Mr. Grady!My brain detected another male human. He was in his seventies, but it was fine. I just needed a name, and his name was Ralph!
Ralph. I opened my mouth to say the name, but the word refused to release its death grip on my tongue. Even though men no longer existed in my brain, I knew for certain that Ralph was not a name from my generation.
“OLIVE. Spill.”
“It’s Miles!”
My heart rate slowed as the pressure of providing a name melted off my shoulders. Though I did feel lighter, my body was immediately filled with remorse. I hated lying to my sister, especially since this type of news had the potential to put her over the moon in the happiness department. It also felt a tiny bit disloyal to use Miles in this way. Not because I liked him, but because Ididn’t. I was disappointed in myself that I had sunk so low as to use him like that. Oh well, he would never know. And Chloe didn’t know him, so hopefully it—
“Wait? From your school? The hot new teacher you can’t stand?!”
My grip on the phone tightened. Had I told her about him?
“How did you know?”
“You complain about him all the time.”
Isodo not. Do I? Okay, maybe afewhorrible things said in passing, but nothing anybody should have remembered.
“How’d you know he was hot?” I knew for certain that I would havenevertold her that.
“I don’t know, I guess I just assumed. With how you talked about him, I think I just filled in the blank in my mind. So are you for real? This is CRAZY! How did you two start going out? I thought you were never going to date somebody you work with ever again. And WHY didn’t you tell me?!”
Her intrusive questions swirled in the air as my brain attempted to pick one to answer.Thiswas why people warned you about lying—even little white lies told for the simple reason of saving your sanity. Already, my sanity was null and void, and now my anxiety was through the roof. Maybe I could backtrack.
“I’m just kidding. It’s not…it’s a different Miles.”
“There can’t be more than oneMilesin Stanton.”
“Why are you more apt to believe me when I told you that it was Miles, the guy I didn’t like from my school?”
“I’m not saying I believe you yet. But please. You liked him. You wouldn’t whine so much about him if he didn’t get under your skin.”
I made a face in the mirror across from me. “That is NOT—"
“Tell me how it happened!” she interrupted. “Did he ask you out first? I had a feeling he liked you. Guys don’t tease like that unless—"
“He just asked me out to coffee one day after school. To talk about a mutual student.” My eyes widened as more words expelled from my lips. “And there you go. Simple. I didn’t want to make it a thing with everyone until it was more sure.” There. That sounded pretty good.
“And what about your no-dating-anybody-you-work-with rule?”
“That’s why we’re being so casual and taking it extremely slow. I don’t want to relive the whole Brian fiasco.” Correction. I wouldneverrelive the whole Brian fiasco. Now I was kicking myself that I’d used Miles’s name and that, at some point, I had told my sister about him.UGH. Bad Olive.
I moved all the toiletries from my bed into the pockets of my suitcase. The truth was, I wasn’t against dating. I wanted to date people. A hot, flannel-wearing lumberjack sounded great to me. But not this week. And not Glenn Foster.
“So anyway. There you have it. My dating life in a nutshell. I guess one of us should mention this to Mom so she can warn the Fosters before they get there.”
“Mention to Mom that you’re suddenly dating somebody that nobody knew about? Somebody who nobody will see during this trip? And that your relationship is so abnormally casual and the timing is just perfect enough that it doesn’t sound quite real?”
“Well, maybe not with that tone.”
She snorted.
Her voice was now riddled with wariness. But I had made my bed, and I now had to jump in.
“Listen. You don’t have to believe me, but I am dating Miles Taylor.” The words came off my tongue with frightening ease, but it still hurt to say them out loud.
She spat out a dry chuckle. “Fine. I’ll tell Mom so hopefully it will get Glenn off your back, but I will need to see your eyes when you tell me this is real. If I still feel like something isn’t quite right, and if you’re lying to me, so help me, you’ll pay for it.”