Summertime & Butterflies

“Hello, hello!”

The jubilant greeting of Olivia’s best friend rang through the small house as she pushed open the front door, arms laden with grocery bags. Olivia looked up from the nachos she was preparing and grinned when she saw the tops of at least two wine bottles poking out. The two friends hadn’t seen each other since Olivia had returned from Los Angeles, and clearly had a bit of catching up to do. Not wanting to tell her best friend about Harry via text messaging, Olivia had been sitting on the change in her love life for longer than she’d ever had.

“Hi!” Olivia greeted, sounding as excited as Heather. “Yay!” she added for emphasis, always excited for a wine and junk food night with Heather, even if it was a Wednesday. But her fridge was stocked with Gatorade and her senior students had an all-day college fair the next day. It was the perfect opportunity for a hangover.

“How was your – Ooh, are you making fat kid nachos?” asked Heather, dropping the grocery bags on the counter and peering over Olivia’s shoulder.

Olivia nodded, sprinkling cheese over the jalapeño potato chips – plain tortilla chips were too bland, too boring. “’Course,” she answered, pouring a cream cheese mixture over the already calorie-filled snack. “Like I’d really be prepping a veggie tray,” she added, snickering at herself.

Heather clapped her hands gleefully. “Oh, goody!” she exclaimed. “And hi!” she added, pulling Olivia into a hug. “How was your trip? You’re so tanned and, like…” Heather paused, examining Olivia’s face curiously. “… Flushied?” she determined, making up a word to describe Olivia’s face. “Like, did you get some or something?” she wondered, stealing a chip off of the pan.

Olivia pursed her lips shut, but the trace of a smile wasn’t lost on Heather. “You did!” she gasped. “Oh, my God! Who? Tell me everything!”

Olivia laughed, ducking past Heather to set the nacho tray in the oven. “Better get those open first,” she advised Heather, nodding towards the wine bottles as she rinsed her hands under the faucet. Heather nearly tripped over herself as she beelined to Olivia’s wine rack. Hurriedly, she grabbed two glasses off the rack and set them on the counter, knocking over one of her grocery bags in the process.

“Jesus,” Olivia snickered, watching Heather rifle through the utensil drawer for a corkscrew. “Should have bought screw top,” she giggled, amused by Heather’s hurried behaviour.

“I know, but this stuff’s… ugh… good,” Heather grunted, struggling with Olivia’s ancient corkscrew. “Ugh, this thing!” she panted, placing the bottle on the floor and holding it between the arches of her feet, pulling on the corkscrew. “Where’s that big one you found at that garage sale?” she asked, tucking her lower lip under her teeth in concentration.

“In the basement,” Olivia answered, taking the bottle from Heather and readjusting the corkscrew. “I didn’t like it. Here,” she added after she effortlessly pulled the cork out, passing the bottle back to Heather. Heather rolled her eyes, responding by handing Olivia the bottle of white to work her magic on as she poured the red into her own glass.

“Okay, hurry up!” Heather urged, gesturing to the living room. “I need to hear all about this mystery man who makes your face look like that!”

“Like what?” asked Olivia, taking a sip of wine and giving Heather an innocent look. She couldn’t wait to gush to her best friend about Harry, but for a few minutes, it was fun driving Heather crazy.

“Shut up, let’s go,” Heather ordered, taking the lead and walking into the living room. Grabbing her phone, Olivia smirked and followed Heather, setting her wine on the coffee table before curling her legs under her and settling on the sofa.

“Okay,” Olivia began before Heather could ask again. “So… I told you I threw up on that guy…” she began, shaking her head slightly at the memory – which seemed like yesterday and years ago at the same time.

“Yeah,” Heather answered. “But just a spew… not like Santa Clarita Diet,” she said, pointing a finger at Olivia, remembering the texts Olivia had manically sent her after she landed.

“Barely a spew,” Olivia corrected, taking a sip from her wine.

Heather waved her hand dismissively. “Whatever,” she replied. “So… him?” she asked, gulping down some of her own wine. “How’d that happen?”

“Funny you should ask!” Olivia laughed. “Well…” she inhaled, remembering back to the first night at the bar. “Steph and I went out to this bar later that night… this super seedy, gross little dive bar. They had full size Jenga! And… okay, okay… not important,” she quickly added as Heather rolled her eyes and tapped the imaginary watch on her wrist.

“Anyway, it was just kind of funny… like an icebreaker, that we were both there,” Olivia continued slowly, her gaze appearing far off as she reminisced. “We… we hit it off, right from the start… He asked me about these idiots, even,” Olivia added, gesturing to the few cats milling around in front of the patio door.

“So he asked you about your cats, and then you… showed him your… Oh, I can’t say it, but you know what I mean!” Heather said, laughing at her attempt to be perverse.

Olivia snickered. Heather was the least perverse person she knew. Even making the obvious joke about cats was something out of her comfort zone. And while her vulgar comments were about as rare as a unicorn, on the off-chance she made one, it was like getting two fortunes in your cookie.

“I actually didn’t,” Olivia confessed. “I know, I know,” she added, holding her hands up in mock surprise. “Shocker, eh?” she asked self-deprecatingly, poking fun at her promiscuity.

“So… wait,” Heather interrupted. “You didn’t? But what’s with your silly face? And, oh… it’s not a shocker,” she added kindly, not wanting Olivia to put herself down. “But… but then what happened?!” she urged impatiently.

“Uhm… well…” Olivia mused, the thoughts running through her mind sounding weird to her now that she’d gotten to know – and love – Harry. “I kind of thought he was just a fuck boy. And while we all know I’m used to those assholes… it felt different. Like, for some reason, I didn’t want to have slutty vacation sex with a stranger,” she tried to explain. “But…” she continued, a sly smirk appearing on her face.

“You did!” Heather cheered, clapping her hands together excitedly. “Yay, slutty vacation sex!” she exclaimed, sounding as though it was the best thing ever, but Olivia knew Heather hadn’t even had a one night stand before.

“Well, not quite,” Olivia corrected. “After I turned him down at the bar, I went to wait outside while Steph paid… and she was thinking we were on the fast track to big money, so she was all what-the-fucking about me leaving. So Ha – he,” she continued, quickly correcting herself from saying his name, “gave his number to Steph instead, and she arranged this secret little barbecue thing.”

“Leave it to Steph,” Heather said with a laugh, having only met the eldest Hayes sister a handful of times but quickly realised she was bossy, conniving and always got her own way.

“Right?” asked Olivia, jumping off the couch and holding a finger to Heather. “Nachos,” she remembered, trotting into the kitchen. She pulled the tray out of the oven and reached for the wine bottle. Deciding against simply filling up her glass, she precariously tucked both bottles under her arm and carefully carried the tray into the living room.

“Atta girl,” Heather commended, reaching for the red and topping up her glass. She shoved a few chips into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully before continuing the conversation. “So… what happened at this barbecue? You cooked, naturally,” she added with a giggle.

Olivia nodded and rolled her eyes as she chewed on her own handful of nachos. Stephanie’s lack of culinary skills tended to be a running joke between anyone who’d met her. “Of course,” she chuckled. “It was like… super awkward, though… Like, I’d turned this guy down and then… poof, he’s at my sister’s house. Watching me make hamburgers. Making jokes about cutting the cheese. Which… was actually really funny,” Olivia told her, laughing at the thought of the childish jokes.

Heather raised an eyebrow at Olivia’s laughter. “Kinda had to be there, eh?” she asked, not getting the humour in the joke.

“I’m glad you weren’t,” Olivia admitted, ducking her head as she felt her face flush. “Cause then… he kissed me outside… and it was like… the sweetest, most adorable kiss I’ve ever had. He… I… it just gave me butterflies and…” Olivia smiled bashfully, though a hollow ache filled her and she wished with all her might she could be kissing him right now.

“Oh my go-oo-osh!” Heather shrieked, clenching her fists excitedly. “Oh, gosh! Your face! You’re blushing! Sooo cute!” She paused for a moment to sip her wine. “What’s his name?!”

Olivia chewed on her lower lip thoughtfully, trying to decide how to tell Heather who her mystery man was. She knew Heather would know who Harry was. Perpetually sixteen years old, Heather was the only thirty year old woman Olivia knew who kept up on all of the pop culture gossip. She watched TMZ every night, she bought the gossip magazines on display in the grocery checkout and followed all of the Kardashians on Instagram.

“His name’s, uh… Harry,” Olivia told Heather, taking a sip of her wine to hide the smirk on her face.

“Harry,” Heather repeated, letting out a short chuckle. “So, what… is he a pop star or a prince?” she asked teasingly. “Sorry, that’s…” She trailed off, catching the look on Olivia’s face as she eyed her curiously. “Wait.” She demanded. “Is he a pop star… or a prince?” she repeated, eagerly leaning forward.

Olivia let out a high pitched giggle, covering her face abashedly. “Pop star,” she mumbled from behind her hands, feeling her face heat up.

Heather leapt from her seat on the loveseat, clambering over to Olivia. She pried Olivia’s hands from her face and stared at her friend, searching her eyes for a flicker of humour. Olivia wasn’t a good liar but she sometimes tried to be a jokester, and Heather was the most gullible person Olivia knew.

“No way,” she finally determined slowly, though sounding unsure.

“Way,” Olivia assured Heather, reaching for her phone. She unlocked the screen and thumbed through her gallery. Settling on a picture, she handed her phone to Heather. “This is on the beach, where he took me on our first date,” Olivia said haughtily, peering over Heather’s shoulder at the picture. The two of them were lying on their stomachs, shoulder-to-shoulder. Olivia’s eyes were squinted in the sun, and Harry had a goofy, dimpled grin across his face.

“Oh, I like this one, too,” Olivia said, taking her phone back from a stunned Heather and swiping through a few more. “This is while we were playing Scrabble at his house… and I was pissed off because he played a super good word. So… he was trying to cheer me up. It kind of worked,” she added with a giggle. The picture showed a gleeful Harry pressing a kiss against Olivia’s cheek. She was trying to appear ticked off, but right before the picture took, her face broke into a squishy smirk.

“Holy… shit…” Heather breathed after a moment. She leaned back against the couch, stunned. “You… you… and, and… that’s Harry Styles! And… and you! And… you… wha – how… what?”

Olivia leaned against the arm of the couch, quietly sipping her wine while her friend stammered out her surprise. “He’s just… a guy,” Olivia told Heather, though her star-struck friend would have a hard time buying into that. “A great guy… my guy…” she added, smiling. She nudged Heather’s arm. “He’s kind of like… well, not kind of, but is… my boyfriend.”

Heather covered her mouth, attempting to keep the wine she’d just sipped in. “Your what!” she exclaimed. “I thought you just hooked up!”

Olivia laughed and shook her head. “No,” she corrected. “Well, I mean… we did. But… I don’t know! It just feels… exactly right,” she shrugged, attempting to surmise her relationship. “It’s incredibly weird, and… terrifying,” she admitted. “I think I’m in love with him,” she told Heather in a whisper.

Heather’s mouth made an exhaling motion, as though she was about to say wow, but it took her several breaths to get the word out. “Wow,” she finally breathed. “That’s… that’s… wow,” she stuttered out, unable to form a full sentence.

Olivia snickered at Heather’s reaction, resting her elbow on the arm of the sofa, resting her cheek in her hand. “It’s a lot to take in, I know,” she told her friend in a soothing voice, smothering a giggle. “But, uhm… well, actually… I don’t really think I’m in love with him,” she told Heather, shrugging her shoulders.

Heather exhaled loudly, appearing relieved by Olivia’s correction. “Yeah, well… I mean, that’s a big thing, and sometimes it’s hard to –“

“I know I am.”

~*~*~*~

Once Heather had regained her composure, Olivia was able to continue telling her about her time with Harry. She shared details of their first date on the beach and their overnight date at his house. Heather was a terrific friend and squealed appropriately in all the right places, cooing adoringly when Olivia mentioned something sweet Harry had said.

“He sounds really amazing,” Heather commented, grabbing another handful of nachos. “But, like… and this might be totally inappropriate, but… aren’t you scared? Not of him, but like… everything that comes with him. The fans and the paparazzi and the… whole life…”

Olivia bit her lip and offered Heather a shrug. “Yeah. Kind of,” she answered, shrugging again. “I mean… I haven’t experienced anything like that, but… maybe it won’t be so bad…” She trailed off, remembering how horrifyingly mean she and her friends were any time Teen People showed a picture of a potential Backstreet Boy Girl. Working in a high school, she knew how mean teenage girls could be nowadays, and she knew Harry’s fans would be exponentially meaner than teenage Olivia and her friends had been.

Heather matched Olivia’s shrug, an unconvinced look on her face. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “You might want to be prepared for crazy Stan backlash. And just remember… they’re crazy little girls who are just jealous, and have no idea how amazing and wonderful you are!”

Olivia snickered at the compliment. “Thanks, friend,” she laughed, glancing at her phone as the Wonderful World of Disney theme song blasted from it, indicating an incoming call. “Oh!” she exclaimed gleefully, grabbing the phone. “It’s him!” She clutched the phone to her chest as she stood up. “I’ll just be right back…” she told Heather, attempting to sound guilty but not feeling the emotion at all.

“And so it begins…” Heather called, grabbing the remote control as Olivia bounded towards her bedroom. She smirked over her shoulder at her friend, knowing she didn’t care Olivia was taking the phone call, and gently closed the door behind her.

“Hey!” she greeted happily into the phone, flopping onto her bed. She curled up against the pillows, wishing they were Harry and not just a pile of encased feathers.

“Hi, sweetheart,” came Harry’s deep voice, sounding tired but smiley. “How are you? How was your day?”

Olivia smiled. She thought her days were relatively boring, but every night, Harry called her and asked about it. And every night, he didn’t seem bored to tears as she regaled him with tales of idiotic students, lack of school funding and helicopter parents.

“It was good,” she answered. “Better now,” she added with a smile.

“Oh yeah?” asked Harry, the smile on his face evident through his tone. “Why’s that?”

Olivia laughed. “Oh, just because Heather’s here and we’re having wine,” she teased him. Of course, the best part of her day, and the part that made her day go from bad to terrific, was Harry calling her. Even if they only talked for five minutes, he still made sure to call her. She hoped it wasn’t part of the honeymoon stage and they would continue talking every day. It was all they had.

“Oh, well that makes sense, obviously,” Harry teased back. “I won’t keep you then. But I found something out today, I wanted to ask you about.”

“What’s that?”

“Well… Easter’s about a week away,” Harry began. “And… you don’t have to work… right?”

Olivia nodded, though Harry couldn’t see. “Yeah, I’m off the Friday and Monday,” she answered, not picking up what Harry was putting down.

“I was thinking… what if you came here?” he asked. “I mean, not here,” he corrected, remembering he was in New York. “But, LA… You could come down on Thursday or Friday… stay the weekend… lose to Scrabble…” he added with a chuckle. “What do you think?”

“Oh, wow,” Olivia answered, sounding surprised. “That would be so… amazing…” she said, the last word coming out deadpan. While she did relatively alright for herself, financially, two trips to Los Angeles in less than a month were out of her reach.

“I… just don’t know if I can swing it,” she confessed to him, feeling embarrassed by her lack of wealth.

“Oh…” Harry mused. “Why not? If you have work to do, I can try to keep my hands off you for a couple hours,” he added teasingly. “No promises, though…”

“Yeah, right,” Olivia told him, echoing his laughter. “No, it’s just… uhm… I…” She trailed off, unsure as to how to tell Harry she was too middle class to fly internationally every month. “I’m just not sure if I can… I probably shouldn’t…”

“Is it the cost?” asked Harry, rather bluntly. She could almost hear him slapping his hand against his forehead, regretting his lack of tact.

Olivia blushed, relieved for half a second that Harry wasn’t with her to see her face. “Well… yeah…” she confessed sheepishly. “I mean, I… I…” she stammered, trying to find a way to tell Harry that she wasn’t poor, that she had a pretty awesome pension plan and a wicked credit rating. But before she could come up with a way to defend her bank account, Harry continued.

“Honey, I don’t want you to… you know, stress about things like visiting me,” he told her. “Obviously, I’ll take care of it.”

Obviously. The way he said it made Olivia bristle, just a bit. She knew he meant well by offering to foot the bill for a weekend getaway, but having always been an independent woman who found it difficult to even let a guy buy her a beer at the bar, his elaborate offering rubbed her the wrong way.

Let it go, she told herself. After coming home from Los Angeles, she sheepishly Googled Harry’s name and his net worth was one of the first things to pop up. She knew a flight from Vancouver to Los Angeles was hardly a drop in the bucket for him, and he was doing it so they could see one another. It wasn’t pompous or show-offy. It was kind and generous.

Still… “I don’t know,” Olivia confessed apologetically. “I mean… are you sure? It seems like a big expenditure… ”

Harry chuckled. “Well… I’m sure you could find a way to pay me back,” he teased suggestively.

“Like by doing your dishes?” giggled Olivia, realising she was about to tell Harry to book her a ticket. It made her feel uncomfortable, like she was mooching a holiday off him, but she had a suspicion this was far from the last extravagant purchase he would be making for her. She would have to get over it, and learn to enjoy – or at least appreciate – the gifts.

“I was thinking more along the lines of scrubbing the bathtub,” Harry laughed back.

“Ooh!” Olivia winced, bathroom chores being one of her least favourites. “Well… no. But! I’ll… let you scrub me in the bathtub…” she offered flirtatiously to him.

“I like the way your mind works,” Harry told her coyly. “So… can I… book you a ticket? Please? Pretty please?” he added for good measure.

Olivia laughed, uttering a loud sigh. “Well… if you insist…” she accepted. “Thank you,” she added.

“It’s my pleasure, sweetheart,” Harry replied. “I’ll leave you to it now, but I’ll call you tomorrow and we’ll get something arranged, okay?”

“Okay,” Olivia answered with a smile. “Thank you,” she added again.

Harry chuckled. “Stop thanking me,” he told her. “It’s more for me than you anyway… I can’t wait to see you,” he added, his voice taking on a bashful tone.

Smiling, Olivia nodded in agreement. “I can’t wait to see you, too,” she echoed, tickled by Harry’s bashful tone. “Maybe I’ll even take a sick day for you,” she added, mentally running through her class schedule and wondering if she could pull it off.

“I would support that,” Harry answered. “You sound like you’ve got a bit of a cough, anyway…” he hummed.

“Maybe I do,” Olivia laughed. “Okay, I’d better get back to my company. But I’ll talk to you tomorrow?” she added hopefully.

“Of course you will,” Harry assured her. “Have a good night, sweetheart.”

“Bye, you.”

“Bye, love.”

Notes