“The outline,” she clarified. “Those sweats are like a push-up bra for your dick. Shoves it in everyone’s face without revealing anything. It’s a cock tease—literally. And when you wear them while cooking—” She licked her lips, both at the mental image and because her lips were bone-dry. “I kinda wanna jump you.”
Not kinda. Definitely. But she didn’t want to scare him away. Sammy was the only thing keeping her sane during these long, feverish eternities where night bled into day and the specter of death hung in the air.
Olivia was theteensiestbit dramatic when she was sick.
Sammy fell silent, and Olivia cracked her eyes open to assure herself he was still there. He was—hair mussed, mouth soft, eyes speculative. Her guardian angel. She wanted him by her side, always.
“That’s good to know,” he finally murmured.
He asked no more questions after that, and Olivia drifted off into sleep again. This time, instead of nightmares about a mountain of paperwork chasing her through the halls of PHC or dreams of Charmander lighting candles with its fire breath in her future home, her brain dug up a memory she’d buried deep in the recesses of her mind.
“Sammy, it’s not what you think!” Olivia followed him into the living room of their New York apartment rental, her panicked heart crashing against her ribcage repeatedly in an attempt to escape—or punish her. Like it, too, was too disgusted to stay around her any longer. “You don’t know the whole story.”
He gripped the edges of the back of the couch, his shoulders taut, his lean frame vibrating with pent-up anger. “What’s the whole story, Olivia?” His voice was colder than she’d ever heard it.
Dread coiled in her stomach.
Sammy wasn’t cold. He was warm and gregarious and the kindest person she knew—and he deserved so much better than her.
A giant lump formed in her throat. “I only said that to get my mom off my back. I didn’t mean it.”
He turned, and Olivia flinched at the hurt in his eyes.
“No? So you’re going to introduce me to your mom when she visits? How will you explain that one? ‘Oh, just kidding, Mom, I didn’t actually break up with him because I think he’s a loser who’s throwing away his future by choosing to be a baker instead of a fucking NASA scientist.”
Tears stung her eyes. “I was obviously lying! You don’t know my mom. She’s...I’m not ready for you to meet her, okay? She’s critical and judgmental, and she drives everyone I care about away. You have no idea how harsh she can be. I don’t want her to hurt you.”
Olivia had fucked up by telling Eleanor about Sammy. Technically, she’d told Alina in an ill-advised attempt at sisterly bonding, but she should’ve known her sister would tell their mom. After Eleanor learned Olivia was shacking up with a boy in New York, she’d called immediately and grilled her about said boy’s qualifications. That was the exact word she’d used: “qualifications,” like they were talking about a job candidate instead of a boyfriend.
Olivia should’ve lied about Sammy turning down his NASA job offer and choosing to open his own bakery instead, but she’d been so shocked by Eleanor’s announcement that she was flying to NYC to meet him that she’d panicked. She’d told her mother that she’d already broken up with him becauseof courseshe wouldn’t date a wannabe baker; she only wanted a successful boyfriend, thank you very much. The words had tasted like poison on her tongue, and she’d felt sick saying them, but they did the trick—Eleanor had been mollified.
Olivia just hadn’t expected Sammy to come home early and overhear everything she’d said.
Frost iced over the look of betrayal in his eyes. “You don’t have to worry about her hurting me. You’re doing that well enough on your own.”
Olivia whimpered and turned in her sleep. Her heart was pounding again—from her stomach bug or her nightmare memory, she didn’t know.
Pain lanced her chest, mixed with a glint of anger. Yes, she’d said hurtful things, and that was on her. But she meant it when she said she hadn’t, well, meant it. She and Sammy had been dating for almost a year. Did he really think she was such a vile person? Was he not going to listen to her or give her the benefit of the doubt?
“I didn’t handle things with my mom well, and I should’ve never lied or said what I said. But youknowme. I’m not that type of girl. I would never hurt you like that.”
“Do I?” Sammy spoke with lethal softness. “Do I really know you’re not that type of girl?”
He might as well have punched her in the stomach. She felt like she got all the wind knocked out of her, and her heart beat a jagged rhythm in her chest. “What?”
A muscle ticked beneath his eye. “You’ve made it clear that you don’t approve of me trying to start a bakery. When I first told you, you stared at me like I had two heads. It’s been weeks, and you’ve never said—not once—that you supported my decision. Every time I talk about it, you change the subject. The other day, when I went to your company picnic and your boss asked me what my plans were after college? I told him, and you fuckingflinched.Like you were embarrassed by me. You never hesitated to tell everyone about my NASA internship, but you’re real freakin’ quiet now. So tell me, Olivia, how do I know you’re not that type of girl?”
The room spun. Olivia opened her mouth, then closed it, because Sammy wasn’t wrong. Shedidn’tthink the bakery was a good idea. He was an incredible baker, but he was also an incredible mathematician. Success for the latter was all but guaranteed; hell, NASA was practically begging him to accept their job offer. But opening a bakery? It was 50/50 at best. The hours, the stress, the uncertainty of starting something from the ground up right out of college—it didn’t make sense. If things went south, Sammy could end up buried in debt. Olivia loved him too much to let that happen or to encourage him to throw his future away without trying to convince him otherwise.
As for being embarrassed by him...a tiny, horrible part of her was. And she hated herself for it. Perhaps if Olivia hadn’t grown up in an environment where so much emphasis was placed on the “right” degrees and “right” job titles, she’d have felt differently. But all her life, the people around her had drilled into her the importance of career success—her family, her professors, her classmates and colleagues. “Baker” did not fall under the list of acceptable professions for boyfriends, “aspiring baker” even less so. It was hard to overcome lifelong conditioning, even for someone she loved.
Her silence caused a bitter, mocking smile to spread across Sammy’s face. “That’s what I thought.”
“I just want what’s best for you,” she said weakly. “Sammy, this is yourfuture.If a bakery is something you really want to do, at least wait until you have a financial cushion or some kind of backup plan. Get a few years’ experience in another field so you can fall back on it in case the bakery doesn’t pan out. Don’t jump into it right out of college.”
Sadness eclipsed his face. “Some things make sense in the head, others make sense in the heart. If there’s one thing this summer taught me, it’s that I would be miserable spending the next few years in a job I don’t love. I would wake up every day hating my life. Knowing that, would you still ask me to wait?”
“Maybe it’s justthisjob you don’t like,” she argued. “It doesn’t mean you’ll hate every math and engineering job out there.”