“That was a joke,” I said.
“Yeah, I figured,” he replied with a slight chuckle. “Still, would feel better if we were on the same page.”
“Which is?”
“How about we start from the beginning?” he asked. “Why don’t you tell me who Olivia Carson is.”
“Well, Olivia Carson is the new deputy–head of the marketing department at Fluxx Marketing, and…”
“Don’t do that,” he said, causing me to look up in confusion.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t define yourself by what you do,” he said. “I want to know who you are, not what you do for a living. You’re more than just your job.”
A raised a quizzical eyebrow, but he shrugged nonchalantly and said, “I’m listening.
I had to think about what I was to say after that, so I started slowly. “Well, as you know, I’m Olivia Carson. I was born and raised in Chicago, and I spent most of my life there. I went to the local elementary school, the local high school, and I lived a relatively normal life. I’m an only child, and I barely had any friends growing up. I only ever had one friend named Emily, but I don’t want to talk about her. Anyway, my dad treated me like a boy my entire life, so he took me to football games, coached my team during soccer practice, took me fishing and golfing, and had me working on his truck during the weekends.”
“So you’re a grease monkey?” Ethan chuckled.
“More or less,” I replied. “I can rip an engine apart, clean it and put it back together like it’s nothing.”
“You don’t look like you can,” he said smoothly. “No offence, of course.”
“Some taken,” I replied. “And that’s really sexist of you to say that.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, placing a hand on his chest. “I just find it hard to believe that a woman who…”
“Who what?”
“Who looks like you,” he said nervously, “would ever get her hands dirty. You look like you’d be into fashion and shoes, and not big V8 engines and fixing old carburettors.”
“Alright, smart boy,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “Ask me anything about cars. Let’s see if you know more than me.”
I could see the competitive twinkle in his eyes, the way he looked like he was about to start floating off his feet with excitement. Marcus used to look like that, especially when we were playing chess and he was struggling to beat me.
‘Alright, Miss Smarty–pants,” Ethan said. “I’m thinking of a certain European supercar, with a 3.8 litre V8 with two turbos strapped on the back. It’s a mid–engined supercar which produces about 600 horsepower. It was inspired by a Formula One car, from a brand with some racing history. Which car is that?”
I knew the answer from the moment he specified the engine. I grinned wildly at him, savouring the moment of triumph for a little bit before I said, “Is it a McLaren MP4-12C?”
I noticed a vein pulsing on the side of his head, but he simply smiled and said, “You know your stuff.”
“Yeah, not all girls care only about dresses and shoes,” I said. “You might want to remember that.”
“Hey, I’m not a misogynist,” he said. “It was just an assumption. I’m sorry if it came off like I was being an
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asshole.”
“You were being an asshole, but I forgive you,” I said, which brought his smile back.
“Alright, you may continue,” he said. “So you were a tombey growing up. What happened after that?”
“Well, I loved to NYU with Emily and got my degree. After that, we got an apartment in Brooklyn, and I waited tables for a bit before I got a job at a big tech firm.”
He looked like he wanted to say something, but he held his tongue. He probably realised exactly where I was talking about, but he wasn’t going to push if I didn’t bring up.
“Anyway, shortly after that, I got married,” I said, trying to keep my voice even and measured. “But my marriage fell apart after a few years, and I got divorced when he cheated on me with Emily. So I moved to London and started afresh. And that’s pretty much all that happened up to this point.”
Ethan was silent for a while after I finished, a distant look in his eyes which I couldn’t quite decipher. He looked like he was thinking hard about something, and he pursed his lips in much the same way that Marcus used to. If I squinted my eyes a little bit and didn’t focus on his hair, it felt like I was on a date with Marcus, and everything was how it used to be in the beginning, when I thought he was the most perfect man I’d ever met.
And I didn’t know how to feel about that, walking with his twin brother and not even telling him the truth about
my past.
“You’ve been through a lot,” he said finally. “My life sounds like nothing in comparison to yours. I mean you’re actually gone through some really tough struggles that would break even the strongest people I know. But the fact that you came through all that says a lot about you.”
All I could do was smile. Thinking about everything I’d been through was bound to make me cry. So I decided to change the topic, just as we got to the restaurant and we were led to a table on the balcony. It was nothing fancy, but there was a cozy atmosphere and bright red roses everywhere. It was surprisingly packed, and I was relieved to see that I wasn’t overdressed. There was a piano player on a stage inside, and Ethan led me to our table where it thankfully wasn’t as noisy as the inside.
As soon as we placed our orders, I asked him, “So what about you? I barely know anything about you, other than the fact that your brother is an asshole.”
“It’s not his fault,” he said. “I mean, in a way it kind of is, because I thought he would have changed by now. But I guess he just never decided to do that.”
“Were you two close growing up?” I asked, even though I knew what he would say.
“We were inseparable,” he sighed. “Growing up with a twin, you kind of don’t even think twice about having them around. They’re just always there, and you kind of just grow up accepting the fact that you’re one half of a pair. At least that’s how I saw it. But Marcus wasn’t really about that. When we were kids, we always did everything together. We wore the same clothes, cut our hair the same way, read the same books and watched the same movies. We had the same hobbies, and our friends were always the same. But around high school, he started to change. He started making other friends, who weren’t in our social circle. He started getting interested in things I wasn’t, and he started seeing so many girls that I couldn’t even keep count. But we were still close, and nothing ever separated us. When we got to college, however, things really took a turn for the worse. Somehow, Marcus and I ended up liking the same girl, and I suggested that the right thing to do was to leave her be since it would be unfair on all three parties involved if she was forced to choose between us. I guess that pissed him off, and we had a huge fight about that. That was the beginning of the end. But after that, something else happened and I left America shortly after our graduation. We haven’t seen each other since.”
The shadow over his eyes returned as he spoke about leaving the states, and he stared down at the table while tapping his finger lightly on it. He looked like he was in pain, and I so badly wanted to ask what had happened that made him leave so abruptly. But he didn’t look like he was going to answer that, and I didn’t want to make him
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uncomfortable. After all, he didn’t push me when I left out some parts about my past, so I had no right to do the
same to him.
When he was ready, he would tell me the truth
“So, I was thinking…,” I started to say, but he leaned forward and suddenly said, “Tell me a secret.”
“What?” I asked confusedly.
“A secret,” he replied. “Something you normally wouldn’t tell anyone.”
I had to think properly before I answered, and I said, “When I was in college, I once flew a guy over from Greece because we’d been talking online and I wanted to see him. But then he got here and by the time I went to the hotel, he was having sex with another girl. I walked out and never called him again. He texted me a few days later using a different number, begging for forgiveness and saying he couldn’t afford to fly himself back to Greece. I never replied.”
Ethan burst out laughing, so loud that everyone around us turned around and stared at us confusedly. He didn’t seem to care, and he clutched his side as he doubled over in laughter. It was such a warm and refreshing sound, and my heart swelled at the thought that I could make him laugh this hard.
“I’m sorry,” he said, in between gasps for air. “I just wasn’t expecting anything like that.”
“Well, it happens,” I said. “And I’ve never done anything like that again.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “You’ve really seen some crazy shit in your day.”
“What about you?” I asked. “Now it’s your turn to tell me a secret.”
I could have sworn that the air changed a little bit the moment I said that. Something about his eyes shifted, and they became a little darker. I was suddenly very aware of the fact that my feet were brushing against his under the table, and the fact that my neckline was so low that he could practically see my breasts in full display. I was also very aware of how good his cologne smelled, and the fact that he was leaning ever so slightly towards me.
And when he spoke, it sent a shiver right down my spine, and I almost couldn’t breathe as the words smoothly rolled off his lips and nearly made me pass out on the spot.
“I want to kiss you.
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