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Ollie sat on the opposite end of the taxi, drumming his fingers over his bouncing knee. It was three in the afternoon, UK time, and we haven’t even made it back to the other airport yet to retrieve his car before we’d entered into our first disagreement.
“I don’t know why you’re still upset with me. You had my back, then as soon as we boarded the plane, I get this.” My hand waved back and forth, indicating the distance between us. He couldn’t be farther away, gaze fixated out the back window.
“Of course, I had your back, Mia. I’ll always have your back. But you were wrong.”
“I don’t understand.” The douche back in customs had been an ass, asking ridiculous questions. Okay, perhaps I’d given sarcastic remarks and didn’t answer each one of his perverted questions accordingly, but it still didn’t give him the right. “If I was so wrong, then why stick up for me?”
Ollie dragged in a slow breath, stretched out his fingers, and let it go quickly. “I’ll defend you, right or wrong, all day long in front of others, but as soon as we’re behind closed doors, I get to tell you how ridiculous you were being. We could’ve missed our flight. They didn’t have to hold the plane for us, and all he asked was what you did with that,” he snapped his finger, “bullet thing.”
“It’s a vibrator, Ollie.”
“You said, ‘bomb.’”
“I said it was the bomb.” Purposely.
Ollie’s eyes squinted as if I had insulted him. “And why do you have a vibrator in your backpack anyway?”
“You were rushing me. I just grabbed stuff from my box and shoved it in my backpack.” Including my camera, film, pictures …
Ollie held out his palm and waved his fingers. “Give it to me.”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t need it anymore.”
“What if you’re out doing something, and I need a release?”
Ollie eyed the rearview mirror, where the taxi driver quickly pulled his amusing gaze away. “Since when have I ever not taken care of you?” Ollie raised a brow. He had a point, and his fingers flicked again. Groaning, I pulled the backpack over my lap and unzipped before shoving my hand into the front pocket and dropped the silver bullet into Ollie’s palm. He manually rolled down the window and tossed it out into the busy afternoon traffic. “A fucking vibrator,” he shook his head, laughing incredulously, “I’ll lick circles around that thing.”
“You just made a hitchhiker very happy,” I pointed out. “I bet someone will pick it up and name it Wilson, keep it forever.”
“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” Ollie muttered under his breath. He was cute when he was mad, knee bouncing, fingers drumming, shaking his head. I slid across the backseat beside him, moving my hand across his stretched thighs. Heat radiated from the thin material of his slacks, and I clenched my thighs together to ease the effect he had on me. Ollie rolled his neck and faced me, and forgiving eyes hit mine. “Come here,” he said through an exhale, then lifted his arm and dropped it around my shoulder, pulling me closer.
We arrived at the other airport two hours later. Ollie paid the driver, and the fee was hefty, but we couldn’t get a sooner flight into the same airport he’d left his car at.
“What do you think?” he asked, tapping the hood of the black station wagon blanketed in dust.
I paused with my backpack slung over my shoulder and tilted my head. “It’s … old.”
Ollie rubbed the hood lovingly and whispered to the car’s side mirror, “Don’t listen to her, darling. She doesn’t mean it.” Rolling my eyes with a smile, I took a step forward as Ollie opened the back door and tossed our bags inside. “You don’t have to come to the prison, Mia. I’ll be fine. I can get you a room, and you can relax for a little bit.” Ollie’s hands moved over my hips, and he pulled me between his spread legs as he fell back against the car. I was exhausted. He was exhausted. But neither one of us let it show. “Oscar was horrible to you. I’m not expecting anything of you.”
Oscar had been horrible to me. He’d drugged me, beat me, almost raped me, but he was Ollie’s brother, and if he needed me at his side, I’d be there because that’s what we did. We were always there for each other no matter what. I lifted my eyes to meet Ollie’s, and his brow peaked, searching my face for an answer. “Tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it.”
Ollie’s dimple appeared, and his fingers tugged on the bottom hem of the hoodie I was wearing over my dress until I was flush against him. Not the best fashion sense, but I’d never been into fashion. “Get out of these clothes,” he whispered. “Take a proper bubble bath, order room service, get well rested. That’s what I want you to do.”
“Then that’s what I’ll do.”
It killed me to drop off Mia at the Holiday I I didn’t have time to change, still wearing the white button-down shirt and slacks and a tiredness weighing heavy in my eyes. The heated car idled in the car park of High Down Prison, windows fogging as I waited to muster enough courage to leave the cabin of the station wagon. Rain beat over the hood, and a slew of black umbrellas marched across the lawn off in the distance, following a casket. My fingers curled around the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white. I had the means to claim Oscar’s body and give him a proper burial at a cemetery, but he’d made his bed, it was time he’d slept in it. Once upon a time, Oscar had saved me from my mum. He looked out for me, protected me. And if it weren’t for him, I’d probably be dead. For that, I owed him my presence and closure. I cut the engine, withdrew from the warm space of the car, and walked toward the huddled circle in the isolated burial ground of the prison. I stood off to the side. Rain dripped from the ends of my hair, down the bridge of my nose, and off my lashes. The white dress shirt clung to my cold skin, and I kept my head down as the priest spoke a few words, his voice drowned out by the rain. The majority of the people who stood around the gravesite paid by the country were that of High Down employees and guards, but when the priest dismissed everyone, I caught a glimpse of raggedy blonde hair spilling from under a tilted umbrella. The woman was being consoled by, none other than, Dex Sullivan. I tore my eyes away and commanded my feet to move, but they were cemented to the soggy ground as the two approached. “Oliver,” she stated, surprised. I looked up and squinted through the rain. “Mum.” Black irises stared back at me, laying in the center of puffiness, bleakness, and redness. The years haven’t been good to her, and her twitching fingers clung to Dex’s trench coat as a source of stability. “How dare you show up here,” she spat, the frayed ends of her damaged hair flying against the wind. She seemed so small against Dex, who remained quiet at her side with a deceiving frown marring his face. “You have a lot of nerve.” “Nice to see you too, Mum.” “Don’t you do that. Don’t pretend like I didn’t just bury my son,” she gritted through clenched teeth and tears. Dex slid his arm around her waist and pulled her closer to his side. I flexed my jaw at how easily she rested against the man who helped conspire Oscar’s death. Dex was probably still fucking her too, anything to get under my skin. “You know, that should’ve been you. I wished it was you, Oliver,” she cried out, mourning the loss of her firstborn. The one she’d understood. The one she could relate to—the son who was just as sick as her and didn’t make her feel bad about it.