Chapter 3: Davis
“There he is,” Peter remarked, feigning excitement as soon as I walked into the suite. Peter’s curly brown hair was askew, and he was wearing a plush hotel bathrobe while his feet were propped up on the coffee table. His expression was pure Peter Davenport: chaos and amusement all rolled up into one hyper-confident college kid. “Still a virgin?”
“Get fucked,” I snapped, even though I knew he was too shameless to repent. If his middle name weren’t Eugene, it would have been Shameless.
Luckily, Gray appeared in his bedroom doorway at that very moment and raised his chin in his brother’s direction. “Seriously, Peter, grow up.”
Peter rolled his eyes in response before letting out an exhalation and switching his gaze back and forth between Gray and me. If ennui needed a poster boy, it would have hired Peter and given him a signing bonus and stock options. “Dull. You two are both so unbelievably dull. Where’s Kieran?”
“I left him with Olivia at coffee.” I shrugged off my jacket as I spoke. “I had to rush back for this call with my dad—”
“Getting ready for the quarterly earnings call,” Gray filled in, nodding with understanding. “I got out of that, but my father was pissed off. As usual.”
“I don’t mind them,” I said, unsure whether that was an honest truth or a lie I’d told so many times that I had convinced myself that it was real.
Obviously suppressing a smirk, Gray raised an eyebrow and surveyed me. He wasn’t surprised. “What time will you be done?” He went on before he pressed his shoulder against the doorframe in a pose so effortless that it was a shame he was pledged to Davenport-Ridgeway because he could have made a killing as a model. If anything, he looked like someone smashed thirty years’ worth of People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive covers together and dressed him in Tom Ford. “I’m thinking of taking a walk. Want to come?”
“Hours from now,” I estimated. “But don’t worry about me. I took a walk when I woke up and I spent most of the afternoon in the Rijksmuseum. I’m good.”
Gray hesitated, his expression tight like he was tempted to say something else. Impossible to say though; the problem with Gray was that the guy was hard to read.
“Thanks for the invite anyway. I should get on this call now, but have fun. I’ll give you the highlights,” I promised as I headed towards my room.
“Thrilling,” Peter called after me, laughing as Gray told him to fuck off once more.
A few hours later, I was waiting outside of Olivia’s hostel, fiddling with my phone. My palms were sweaty (as usual) and I didn’t know what to do with my hands because putting them into my pockets seemed like it would make it worse. For several seconds, I tried to fix my hair in the reflection of the dusty hostel window until I realized that there were, like, six people sitting there and laughing at me from the other side of the window.
With a grimace, I moved to the opposite side of the walkway, closer to the canal. To make matters worse, I still had no clue what to do with my hands and wished I had something to hold. I’d thought about buying her flowers, but Gray quickly informed me that the idea was weird as hell, and I just needed to relax. Relax. Cool. Thanks, I’m cured, Gray.
I’d ended up popping a Xanax on my way out the door, but I clearly hadn’t done it early enough to calm my nerves during the walk to the hostel. All it got me was jittery—paranoid that the Xanax hadn’t worked at all, sweaty-palmed, flowerless, and unsure what to do with my hands. A winning combo if there ever was one.
Luckily, she emerged through the front door shortly thereafter, interrupting what was likely a minor panic attack in the making. As she walked over to me, she was carefully brushing her long hair out of her face and looking as intimidatingly gorgeous as she did the first time that I saw her. Those five or six steps that it took her to get from the door over to me had me breathless. Utterly and pathetically breathless.
Olivia looked stunning. I had spent a grand total of twenty-four hours knowing the woman so far, and not once had she been anything but beautiful. Tonight, she looked stunning though. Her dress was a deep red, tight like last night, but with a low cut that gave me a glance at her cleavage. I tried not to stare—a feat that deserved an award and a key to the city of Amsterdam—and ended up diverting my attention from her devastatingly shapely body up to her face.
Still breathless.
She had added waves to her hair tonight instead of wearing it straight like yesterday. It cascaded over her shoulders and down her back in a way that made me want to pull on it a little—a thought that had never crossed my mind before. Coupled with the sway of her hips, everything about this woman had me in a near tailspin—except for the look on her face.
There was something in her expression. A hesitation that I hadn’t seen before. I didn’t know Olivia well, but I had quickly learned that she wasn’t a woman for trepidation. She didn’t give a damn about rich guys in clubs and hadn’t held back when telling me (deservedly) that my father was a ridiculous person. The hesitation—maybe nervousness?—on her face gave me pause.
I didn’t have long to dwell on it though. Without a word, she walked right up to me, put both hands on my cheeks, and pulled me down to kiss her on the lips. I let her. I let her and wished that she wouldn’t stop. She did eventually though, and when she pulled away she left me dumfounded and speechless, barely capable of doing anything but blinking and saying, “Nice dress.”
“Just nice?” she clarified, feigning offense as she looked down and ran her hands over her curves. “Not sexy? Fuckable?”
“You can’t toy with me again,” I protested outright. “I don’t think I can handle it. You look so beautiful.”
My words made Olivia sigh and fold her lips over her teeth, her mien bordering on a sentiment that I couldn’t place. Was it…regret?
What were we doing here? Had I gotten ahead of myself thinking that a woman who looked like that, whose body and beauty could kickstart another round of the Renaissance, could actually want me? There was no way she could want this. To be seen with me. To spend time with me. To put up with my stammering and sweaty palms and these awkward silences.
I gestured over my shoulder. “Look, if you want to bail…”
“No,” she interjected, shaking her head like she was shaking off misgivings. “I can’t bail. I don’t want to bail.”
“Are you sure? Because—”
“Davis, don’t overthink it.” Olivia stood on her toes to kiss my cheek, leaving me wishing that she would do more than that. She didn’t though. She took my hand instead, and we began to walk in the direction of the restaurant.
The walk was quiet at first, which was rare for Olivia. She liked to talk and I liked to listen to her, but tonight was different. I gave her palm a squeeze. “You good?”
“I’m good,” she confirmed without looking at me, keeping her eyes down towards the pathway beneath us. “What about you?”
Honestly, I was frustrated that we were walking down the crowded canal-side walkways at that moment. Last night, Olivia had kissed me in that nightclub without shame or hesitancy. Now, she was acting like she didn’t want to be around me. Maybe that was it. Maybe now that she was sober and we were in plain sight of dozens of passersby who could see that this woman was doing charity by spending time with me, she was ashamed. Was that it? Would she be more comfortable if we were alone?
“I’m kind of dreading tonight,” I finally responded, going with that answer instead of telling her what was really on my mind. “Not being with you, obviously. But this dinner and then going out afterwards. I’m over it at this point. I’d have a much better time if we just skipped it.”
“Then let’s skip it,” she recommended, stopping in her tracks and pulling me back by my hand. “We can do something else.”
“But you look incredible, and this dinner—”
“Have you gotten the frites yet?” she cut in.
Confused, I shook my head. “I have no clue what you’re talking about. Did you say frites? As in fries?”
“You haven’t had the frites,” she concluded, her eyes widening like she just discovered that I was in a cult. “Oh, this has to be rectified immediately. You thought New York bagels were good? I’m about to rock your world, Davis Ridgeway.”