: running as fast as she can after her sisters, Hey, guys, wait for me! Never mind the fact that by the time she was finally old enough to go anywhere the rest of them had decided the party was over, that none of them ever wanted to do anything fun ever again. It sucks, to come of age in a declining empire. It sucks to feel like you missed out on all the best parts.
“What are you doing here?” Olivia asks now—popping one hip just slightly, her tongue finding the straw in her mostly-empty glass. It’s not against the law to have a good time, she reminds herself, ignoring the skeptical burn of Kit’s gaze on her from the other side of the party. It’s not against the law to talk to a friend.
Nick’s lips twist. “A buddy of mine owns this place,” he explains, with the casual shrug of a guy who’s got a lot of buddies. “Asked if I wanted to tag along.” He glances over her shoulder, just for a second, and Olivia can’t quite read the expression on his face. “Are all you guys here?”
“Just me,” she says, hoping she sounds confident in the enough-ness of it. Hoping she sounds confident enough in herself. “Well, and Kit.”
“That tracks,” Nick says thoughtfully. “Somehow I can’t imagine your sister is big into ethical reggaeton.”
Olivia shakes her head, slow and teasing. “Lucky for you,” she tells him—liking the tiny cleft in his chin and the way his hair is a little grown over his collar, liking that he didn’t mention Lilly’s name. Lilly is their father’s favorite, maybe, but she doesn’t have a claim on the whole entire universe. And judging by the way he’s looking at Olivia right now, that warm flicker of interest—she doesn’t have a claim on Nick, either. “I’m nothing like my sister.”
Nick doesn’t answer for a moment, reaches for his glass on the bar. “You know,” he replies, and there’s a split-second flash of his tongue behind his teeth as he grins at her, “I am starting to get that impression.”