To Love Jason Thorn (8 page)

“What do you mean?”

“Char said you skipped a class today.”

“Yes,” I said slowly, wondering where he
was going with that. “I had a meeting.”

“Is that what’s important to you now?
Hanging around movie stars and squealing with Lucy?”

“I know one movie star, Marcus, only one, and
Jason insisting on giving me a ride home isn’t exactly hanging around a bunch
of movie stars. Like I said downstairs, I was seven years old when we met him, as
a family, not just me. He was barely eleven twelve himself. He was like a second
brother to me.”

I wondered how many times I would have to
lie with a straight face before the day would end. But it wasn’t exactly a lie,
was it? He did see me as his sister. It was me and my heart who had muddled the
waters in my own head, and all of that aside, I still cared what Marcus thought
of me.

Despite what Lucy and Char thought, for the
short year we were together, I’d been all in with Marcus. He was intelligent,
interested in me, confident in himself, and had a vision for his future—one I
wanted to be part of. Having a relationship with someone I already shared a house
with had been oddly exciting. And the sex? That was good too, especially when
we were sneaking around Char and Lucy.

It had felt like we were right for each
other until he decided to slowly tear me down and mold me into something I
wasn’t ever going to be.

He quirked his brow. “Are you sure? You
didn’t look like someone who had seen her long lost brother to me down there.”

“Why do you do this to me?” I asked,
genuinely curious.

He tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

“Question my every move. Undermine my
decisions. Make me feel like I couldn’t possibly do anything right in your
eyes. I published a book, Marcus. People are actually reading it. A
lot
of people are reading it. A fucking movie studio wants to option my book. Why
can’t you be happy with me? For me? Why are you bringing me down like this?”

“That’s not what I’m doing, Liv,” he said,
coming to sit down next to me. He lifted his hand as if he was about to grip my
thigh, but then let it rest on the bed, next to my knee. “You lost so much
weight while you were trying to write this book. Hell, sometimes you didn’t
even have time to shower before your classes, let alone hang out with me. Our
relationship ended
because
of this book, because you were more in love
with your fictional characters than you were with me. Even when you are not
writing, you are lost in your dreams.”

“That’s not why it ended, Marcus. I’d been
writing this book for years, long before you, but you already knew that. When
we started something, you
knew
how much it meant to me, finishing this
book.”

“Maybe that’s what you want to believe, but
it’s not what happened, Liv. I thought once you published, you would take
things easier, patch things up between us, but now I can see that it’s changing
you for the worse.”

Shocked, I responded, “I’ve skipped one
single class. How could it possibly have changed me, Marcus? And even if I
was
skipping classes left and right, you also know that I’m enough on top of my classes
that I’m graduating early.” Neither one of us said anything for a short time.
Then I softened my voice and tried again. “Did I unknowingly do something that
would make you think like this? If that’s the case, if I did something or said
something that hurt you, I’m sorry. No matter what happened between us, you
know I care about you.”

“I cared about you too, Livy.”

Past tense.

He rose from his seat and stopped by the
door. “When you decide to come back to reality, I really hope it won’t be
already too late.”

“I’m sorry to hear you think like this,
Marcus. Truly, I am.”

When I didn’t say what he was obviously
expecting me to say, he nodded curtly and left me alone in my room.

Feeling slightly angry at him for somehow
managing to pull me down when I had every right to feel excited about my
accomplishment, I jumped out of my bed, pulled the drapes shut, and turned off
the lights.

When I was comfortably snuggled under my
covers, I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the fact that Marcus still had
enough power over me to get under my skin.

Soon enough, I fell into a fitful sleep
where I was still a little girl who dreamed and wished for things she could
never reach.

***

When a door slammed shut with enough force
to wake the dead, I startled awake with a gasp. Catching my breath, I had to
blink a few times to get my bearings and realize that I was in Los Angeles and
not in my childhood home. Patting the bed in search of my phone, I gave up when
I couldn’t find it and instead got up to check on Lucy.

“Lucy,” I whispered and knocked on her door
quietly. When there was no answer, I opened it and saw she was already deep in
sleep. Closing her door, I padded down to the kitchen to grab a water bottle
and get back to my room before I came face to face with Marcus, just in case he
was the one who had slammed his door.

When I was safely back in my room, I turned
on the lights and finally found my lost phone down on the floor by the bed.

Seeing the two notifications for new text
messages from Jason, my heart decided it was time to have a heart attack. I
hugged the phone to my chest, took a deep breath, and exhaled. Wanting to be
alone in the dark, I turned off the lights again and got back in bed. My phone was
still tightly clasped in my hands.

Just like it was years and years ago,
I thought.

Now that there was nobody around and I was
all alone with my thoughts, everything that had happened that day seemed like a
dream. Seeing Jason’s name light up my screen was doing inexpressible things to
my heart.

Before I could work myself into
hyperventilation, I opened his texts.

Jason
: I can see why you didn’t want me to read this.

Oh shit!

Jason: Are you awake?

My heart stuttered to an almost stop.

Does he hate it?

He hates it
.

The last text had been sent fifteen minutes
ago.

I contemplated saying,
Yes, I’m awake
,
but decided against it. We had seen each other, talked to each other enough for
a day. I didn’t want him to see me as the old Olive who trailed after him to
get his attention.

If he wanted to say how much he hated my book,
tomorrow was just as good as any day.

Someone poked my cheek. “Wakey wakey,
sleepyhead. It’s time to get up.”

“Go away,” I murmured, digging my head
deeper into my pillow.

“It’s almost nine o’clock,” whined Lucy above
me. “You have to get up.”

I opened my eyes and saw Lucy’s upturned face
looming over me with an overly bright smile. Quickly, I closed my eyes shut.

“You’re like those annoying house cats we
always watch on Facebook,” I mumbled. “Why do I have to get up? I don’t have a
class today.”

“Because we need to get out and celebrate
yesterday’s meeting. And I’m not a cat—I’m offended, woman. I’m a cute puppy
everyone wants to take home.”

Unable to stop myself, I yawned again and
reluctantly opened my eyes. Thankfully, she was no longer inches away from my
face.

“What time is it?”

“Nine.”

“We’re celebrating at nine in the morning?
Whose brilliant idea was that? I’m gonna say no. Come back at a reasonable
hour.”

“Come on, Olive.” She pulled at my covers.
“You don’t have a class, but I do. So get up, get up, get up.”

“Jesus, you are like a five-year-old.”

“If you don’t want me to dump a bucket of
cold water on you, you’ll get up, get yourself together, and be by the door in
less than half an hour.”

“Fine,” I snapped as I swung my legs down
and pushed at her shoulder. “Get out of my way.”

She clapped her hands. “That’s the spirit I
was looking for!”

In twenty minutes,
I
was all ready
to go out, but neither Lucy nor Char were ready.

“I’m about to go out and celebrate on my
own,” I yelled, standing by the front door.

“I’m coming!” Lucy yelled at the same
moment Char opened her door and slipped out of her room.

“You have a class, too, Char?” I asked,
noticing the big bundle of books she was carrying.

“Unfortunately, yes. Then I have another
study session with the girls.”

“You sure are working hard lately. Is there
anything I can help with?” Char was a shy and sweet blonde who was an English
major like me, but unlike me, she had no interest in creative writing.

“That’s nice of you to ask with everything
you’ve got going on. I might take you up on that offer when finals are getting
closer.”

“Of course. Actually, it would help me a
lot, too.” As much as I hated giving in to Marcus’ words, I didn’t want him to
be right about what he said, especially when I was so close to graduating
early.

“Your book is still doing amazing on the
rankings!” A jumping and screaming Lucy came barreling toward me.

“Here we go again,” Char muttered with a
smile in her voice as I braced myself for impact.

Two seconds later, Lucy’s arms were around
my neck and we were jumping up and down, celebrating her excitement over my
book for the…thousandth time? If it wasn’t already the thousandth, we were surely
getting pretty close.

The truth was I was staying away from checking
reviews and rankings and all that stuff because I was scared shitless that all
of it would tumble down on me at any moment. Lucy was like a bloodhound anyway;
she had refreshed those pages almost every hour, on the hour ever since the book
had gone up on Amazon two months before. My fear was also the reason I was
trying to lock down my excitement about the possibility of seeing Isaac and
Evie on the big screen. Once Dream Catch Studios
provided me with the
contract—if they were serious about it—and I signed it…then I would either sit
down and cry for a few days—happy tears, of course—or I would pull a Lucy and
go crazy all over the town—naturally, with her by my side.

“Still in the top hundred?” I asked, the
slight tinge of hope in my voice more than clear.

She flicked her hair over her shoulder.
“Try top five, woman. You’re still killing it.”

I’d stayed as the number one bestselling
book on more than a few platforms for almost six weeks, and I was still in the
top five after two months? I gave in to the urge and completed another jumping
session with Lucy, not noticing Marcus leaning against the doorframe and
watching us.

Then we were out of there to celebrate with
lattes and croissants.

It was well worth every damn calorie that
went straight to our hips.

***

It was almost four o’clock when Jason’s
name flashed on the screen of my phone. I was alone, sitting in our living
room, staring blankly at an empty word document, trying to figure out which
direction my mind and heart wanted to lead me this time around. Needless to
say, neither of them was speaking to me at that moment.

Urging my heart to stop fluttering around
like a wild bird in my chest, I took a deep breath and answered the call—at the
same time wondering if it was weird of me to get so worked up over a simple
phone call.

“Hi.”

“Hey, little one. I’m not interrupting
anything, am I?”

“Nope. How can I help you?” I asked before
tipping my water bottle against my lips to wet my suddenly parched throat.

“So formal.” He clucked, and I could almost
see him shaking his head as a small smile stretched across his face. “Soon
enough, I’ll win you over. You already loved me once; I’ll make it happen
again.”

Sputtering water all over the cheap Ikea
coffee table that was stationed in front of the couch, I coughed until I could
speak without gulping breaths.

“What?” I wheezed out when what I wanted to
say was,
Oh, Jason, I’m still head over heels for you, maybe even more so
.

“What’s going on, Olive? Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah,” I replied in a rough whisper.
“Just water down the wrong pipe. I’m fine.”

“Well, okay. You scared me; I thought
someone was strangling you.”

“Yeah, nothing that exciting.”

“Being strangled is exciting to you?”

“Not for me, but definitely for some
people. Don’t knock it ’til you try it and all that.”

He seemed to think about it for a second,
then cleared his throat before speaking again. “Ok, we are not going anywhere
near that. You shouldn’t even know about stuff like that.” I did a ladylike
snort but he ignored me. “You never answered my texts last night.”

“Yeah, I didn’t want to bother you.” I got
up and went to stand next to the window, counting the cars that passed on our
street.

“I was the one who texted you; why would I
be bothered when you actually went ahead and answered them?”

“It was late. I just thought you would be
occupied, or out. Why did you say you were calling again?”

“You’re terrible at trying to change the
subject smoothly, little one. From now on, you can answer my texts whenever. I
forgot to tell you yesterday, but please make sure no one else gets my number
from your phone, all right? It’s pure hell when somebody gets a hold of it.”

“If you are worried about my friends, don’t
be. Lucy is the only one who knows my password and she would never do anything
like that. She might’ve looked a little crazy with all the jumping and
screaming yesterday, but she isn’t someone who would steal your number and then
bother you.” I paused and thought about it for a second. “However, she might
grope you if she ever sees you again so you can worry about that if you want to,
but that’s as far as she would go. Still, if you are regretting giving me your
number, I can delete it right now.”

“This trying to get rid of me thing is a
huge blow to my ego, little one. I hope you’ll stop before you do some
permanent damage.”

“I didn’t mean to sound…well, mean, I just
don’t want you to worry about it.”

Feeling too wired to just stand in one
place, I started pacing the living room from wall to wall. Why wasn’t he just
telling me what he thought of the book? Even if he’d read a few pages, surely
he would have an opinion on it.

“I’m not worrying, and the reason I’m calling
right now is because I wanted to let you know that I talked to Keith, the guy from
the movie studio, and they will send the optioning agreement to my agent
instead of directly to you.”

I stopped my pacing. “What? Why would they
do that?”

“Because I don’t want them to take
advantage of you. Tom will go over the contract for us then we’ll meet at my
house so you can sign it if you are happy with everything they are offering.
Just let me know when you’ll be free and I’ll arrange it. It needs to be in the
next few days because I have to leave for Canada on Friday. I’ll be out of town
for a few months.”

“Oh,” I mumbled, mostly to myself. That
little piece of news settled down in the pit of my stomach, so I bit down on my
thumb and tried to come up with the right thing to say. “This is too much,
Jason. Despite what I said yesterday, I’m sure you don’t have this kind of time
on your hands to babysit your old best friend’s little sister.”

He coughed and roughly cursed on the other
end of the line.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Yeah. Sorry. Look, this isn’t about Dylan.
This is about you. Wouldn’t you let Dylan help you if he was in my place? At
the very least, you can see me as a stand-in for your brother. I won’t let
anyone take advantage of your work, Olive. You’ll get what you deserve and
nothing less.”

What he’d just said hurled me back to my
heartbroken fifteen-year-old self again. It looked like no matter how much I
grew up, he would never see me as anything but a sister.

I dumbly nodded and realized he couldn’t see
me through the phone so I forced my mouth to open and give him the words.

“Thank you, Jason. I appreciate it,” I
said, in a dull tone. “Uh, I have to go right now. My friends are waiting for
me, but I’ll text you to let you know which days I’ll be free. You can arrange
the time according to your schedule. I don’t want to be a bigger burden then I
already am.”

“Little one,” he said, softening his tone.
“You couldn’t be a burden to me even if you tried.”

“Thank you. Goodbye Jason.”

Before he could say anything else, I ended
the call then powered off my phone completely.

It was a childish and stupid move, but I
didn’t want to risk hearing his voice again on the off chance he decided to
call me back while I was busy feeling sorry for myself.

Later that night, after I had a long talk
with my mom, I learned that she had asked Jason to look after me. Since he was
being cast as Isaac, she had thought we would be working together. I had to
explain to her that I wouldn’t be involved in the filming process.

After doing some research on the subject,
I’d already learned that no director wanted the author to get in the way of how
he wanted to shape the movie. He was the big dog and it would mean nothing to
him whether the author was happy with the process or not.

Details of the movie aside, I wasn’t sure
how I should feel about Jason helping me out as a favor to my family.

I spent some time thinking about what I
should do…okay, maybe not a lot of time. After all, who in their right mind
would pass up the chance of spending more time with Jason Thorn in his own
house? I mean…come on. Even though I wasn’t as brave as Lucy and wouldn’t grope
him at first contact, there would be no stopping me from ogling his body and
that damn dimple of his.

I was done feeling sorry for myself.

“Bring it on, Jason Thorn,” I muttered with
a renewed confidence in myself. After all those years, I’d become the master of
loving him from far away. It would be stupid of me not to take advantage of our
situation.

Reaching for my phone, I sent him a quick
text letting him know that I had no classes on Thursday.

After I went through my nightly routine and
returned to my room, his answering text was sitting pretty in my inbox.

Jason: I’ll pick you up at 6 PM and we’ll wait
for Tom at my house. Until he can join us, please try not to bruise my ego more
than you already have, little one.

I fell asleep with the biggest grin on my
face.