Thirty minutes later, Olivia and I—in full dinner attire—were seated on a bench and each holding a paper cone of hot, freshly-made frites. We had waited in line for fifteen minutes to purchase them for a few Euros each, braving a healthy crowd that had surrounded the small building-side stand because apparently everyone and their mom knew about these frites. Olivia had insisted on paying—had passed the money to the cashier before I even had a chance to stop her—and was now gleefully eating her frites and moaning after every other bite.
“Tell me I was right or tell me I was right,” she requested, waving her cone in my direction. “Are these not the most amazing things you’ve ever put in your mouth?”
“They’re pretty damn good.” I ate another, assuming without much comparison that these had to be better than sex. “Where’d you find this place?”
“It’s super popular amongst us plebeians,” she answered smartly. “Kidding. I read about it online when I was getting ready for this trip and I wanted to come here. My ex, Paul, wasn’t into it, so after he dumped me the first thing I did once I moved into the hostel was walk over here and stuff my face with frites.”
“Well at least Paul did one good thing.”
“I guess that’s true.” Olivia took one of her frites and reached over to dip it into the dollop of mayo that I had ordered with my cone. “What about you? Are you dating anyone?”
In an attempt to scoff, I ended up coughing through a bite. Always the epitome of poise, I needed a moment to clear my throat. Finally, I asked, “You’ve kissed me twice and you’re just now asking me this?”
Casually, she held up her hands and said, “Hey, what you do in your relationships is none of my business.”
I shook my head adamantly. “Not dating anyone. I’ve never dated anyone, actually.”
“Never?”
“I get anxious.”
“About what?” she countered, frowning deeply. “You get nervous that women are going to be put off by a sweet, smart, tall as fuck, and ridiculously hot guy who smells nice?”
“Boss by Hugo Boss. My younger sister bought it for me. So you can thank her or Hugo for how good I smell.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t deflect the compliment.” Olivia’s tone was heavy for once.
I raised both shoulders, choosing not to tell her that I just spent the last thirty minutes agonizing over whether or not she even wanted to be seen in public with me. “I don’t hear it a lot.”
“That’s shocking, Davis.”
“If you hang out with guys like Gray and Walsh and even our brothers, you get used to being background noise.” I took another bite. “Plus…”
I trailed off, realizing that it was too early in the evening and we were way too sober for me to ever tell her about my big V-secret.
“…I do wonder sometimes if women only care about the money,” I finished, pulling up an old gripe that Kieran often mentioned, but didn’t seem to mind too much. He was getting laid, after all.
Olivia looked away at that comment. It was only for a second, but I could see her swallow hard before she parted her lips and lingered in that position.
“What’s wrong?”
Expression somber, she faced me once again. “I should tell you something,” she said slowly, her eyes locked on mine. “Something that isn’t easy for me to say.”
“Okay,” I offered, nodding and trying to be encouraging. “Whatever you need to tell me is okay.”
“You say that now, but…”
“My dad is on his third wife and she’s only twenty-seven. So, trust me when I say there’s almost nothing you could confess to me that would faze me. It’s not like you murdered your ex, right?”
Both of her eyebrows shot up. “Do I look like the murdering type?”
“No, but aren’t the best criminals the ones you least expect?”
She let out a soft laugh. “No, not a murderer. Just…Okay. Yesterday when you left Kieran and me, he said that he…”
I nodded again, hoping I could get her to say it—whatever the hell it was.
“Shit,” she muttered as she placed her hand on her purse. “My phone is ringing. I think that’s my little brother calling.” She took her phone out of her purse and sighed as she looked at the caller ID. “Can you give me, like, two minutes? I need to make sure he’s okay.”
“No problem.”
Olivia handed me her cone of frites and walked a few feet away to answer the call. Her expression quickly shifted from concern to calm as she talked. Sure enough, she was done a couple of minutes later and rejoined me on the bench.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” she assured me, waving her hand as she took back her frites. “He wanted to check when I was coming home. And apparently, the friend he’s staying with took him out for ramen and he wanted to know if I was aware that there were actual ramen restaurants and that it wasn’t just dried noodles from a packet.”
“Big day for Charlie.”
“Life changing,” Olivia agreed. Suddenly, her face pulled into a furrow and she looked at me with her brows knotted. “Wow, you remembered his name.”
I wanted to tell her that it was easy to remember everything she said, but even I knew that sounded embarrassing. I shrugged as if it were nothing instead. “Hey, you were about to tell me something.”
“Oh, right.” She glanced away from me again. “I was going to tell you that my ex, Paul, was a lot older than me. Richer too.”
“How much older?”
“A lot,” she conceded flatly. “He was my professor back at Wash U.”
“Oh. Oh,” I said, working fiercely to hold back my surprise. “Got it.”
“That’s okay, right?” she inquired softly. “Because I get it if you think I’m horrible.”
“Why would I think that?”
“Because I slept with a guy for his money and he was a lot older. You made those comments about your brother and your father and I thought—”
“No judgment. People are allowed to do what they want with their bodies. Their relationships. It’s none of my business.”
“Please don’t lie to me,” she pressed, shifting her position to face me directly. “If you want to call it a night, we can.”
Confused, I tilted my head to the side as I tried to make sense of what I was hearing—or not hearing. “Are you trying to give me reasons to not want you? Because at the risk of sounding like a loser, I have to admit: It would take a hell of a lot more than that.”