Nothing was said between us for a little while. I watched the party down below, and Ollie stood back along the side of the cabin, staying a safe distance away from me. Maybe he felt the shift between us, too.
I was the first to break the silence. I slowly turned around and leaned against the railing. I covered my hands with the sleeves of my chunky sweater. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
It was hard to see Ollie as shadows from the night covered his body. I could only make out his silhouette, and that comforted me slightly. At least with his face in the dark, he couldn’t strip me bare with his eyes again. “Do what, exactly?”
I felt every word that left Ollie’s mouth cover my skin. His voice was tight, like he was angry about something.
I cleared my throat, pressing myself further into the deck railing. A couple of shouts and laughs came from down below, but I ignored those and focused on Ollie’s shadow. “Racing. Racing for Tank. Paying my brother’s debt. Helping me.”
Ollie emerged from his shadow, and his light eyes found me in an instant. “Of course I’m sure.”
I hated how at ease I felt with his words. I looked away. “I feel guilty.”
There I went again. Being completely open to him. Uncovering feelings I tried to hide. It was his eyes. They somehow pulled me in even when I was trying to run away.
When I looked up again, Ollie was closer. Almost too close. “Guilty about what? Because I’d be racing tomorrow regardless of this little thing with Tank.”
There was a gaping hole opening up in my stomach. I felt sick knowing I brought him into this mess with Tank—racing or not. “Yeah, but now you’re racing to pay off a drug dealer. I brought you into that. Now money is involved. And not to mention, he’s sketchy.”
Ollie scoffed. “You know the money doesn’t matter to me. If I had enough in my account right now to pay him off outright, I would in a fucking heartbeat. This is the second-best choice. Now at least I’m racing for a real purpose.”
I felt myself starting to relax. My shield always came down around him. There was no fooling Ollie Powell. When he saw you, he saw you. That was why I always had to be on my toes when he was near. It was why I'd always kept him at a distance, acted like I despised him. If he got too close, he’d see me, and that was exactly what happened the night of the race. He got close, and now look at us. “You didn’t have a purpose the first time you raced?” I asked, trying desperately to shift the attention off me.
Ollie shook his head as he came and stood beside me. I was still facing the cabin, but he looked out to the bonfire, his strong jaw the only thing I could see when I peered up at him. He shrugged. “I guess I did, in a way, but it was purely selfish. One could say I was using racing to hide.”
My brows furrowed as I continued to stare at the sharp angle. “Hide from what?”
That was when he decided to look over at me. His stare almost paralyzed me. It was intense and heavy. I had to bite back a gulp as my eyes bounced back and forth between his. “My dad. Christian. Whenever I’m alone with the both of them, I feel trapped. A little out of control.” Our stare held for a second, maybe two, but it felt like an eternity had passed. “I’m just…a little lost, I guess.” It was dark outside, the distant stars our only light, but I could still see the defeat on his face. I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but Ollie quickly looked away. He didn’t say a word, but I could tell he was done talking about the subject. He closed that wound almost as
soon as it opened up. “Whatever. That’s not what I wanted to talk about.”
I decided to let it go for now. “What did you want to talk about?”
Ollie flipped around and leaned back on the deck railing. “We need to be more careful. Hayley keeps questioning us, and that’s partly my fault.” He paused a second, thinking. “I really don’t want Christian to know I’m racing.”
“Because?” I asked.
He brought his arms to cross in front of his chest. “Because that’ll just lead to more questions, and inevitably, I’ll get tripped up on my lies, and shit will spill.” I nodded alongside him because I knew all about keeping my lies straight. “And you don’t want Hayley to know about this, either, right?”
I answered quickly. “I don’t want anyone to know about it, but yes, Hayley finally has some normal in her life. I want to keep it that way.”
“Me too, so you need to act the part.”
I pulled back. “Excuse me?”
Ollie pushed off the railing and flipped around, resting his arms along the worn wood. “Right now, it looks like you and I are plotting something, and if Hayley or Christian look up here, seeing us getting along, it’ll raise questions. So, you need to act like you hate me.”
I scoffed as I put distance between us.
“I mean”—he grinned—“we all know you can’t truly hate me, but you can try.”
And there was the Ollie I knew. The arrogant, cocky, and sometimes funny Ollie.
I tried to keep my smile away. “Oh, I can hate you alright.”
Ollie let out a deep chuckle that floated right over my skin. He flipped the hood of his navy bulldog sweatshirt up before giving me a sly smile. “Is that what you tell yourself so you can forget about that night?”
Oh, not this again!