A/N: This occurred to me while I was working on an update for Goodnight. I've got a little writer's block going with that story but I'm hoping my muse will show up out of nowhere and surprise me with some inspiration. Anyway, please enjoy this and review. I would love to know what you guys think! XOXO
A/N (2): I made Olivia, Fitz, and Cyrus around the same age for the purpose of logic. They're all 25-ish
Her laugh got me every time. Every day I would wake up and tell myself I was finally going to get over her once and for all. Then I would see her and make one of my stupid jokes, and she would laugh, and all the willpower I had mustered would be lose instantly. It is said that to make someone fall in love with you, you had to make them laugh, but every time she laughed, it was me who fell in love.
She had been my friend since our first day of freshman year in college, and I had been in love with her since the moment I walked into our English 101 class and found her fortuitously seated next to the only available seat. She had smiled politely when I sat down, chirping a beautifully sweet hello. My tongue lost every syllable I had ever learned. I just smiled like an idiot. She grinned back, asked if I was okay when I didn't look away. I realized I was crimson from my neck to my hairline. I forced myself to tell her I was fine, realizing too late that finding my tongue was a mistake. I went on to babble, "I'm not usually this weird, I swear. This is just random awkwardness. Not you! You're not awkward. I'm awkward. You're…gorgeous." I heard myself rambling like a buffoon, blushed even harder, and announced, "I'm gonna be quiet now." She blinked at me and I knew it would be the last time that we talked, that on Wednesday when I came back to that classroom, she would be sitting somewhere else, avoiding eye contact with me like I was a leper. Then she laughed, her head falling back as her eyes closed, beautifully luminous as her curls shook on her shoulders—and I was stuck forever. You're cute, she declared. Karma granted me one smooth moment, and I said, "Actually it's Fitz, but you can call me cute if you want." She laughed again then said the most beautiful four syllables ever uttered: Olivia.
That was seven years ago. Now I'm an English professor at Georgetown and she still takes my breath away without trying. When she's not doing that, she's running her own pastry shop. Around campus, I'm the kind-of quiet Lit professor who turns out to be surprisingly hilarious when you get him talking. Around her, I'm that tongue-tied freshman again. It wasn't that she was too beautiful, or too smart, or too independent. It was that she was more than a woman—more than a person, really. She was a deep, deep well that you fell into and never escaped.
"Date with Edison tonight! Wish me luck!" I stared at the text from her for five minutes before I could reply, "You don't need luck lol". I sighed as I walked to the bus stop from my office. My best friend Cyrus appeared by my side as if from nowhere.
"We're going out," he announced, grabbing my arm and turning me around to head to the faculty parking lot. We got into his black BMW and he drove to the Village, singing along cheerfully to Queen.
"I'm not going to a gay bar," I sighed as I leaned against the window.
He laughed. "Me either. I met someone."
"Oh?" Cyrus had only dated one guy since he'd come out freshman year, and when that ended our junior year, he had stopped dating. He spent senior year and all of grad school resigned to bar hookups.
"Yeah. James Novak. He's a reported for the Chelsea Sun. He wants to do nightly news. We're going on our first date Thursday night." I hadn't seen or hear him so excited in years.
I nudged him with my elbow. "Good for you, Cy."
"Now we're gonna find you someone," he declared as he pulled into the parking lot of a bar called Hair of the Dog.
"I'd rather we didn't," I grumbled as we got out of the car.
"Well that's too bad, isn't it?" The place was packed with businessmen and typical downtown D.C. women: thin, hungry girls with cell phones attached like extra appendages. Cy and I sat at the bar.
"Scotch neat," I ordered. I was normally a beer man but the thought of Olivia on a date with someone else called for something a little stronger.
"Cosmo for me," Cy announced. I smirked at him. He had always been a whiskey enthusiast. Apparently James had changed that.
"Indulging in your flamboyant side tonight, Cy?"
He laughed as he drank the cherry red concoction. "It's about time I did."
We sat for two hours, knocking back drinks and laughing. I almost forgot about Olivia and Edison.
"Someone's giving you the eye," he whispered loudly, his fourth Cosmo sloshing around, his face beet red. He could drink whiskey from the bottle and give three lectures on the Civil War. A few Cosmos and he was paying the DJ to play Cher's greatest hits back to back. I followed his bleary gaze to a brunette eyeing me over her wine glass. She was pretty: tan skin, hazel eyes, a cute smile. But she wasn't Olivia, not even close. I gave her a half smile then looked back at Cy. He immediately knew what I was thinking. "Don't do that. I love Liv, believe me. I want you two together, I do. But you can't pine away for her forever. Who knows? That girl might be just what the doctor ordered."
He was right. I finished my drink then went to get acquainted with the blue eyes that wouldn't stop staring. She chirped a jovial, "Hi!"
"Hi," I replied, my voice mirthless.
"You look like you just lost your best friend," she observed.
I sighed. "I didn't lose her. I just…love her and…she doesn't love me back."
It was the first time I had ever said admitted that I loved her to anyone other than Cy, and the first time I had ever acknowledged aloud that she didn't love me back to anyone.
"Who wouldn't love eyes like yours?" I looked at her. She grinned flirtatiously. The bartender brought over drinks, courtesy of Cy, who was dancing with a group of what appeared to be soccer moms out for a night on the town.
"The one person I want to love them, apparently." I gave a bitter laugh.
"Well we've just got to cheer you up!" she announced before downing her wine and ordering a bottle of champagne. She gave a toothy grin as she extended her hand. "I'm Quinn, Quinn Perkins."
"Nice to meet you Quinn. I'm Fitz Grant," I replied, shaking her hand. The bartender poured Quinn and me into a cab two hours later. Cyrus left with the soccer moms to hit another bar. She was a giggling mess. I was only slightly buoyed. We made it to my apartment, making out in the elevator. She smelled like vanilla. Olivia always smelled like Amazing Grace perfume. In my bedroom, she excused herself to the bathroom to freshen up. I kicked off my shoes, took off my shirt, and sat on the bed. A picture of Olivia and me, taken at the beach during our senior year Spring Break, sat on the dresser, staring at me. She was on my back—tipsy, tan, and gorgeous—grinning from under the brim of her floppy sunhat. I sighed as I got up to turn it down.
Quinn emerged from the bathroom, smiling as she stood before me in her silky silver bra and panties. Touching her was different from what I imagined touching Olivia would be like. Quinn was acquiescent, pliable to whatever I wanted. I imagined Olivia would be electric and independent. I was surprised when she sat up next to me after we had sex, placing a hand on my forearm.
"This was fun, but I don't expect you to call, Fitz," she said.
I was legitimately surprised. I was also still drunk. She seemed to have sobered up enough to notice I wasn't thinking of her. The elation of the champagne had faded away. I was back in the trenches of my Scotch. I said, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought you here. It was just…nice…to not have to think about her for a while."
I was surprised when she asked, "What's she like?"
"Her name is Olivia. We've been friends for seven years. She's not…pretty."
"Really? With the stars in your eyes, I'd think she was a total babe." She gave a small chuckle.
"No…," I replied, smiling a little. "You're a total babe. She's this…deep, deep well you fall into."
I sighed. She asked, "How could she not love you when you sound like that every time you talk about her?"
"She doesn't know. In seven years, I've never been able to tell her…" She squeezed my shoulder as she got out of bed. She dressed quietly then sat next to me as she put on her shoes. She took my hand and kissed the back of it, a strangely intimate gesture for a relative stranger.
"You should tell her," she said. She stood and smiled at me as she picked up her purse off the floor near my bedroom door. "But you can call me any time you're tired of being in the 'deep, deep well.'"
I got up and followed her to the door. I opened it and we came face to face with Olivia, her hand poised to knock. I wondered how long she'd been home, if she could hear Quinn and me from her apartment across the hall.
She smiled at Quinn as she extended her hand. "Hi, I'm Olivia."
"Quinn; nice to meet you," Quinn replied, smiling back as they shook hands.
Olivia looked at me. "I couldn't sleep and I was just coming over to see if you wanted to watch a movie or something?"
"Uh…sure," I quickly said. "Maybe order some Chinese?"
"Great! I'll just go get my phone." She disappeared into her apartment. Quinn turned to look at me.
"God, look at your face!" She gave a wide-eyed laugh. "I gave you an orgasm and you didn't even look at me like that. She's the one, isn't she?"
I sighed. "That's what my heart is saying."
She kissed me lightly on the lips. "Don't give up until you get her."
Olivia emerged from her apartment just as we were hugging goodbye. They smiled at each other as Quinn headed for the elevator, her phone to her ear as she ordered a cab. I hadn't even thought to call her one. Liv smiled as she plopped on the couch. I breathed in the scent of fabric softener on her black Starbucks COFFEE SNOB sweatshirt.
"So spill about Quinn," she said as she turned on the TV. I got up to grab a couple of beers for us from the refrigerator.
"Not much to tell," I replied.
"'Not much to tell' because you don't want to kiss and tell and jinx it, or 'not much to tell' because you don't know anything to tell yet?" she asked, smirking at me as I sat back down. I used a bottle opener to take the top off her beer then my own.
"Her name is Quinn…as you know. I met her at this bar called Hair of the Dog. She's a paralegal. She likes white wine. We had fun," I answered.
She nodded as she flipped through channels. "Are you gonna see her again?"
"I don't know," I answered. I remembered that she had been on a date. "So how was your date?"
"Okay, I guess. He's a stock broker. He drinks whiskey sours. He likes jazz. He kissed me goodnight…on the cheek. It was nice," she replied. She stopped on the Turner Classic Movie channel, exclaiming, "The Way We Were! I love this movie!"
I smiled at her excitement. We had watched the movie dozens of times over the years, but she still cried every time, and I always held her even though I didn't get what was so sad about the movie. I asked, "So are you gonna see him again?"
"I don't know," she answered. I hoped she didn't. "He doesn't give me that crazy, butterflies-on-cocaine feeling in my stomach."
Like you give me, I thought as the movie started. I joked, "Well love without drug-addled insects is hardly love at all."
She laughed, cuddling against me as the movie started. There's that sound again, I thought as I wrapped my arm around her. I planted a feather soft kiss on the crown of her head, breathing in the pomegranate scent of her hair. It would have been the perfect moment to whisper I love you, but I didn't. It wouldn't have seemed genuine after seeing me with Quinn, and I wanted everything to be perfect when I finally mustered the courage to say it. If I ever mustered the courage to say it. Until then, I resigned myself to swimming in a deep, deep well.
