So I guess here goes nothing.
“This is Ollie,” I answer. “My, uh . . . my girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend?” Posey croaks, choking on his pizza.
“You have a girlfriend?” Pacey asks, brows pulled together. “How come you’ve never told us about her?”
“Yeah, what the fuck, man?” Hornsby adds. “You’ve just been hiding her from us?”
I pull on the back of my neck, trying to gather my patience. “We, uh . . . we wanted to make sure we were committed before going public.”
Ollie awkwardly smiles and then waves. “Hey, I’m Ollie, nice to weirdly meet you all.”
Finding his manners, Pacey lends his hand out to her and says, “Hi. I’m Pacey. The guy with the pizza is Levi Posey. The one on the couch is Eli Hornsby. And the shy one over there in the corner, that’s Halsey Holmes.”
“Nice to meet you all.” She rocks on her heels as silence falls between us all. This is so fucking uncomfortable. “Do you want me to wait out in the hallway until you’re done?”
“No,” I say quickly. “They were all just leaving.”
“Wait, I didn’t even get to crack my beer open yet,” Posey says.
“You’re leaving.”
“Now that Ollie’s here, I really want to stay,” Hornsby says.
Yeah, over my dead body.
“Leave. Now. Before I physically remove you myself.”
“I think he’s being serious,” Posey says while looking among the boys and me. “I think he wants us to leave.”
“I think he does,” Hornsby says. “That’s fucking rude.”
“Come on,” Holmes says while picking up the pizza and the beer.
“Are we really just going to let him slide by with this new information?” Hornsby asks, the ever-present questioner in the group.
“We can talk about it later,” Pacey says, eyeing me.
“What about the pizza?” Posey asks while standing.
Glad to see where his priorities are at.
“We’ll finish it at my place,” Holmes says. “Come on.”
Thank God for him. Collectively, they shuffle out the door, all saying bye to Ollie. Pacey is the last one out, and when he turns to me, he has a very serious look on his face as he says, “You will be explaining this tomorrow.”
“Can’t wait,” I say right before shutting the door on him.
Jesus, they treat me like an absolute child. There will be explaining, though I owe them nothing. Although I know they’re going to harass me until I do explain, so . . . something to look forward to.
Slightly embarrassed, I turn toward Ollie and push my hand through my hair. “Sorry about that.”
“Why are you apologizing? That was a lot of fun.”
“For you,” I say. “Not really the way I wanted to greet you into my home.”
“I don’t know. It had some pizzazz that I wasn’t expecting.” She kicks her shoes off at the door and takes her backpack off, which she sets down next to her shoes. “Wow, your view is incredible.”
