“Sorry. But I did bring something to help!” She bent and reached for the gift bag nestled by her feet. Olivia had seen her carry it in and could only imagine what was inside. Mansi extended the white bag sprouting with pink tissue paper. “Some survival supplies.”
Olivia took it with a curious smile. “You didn’t have to get me anything, Manse.” She shoved her hand into the puffy present and pulled out a wad of tissue.
“Of course I did. I’m not going to see you for a month, and I know you will need more help than code ‘yellow bikini’ texts while you’re in there.”
“Well, I don’t think it was necessary, but thank you anyway,” she said, and grabbed the first solid object she felt. A small plastic box filled with two rows of round balls of wax. “Earplugs?”
“Indeed,” Mansi said, and sipped her wine. “I did extensive research. Those block out snoring, traffic, and problematic ex-boyfriends.”
Olivia snorted a laugh, not having expected her gift to contain anything so pragmatic, though she was dealing with Mansi, so perhaps she should not have been surprised. She stuck her hand farther into the bag and felt two more objects: one, a smooth box taking up the whole side of the bag, and the other, smaller with a sharp plastic edge that she wrapped her fingers around. She pulled it out with another laugh.
“A padlock?” she said at the sight of the little metal box with a U-shaped hook inside plastic packaging she’d surely need scissors to open.
“You might need it!” Mansi blurted with a grin. “There’s nothing in the contract saying that creating restricted access zones inside the house is against the rules, I checked.”
Olivia chuckled and set it on the table next to the earplugs. Installing it would require tools and hardware, but honestly, she might be up for it, especially if it meant locking Chuck in some small portion of the house while she had access to the rest of it. Perhaps there was a cellar.
“You are nothing if not practical, Mansi,” she said, and reached for the final item in the bag.
Mansi winked at her and coyly sipped her wine as she watched her lift the narrow box.
Olivia got it halfway out of the bag before she dropped it with a gasp. Her face flooded with heat. “Mansi,” she hissed in embarrassment at the sight of a label in metallic pink script. She recognized it from a high-end adult toy store.
Her friend cackled like a delighted witch. “What? You haveneeds, Olivia. And if we’re running Operation Yellow Bikini while you’re in there, you are going to get lonely, not to mention frustrated and all pent-up. This is meant to help keep you from doing anything with Chuck you’ll regret. Plus, it’s rechargeable, so you won’t have to keep replacing batteries when you inevitably kill it.”
“Mansi!” Olivia scolded again. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was witnessing their wildly inappropriate exchange. She stuffed all her gifts back in the bag and buried them in tissue paper. “You couldn’t have given me thisat home? Or evenin the parking lot? This isn’t exactly a dinner table gift.”
“You know, for someone who has made out with Chuck, if not done more, in public all over this city, you’re being awfully prudish about this,” Mansi said with a laugh.
Olivia glared at her.
“Oh, don’t give me that look. You’ll thank me when you’re not wound tighter than a guitar string for having had no physical contact for weeks—I know how you get. Who cares if the contact comes from a piece of robotic silicone.”
Olivia realized that Mansi, in her endless wisdom, made an excellent point.
Until she met Chuck, Olivia had never been a voraciously sexual person. Her appetite had been moderate at best, but she had realized after their first night together that that was because she hadn’t known the full extent of what existed. That someone could make her feel so desired with a single look that satisfying that desire took precedence over everything else. That her own desires, her wants and needs and indulgent fantasies, could be put front and center with no expectation for reciprocation. But that she wouldwantto reciprocate so badly, to unravel him the way he did her, that the satisfaction of it was greater than what he made her feel. That all of that would add up to the need for his presence becoming physical and his absence intolerable.
Sometimes she hated him for how much she wanted him. For what he’d done to her by showing her what was possible. For the fire he’d lit in her blood that made her ache.
She pulled Mansi’s gift bag into her lap and gently hugged it with a repentant smile. “Thank you for the gift, Mansi,” she shyly said.
Her friend laughed, and they enjoyed the rest of their dinner.
When they left the restaurant, they’d just hugged goodbye on the sidewalk when Olivia heard someone shout her name.
“Olivia!”
She turned just in time to see a bright flash pop in her face.It left her reeling and blinking stars, and she didn’t realize what had happened until she heard Mansi bark.
“Hey! Leave her alone!”
“Just trying to get a few shots of the infamouslove child, sweetheart. Don’t worry about it,” the voice behind the flash said. It was a man Olivia didn’t recognize, but she knew in a heartbeat that he was a photographer who’d sell pictures of her to the tabloids. And hearing the name he’d called her bottomed out her stomach at the thought of what story they’d print with them.
Another flash went off, and Olivia held up her hand to block it.
“I said, leave her alone, asshole!” Mansi shouted. She wrapped a protective arm around Olivia and turned them the other way.
“Come on! I’m not hurting anybody,” the man said, and followed them. His flash continued throwing sparks into the dim night as he spoke. “Olivia, want to pop off your top again like you did in the video?”