ONE
OLIVIA
"Oh for the love of ten thousand fucks!" Olivia gritted her teeth and swore as she tried to lift the bottom end of her sectional couch and sort of force it up the narrow stairwell. She yelled up to Starla after a second or two, "Starla, are you even pullin up there?"
"It's stuck, woman!" Starla peered around the arms of the sectional to glance down at her and Olivia groaned inwardly. She let her side of the sofa come to a quiet rest on the stair and she took a step or two back, stretching out her arms and rolling her shoulders.
"What the hell are you gonna do, huh?" Starla asked, barely hiding an amused smirk as she popped a bubble with her gum. Olivia glared at the sofa and then mulled it over. "Well, my plan right now is to kind of run at it and shove."
From behind her, a throat cleared. Olivia turned abruptly and found herself body to body with a man who quite literally looked as if he stepped straight out of her wildest teenage fantasies. She swallowed hard and muttered an apology.
From behind the taller muscular male, one of her students spoke up excitedly, a boy named Rocco. One of the sweetest kids she'd ever had the pleasure of teaching, hands down. "Dad! That's her! That's my teacher!"
Dante's gaze lingered on Olivia and she'd never been so aware of someone looking at her before in her entire life. She found herself unable to break eye contact, also and normally, it wasn't hard for her to break eye contact at all. She smiled, finally managing to break eye contact with Rocco's handsome father -who seemed really, really familiar for some reason or another come to think of it, and she met Rocco's gaze. "Hey champ! Did you tell your dad you aced the spelling test?"
Dante couldn't stop staring. Maybe it was the overwhelming sense of familiarity. Maybe it was the fact that she looked exactly like an older version of a girl he'd met at 18 named Livvie, maybe it was a combination of both, but as he stepped a little closer and their bodies brushed lightly, he felt an electric jolt.
It went without saying that he immediately felt guilty about it, but he still couldn't deny feeling it all the same. Finally, he managed to speak, giving Olivia a grin as he nodded to the couch lodged in the stairwell, keeping all three of them from making progress in their trek up the stairs. "He did, huh? That's a relief. I'm not the best speller, his ma was better at it." Dante muttered, his voice falling away and a heavy tension lingering in the air around them for a few seconds. "Looks like you could use some help.."
Olivia remembered the couch currently lodged in the stairwell and gave a sheepish laugh. Starla called down from above, "She can, but she's too damn stubborn to ask, officer." as she glanced around the couch to meet Olivia's scowl and mouth with a smirk, "Ooh la la. Lucky you."
"That's my cousin Starla."
Dante chuckled and stepped back a little when he realized just how close he stood to Olivia. "What's your name, doll?"
"Liv. Livvie. It's actually Olivia, but yeah.. What's your name?" Olivia wanted to kick herself when her mouth opened and she instantly proceeded to start rambling on like an idiot. Dante chuckled. "Liv, do you wanna step to the side? Lemme see if I can't help ya get the couch up the stairs. I'm Dante, by the way. Dante Falconeri."
Olivia stepped to the side and Rocco tugged on her arm, smiling up at her as he informed her that his dad was super strong, they'd get the couch up the stairs in no time. Olivia smiled at Rocco and nodded.
"Biggest problem you're havin, doll… Ya left the legs on."
"I,uh.. No tools?" Olivia admitted sheepishly. Dante chuckled and promptly caught himself getting lost in blue green eyes for a few seconds. "Hey, Roc?"
"Yeah, dad?"
"Take the keys and go back down to the car. Get the guy down in the lobby to walk out with ya if he's not busy. I think I have a tool kit in the back of the SUV." Dante held out his keys to his son and Rocco smiled and nodded. "I'll be right back!" he called out before taking off down the stairs.
"He's a great kid." Olivia smiled at Dante as she said it. Now that she was getting a first hand glimpse of Rocco's father, more widely known among her co-workers as Officer McSexy, she honestly had to say she agreed with the opinion of her co-workers.
The man was definitely easy on the eyes. She felt something hot against her neck and she raised a hand, fingers grazing against the heated metal of her father's ring, which suddenly felt as if it were on fire. "Ouch, what the hell?" Olivia mused to herself as she pulled the necklace that held the ring away from her neck and raised a brow. The stone in the middle was turning an almost golden brown, kind of like the last embers in a dying fire.
She shoved the necklace into her pocket and Dante chuckled. "Everything alright, doll?"
"Yeah. The clasp is bad." Olivia explained abruptly. She found herself doing it again, staring at him as she tried to figure out why it felt like she should know the man standing in front of her.
She never forgot a face. She highly doubted she'd forget a man like Dante. But despite all the trying, the closest she could come was a recurring dream she'd been having lately. And she wasn't even sure if that was the explanation, because the guy in said dream wasn't exactly clear in her mind either.
"Do I know you?" they laughed when they both blurted it out at the same time.
That heavy tension was back again, lingering between them. Smoldering, almost. Rocco raced back up the stairs, pausing at the top to call down to the doorman from the lobby, "Thank ya, Mr. Ralph!" as he held out the box of tools and his father's keys to his father.
"Maybe I've seen you around Rocco's school?" Olivia questioned and Dante smiled. That had to be what it was, even though Dante was getting a feeling deep down that he'd met her way before that. "That's probably it, doll." Dante answered, the huskiness in his voice sending a jolt racing right through Olivia.
Dante got to work maneuvering the couch back down from where it was wedged and then he took off the legs. Starla sent a text as they were all standing there.
←- Damn, woman. I can feel the sparks from up here.
← Please tell me you at least got his name?
Olivia called up to Starla in laughter, "Seriously? I'm right here, woman."
Starla merely shrugged and went back to scrolling through her phone while she waited.
Dante got the legs off of the couch and called up to Starla. "Ready to pull?"
"Gotcha!" Starla called back to him as she grabbed hold of the end of the couch closest to her.
Dante picked up his end as if it weighed nothing and Olivia found herself staring at him like an idiot as he effortlessly pushed the couch up. The couch went without a fight this time and as soon as they were all standing on the landing where her apartment was, Dante turned to her and gave a smirk. "You live on this floor too, huh?"
"Mhm. Apartment 216."
Dante chuckled and nodded to a black door that was two down from her own red one. "214. Looks like we're gonna be neighbors."
Olivia smiled and nodded. "Looks like it."
"Hey, if you need any more help, just come down and ask. Not like I've got anything else to do, right Rocco?" he fluffed his son's dark and shaggy hair as Rocco added with a smile, "We don't mind helpin at all. I can't wait to tell Jake tomorrow!"
Olivia smiled. "Thank you, Dante. I might have to take you up on that."
"If it helps, I told her to hire a mover. Noooo, she's so hard-headed." Starla spoke up before going in for a hug from Olivia. "I gotta get down to the shop. I think the floor guy just showed up. We're still on for Saturday, yeah?"
"Mhm. 12, right?" Olivia asked, hugging her cousin back. The two pulled apart, but not before Starla muttered against the shell of her ear, "Take that man some food, woman. Because you're gonna need help getting that heavy fucking bookcase up here.. And your bed."
Olivia laughed gently and nodded, giving her cousin the thumbs up. Rocco had gone into the apartment he and his father lived in so this left her alone in the stairwell with Dante. "Do you wanna come in? I've got Corona, I think…"
"Yeah, I was going to ask if you wanted me to help ya get the rest of your stuff up here. Saw it when Rocco and I were parkin and the bookcases looked heavy as hell."
"Only if you let me order takeout or something for you and Rocco to thank you." Olivia bargained and Dante laughed. "Yeah, I'd like that. I know Rocco will. Think he's gettin tired of my limited culinary skills."
"Oh come on, it can't be that bad." Olivia laughed softly. The brush of their bodies bumping against each other in the corridor had her realizing how close she'd migrated to him yet again and she made a concentrated effort to step back a little, get herself out of his space as she muttered a sheepish apology.
Dante waved off the apology and nodded to the couch. "Wanna go open your door? We'll get this in and then go back down for somethin else. I'll go tell Rocco what I'm doin, so he knows where I am."
Olivia went to unlock her door and Dante disappeared inside of his own apartment to tell Rocco what he was doing.
They wound up body to body in the hallway again when they both came out of their apartment and walked to the same spot at the exact same spot. They shared a laugh and before he could stop himself, he was reaching out to tuck some hair that had fallen into her eyes back behind her ear.
DANTE
He chuckled as they came to a stop in front of his apartment's front door. "That was good. I've always wanted to try the food at that little place. Thank you." he smiled as he said it, because tonight had been the closest he'd come to feeling a lot less stuck in his own thoughts and regrets in quite a while. Rocco glanced from his father to his teacher and smiled up at her. "I really had fun!" he thanked her. Olivia smiled at him and nodded. "So did I. I'll see you in class tomorrow, Rocco." she answered, turning her attention to Rocco's father. "Thank you again. Tonight was nice. Don't be a stranger, okay?"
"You either, doll. If you need anything, I'm right down the hall. I mean that, alright?" Dante tried to stop himself from getting all lost in the blue green depths of her eyes, but just like every other time he'd tried not to tonight, it seemed to be something out of his control. Olivia nodded and smiled. "Noted. And the same goes for you too, alright? It takes a village, man. If you need somebody to watch Rocco, I definitely don't mind. It's like I said, he's a sweet kid."
"Thanks." Dante thanked her.
Olivia wandered down the hall to her own apartment and Dante watched as she unlocked the door and disappeared inside. Almost the second the door closed behind her, he could hear Black Sabbath start to play at a soft volume. He chuckled to himself and Rocco spoke up. "She's actually one of my favorite teachers. A lotta the kids really like her. Jake was gonna try to set her up with his dad." Rocco mused, giving Dante a bit of a smirk. Dante chuckled and shook his head. Oh, he knew perfectly well what his son was hinting at, but he wasn't entirely sure if he was ready for anything just yet.
But friends were always a good thing.
He could definitely use friends right now.
"C'mon, kid. We've gotta get you goin' with homework." Dante chuckled as he unlocked the door to their apartment and he and Rocco stepped inside. He locked the door behind them and Rocco took off his shoes, bounding down the hallway and into his bedroom to grab his notebooks and text books from the desk in his room.
After they'd finished all of Rocco's homework and getting him situated in bed with one of his new comic books, Dante wandered into his own kitchen and opened the fridge, getting himself a beer as he sat down at the small dining table and took a few long sips.
Meeting Olivia tonight had stirred up a lot of old memories for some reason. He'd been thinking about the girl he took home from a party one night when he was 18 a lot lately… After seeing Olivia around Rocco's school.
She could almost pass for an older version of the girl he'd met -and kissed, that night. But as quickly as the thought came, he shoved it back out, laughing and shaking himself at himself. Down the hall, Black Sabbath had changed over to Warrant at some point and he threw the empty from his late night drink in the trash can by the kitchen door, flipping off the light switch as he walked out of the room and down the hall into his own room.
Almost the second his head hit the pillow, he was out. And the recurring dream he'd been having a lot lately, a replay of the night he'd had on his mind nonstop, it started all over again. He relieved that night in it's entirety, but where the dream normally ended, this time it continued. And they were older now. Standing in the middle of his apartment. He pulled her up his body and their lips crashed against each others, needy and hungry. Just the same way the kiss had been all those years ago. Just as his alarm was starting to go off and things in the dream were really starting to heat up, the whole image in his dream became crystal clear and he realized that he'd been kissing Olivia, the teacher who lived down the hall. Not L, the girl he met at the house party. But then another realization hit him, leaving him a little puzzled. L and Olivia were one and the same.
Dante woke up from the dream and set about to starting his day, all the while, trying to tell himself that the dreams he'd been having and the dream he'd had the night before were coincidence. Because it's not like Olivia could actually be L, the girl from the party years ago.. Right?
And why was he thinking so much about this one night lately?
A/N: Obviously, this is a rewrite of Celeste x Dante from before. This time around, Celeste is Olivia or Liv. I'm feeling like I might play around with supernatural elements here and there for this one due to Olivia's parentage (Caleb Morley/Stephen Clay & Olivia Locke and the whole 'immortal vampire' angle from Port Charles) but no worries, it won't be a huge part of their story. ;). I hope you guys enjoy this.
