Chapter Thirteen

OLIVIA YANKED ARTI by the elbow and steered her toward the pharmacy section. “No, no, no. We’re not going anywhere near the jewelry. It took me an hour to calm you down the last time.”

“This crap is an insult to jewelry!”

“I know, mass-produced trinkets ruin the livelihoods of real artists.”

“Stop pandering!” Arti shoved her sideways, hard enough she had to dodge a skin cream display. “Why are we at Target anyway?”

“You wanted the Ellie lowdown, and I need to shop while Ben is at Jamal’s.” Olivia tossed a bottle of ibuprofen into the cart. “Zariah and I have a firm ‘no one deals with them alone for more than two hours’ pact, and her husband’s pulling the weekend shift.”

“But there’s a cute wine bar down the block!”

The back wheel of the cart locked up as they turned the corner. Olivia kicked it loose. “And when was the last time we met at a wine bar?”

“Exactly my point!”

“You’re the one with the hot date. Otherwise, you could’ve had wine at my place later.”

“Which reminds me.” Arti threw a box of condoms at her.

Olivia plucked them out of midair and dropped them in the cart. “You’re still buying these? If you can spring for the IUD, couldn’t the guy scrounge some condoms?”

“I do not use any form of protection that has been scrounged. A woman should always take responsibility for her own safe sex.”

“And if the guy isn’t willing to do the same?”

“Then he may not be long-term material. But I’ve had a dry spell since George, and I’m horny. Besides, the men I’m dating these days focus on their Viagra prescription.”

“File that under things I don’t have to worry about.”

Arti rattled the cart. “Are you going to fill me in on last night or what?”

“It was good.”

“Good? You fucked a buxom woman ten years your junior, and you lead with good?”

A woman passing the other direction glared at them. Olivia waved a casual apology. Decades with Arti had numbed her to public embarrassment.

Arti slapped her hand down. “I need more. Let’s start with this morning. Any panic?”

The resistance rushed from Olivia along with her sigh. This tug of war was as old as their friendship. While the subjects changed, the end result never did. “Nope. I opened my eyes and saw her, and it was like she was supposed to be there.” Nothing about this morning mirrored her first time with Jen. Sex with Ellie had completed a circle they’d been drawing for weeks. She and Jen— It was like being woken from a deep sleep by a bucket of water, stimulating and disorienting all at once.

“What about the night before?”

“I was nervous.” The swift departure of her confidence had surprised her as much as Ellie.

“Why? This slow build was your plan all along.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t appreciate how much falling into bed with Jen saved me from thinking.”

“Well, if you need saving from something, it’s thinking.”

“What do you mean?”

“Please.” Arti braced herself on the cart, halting their progress. “You think about everything. Ahead of time. All the time.”

“I didn’t think about these, about warning her.” Olivia brushed her scars, the fabric of her shirt soft against them.

Arti’s brusque expression melted into sympathy. “Since Jen avoided them, you worried how Ellie might respond.”

“Jen didn’t avoid them. Her hands would land there when we—”

“But she never asked about them.”

The package of bagels was in Olivia’s hand before she realized it wasn’t Ben’s favorite brand, and she stuffed it back on the shelf. Her scars were the one aspect of the accident that asserted itself as a presence, rather than an absence. Most of her loss came in the form of negative space, the painful emptiness of what used to be, but the scars were a three-dimensional reality she couldn’t ignore. They tugged when she reached for something high. Water from the shower ran in strange zigzags along their fractured path. The only person who’d seen them, before Jen, was Arti. Even her mom, in the hospital, left the room when they changed her bandages, too raw from the recent loss of her husband to face the damage that had nearly stolen her daughter.

“What was Jen supposed to say?” Olivia finally spotted the bag she wanted and dropped it in the cart. “She’s going to deal with my tragic scarring right out of the gate?”

“I’m guessing Ellie did.”

That memory held a sweet pain. Ellie’s gentle kisses had made the scars feel nearly as raw and tender as after the accident, but her attention also loosened the band they cinched around Olivia’s ribs. “It’s not the same. Jen was dealing with her own—”

“Enough with Jen already!”

Olivia turned at the end of an aisle and crashed into a pallet, which pinned her between a trailing Arti and a cooler of frozen dinners. The motion sensor kicked on and bathed them in a sterile LED wash.

Arti took a firm step closer. “I can tell from how squirmy you are it was great last night, but instead of focusing on that, you circle back to an unsuccessful eight-month, off-and-on relationship. Do you know why?”

“Because you compare people, relationships—”

“Bullshit. Ellie already blows Jen out of the water. There’s nothing to compare. But you do, these last few months, because it’s safe. Much safer than comparing Ellie to the only woman who will ever matter.”

Olivia whipped the cart around and pushed by Arti, wheeling past a blurry scroll of condiments, the shelves closing in. She crossed a broader aisle and abandoned her cart to pace among the racks of dresses.

“In here.” Arti tossed her into a fitting room.

Olivia flinched from her own tense expression in the mirror and backed into a chattering mass of hangers. Her gaze crawled the narrow walls until finally soaring to the ceiling tiles, far away and floating. The vertical column of open space gave her room to breathe, and the stricture in her body eased. She had been relaxed with Ellie, so different from Jen, but now…

Another memory from last night surfaced—Ellie’s warm, open-mouthed kiss as she came. Longing knifed Olivia’s chest. It was one of her favorite things. Sophia had done it, their first time together, and somehow Ellie thought to do the same. That single kiss had stripped her bare.

“What is it? Tell me.” Arti took her hands in a tight grip.

“Ellie did something only Sophia has ever done.” Olivia collapsed onto the small red stool. “It was wonderful. And so painful. The emotions…I thought sex with Jen moved me past that.”

“I hate to get all Hallmark on you, but I think you and Ellie made love last night. Sex with Jen was just sex. Which I’m a big fan of, myself, but for you…it sounds like you finally got what you wanted.” Arti crouched low to meet her eyes. “From now on, consider Jen your preflight check. Flipping switches, making sure everything’s in working order, ready to fly. Good to have, but it’s not the same as lifting your wheels off the ground.”

A laugh punched through, despite the somber emotions choking her. “Where are you getting this terrible analogy?”

“The guy I’m seeing tonight is a pilot. He’s chatty about his job. I’m hoping he’ll shut up once I’m sitting on his face.”

“And how do you know Ellie isn’t another test run?”

“I don’t. But I like the way you are since you’ve started seeing her. So stop using Jen as a screen for any conflict you’re feeling about Sophia. I know you. I know it’s still in there. For now, focus on Ellie. You don’t need to solve it all at once.”

She sagged against the cool mirror and lifted her eyes to the distant ceiling again. “Focus on Ellie. Okay. I can do that.”