I wonder if that means he used to live here with someone else. Maybe a girlfriend. Then again, he only moved here a year ago, and he hasn’t been with anyone for long since I’ve known him. I continue around the room until I reach his couch again. It occurs to me how weird it is that I’m standing in Oliver’s living room right now. I was just here yesterday, but for some reason it feels different now. It’s late and I’m not picking him up to take him to Tina’s. I also don’t have an ulterior motive this time.
I look at the spot I left on the couch. I want to sit down again, but that would mean sitting right next to him. I pace the room, then sit back down where I was before. My knee bumps his briefly as I settle into my seat. He doesn’t bother to move to make more room for me.
“Did Ryan bring the ring back yet?” I ask. I look down at my hands, playing with the seam on the pillow that I threw at him before.
“Not yet. Since I stayed late at school, he’s not coming until tomorrow morning.”
I nod, thinking. “We need to come up with a plan.”
“Something big, right?”
“That’s what Tina’s doing. Think flash mob and fireworks.”
He bites his lip. “How about a marching band?”
My eyes go wide. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me when he first mentioned he was a band teacher that we could use his band to our advantage. “Do you think you could get your students to do that?”
He shrugs. “They’ll do anything for a little extra credit and an excuse to play their instruments in public.”
I sit up straight so that I’m facing him on the couch. I pull my feet up underneath me. “This is perfect. We could find a way to coordinate your band with Tina’s flash mob.”
“If Ryan says yes to all this,” he reminds me.
“He can’t say no. Why would he?”
He shrugs. “It is his proposal. He might want to do all the planning himself.”
“Right.” I pull my lower lip into my mouth and chew on it. Oliver’s eyes lower to my mouth. I become overly conscious of what I’m doing. I let go of my lip and clear my throat, turning forward so that I’m not facing him anymore.
“If this is going to work, I’m going to need to know everything that you’re planning for Tina so that we can coordinate,” he says.
“Get Ryan to agree to let you be more involved, and then I’ll tell you everything,” I say. “Maybe we can meet with the choreographer together.”
“Tina and Ryan can’t know that we’re working together,” he says.
“Absolutely not,” I agree. It occurs to me that we’ve been having a civil conversation since I got here. Neither of us have tried to rip the other’s head off—unless you count the throwing of the couch pillow.
We talk more about the plan and come up with ideas for how we can make it work. Oliver talks about what he plans to say to Ryan to get him to agree. Before I know it, it’s late and I’m yawning. I should probably go, but I’m invested in the conversation and I’m not ready to leave. I wrap my arms around the pillow and settle into the couch.
My foot slides out a bit and bumps Oliver’s leg. I look down at it, but I don’t move. When I look back up at him, his gaze is moving from my foot back up to my face. I wait for him to make a comment about it, or demand that I get my foot off him, but he doesn’t. Maybe it’s because we called a truce.
He grabs onto my ankle, and I think that he’s pushing my foot off, but instead, he pulls my leg into his lap. His hands close around my leg, and then his fingers begin kneading into the muscle of my calf. It feels… surprisingly good. Neither of us says anything for a minute. I watch him, but he keeps his focus on my leg as he continues to massage it.
I’ve spent so much time hating him, I didn’t know he was capable of doing something that could make me feel good.
For once, I feel relaxed. A little too relaxed. I snuggle the pillow a little closer and allow myself to yawn. And then I fall asleep.
I wake up in a panic a while later. For a moment, I forget where I am. This isn’t my bed, and it’s definitely not my couch. The room is pitch-black and quiet except for the humming of Oliver’s refrigerator in the other room. I’m lying on his couch, the pillow wedged between me and the back of the couch. There’s a soft blanket draped over me. I don’t remember seeing it before. I slide my feet across the couch, feeling for Oliver, but I’m all alone.
I’m surprised he didn’t wake me up and kick me out. I feel around for the lamp I remember seeing next to the couch. I turn it on. I find my phone a moment later. I check the time. It’s almost four in the morning. I can’t believe I slept so long on Oliver’s couch, when just the night before I had trouble sleeping in my own bed.
I stand up and wander into his kitchen. I open cabinets until I find a glass, then I fill it with water from the refrigerator. I take a long drink, then head back to the living room. I wonder if it would be weird to leave in the middle of the night without saying goodbye. I decide that me sleeping on his couch is already weird enough and I should probably go. I start to reach for my handbag when I hear a sound coming from a room in the hallway. A door creaks open.
I don’t know what comes over me, but instead of staying where I am like a normal person, I dive for the couch, turn off the lamp as fast as I can, and throw the blanket back over myself. I close my eyes, pretending to be asleep.
I can hear footsteps against the carpet as Oliver reaches the living room.
“Priscilla?” he whispers. “Are you awake?”
