Free Bookish by Olivia Hawthorne, Olivia Long Page B

in the kitchen. It doesn’t get much hotter than that,” I laughed.
    “Yes, that,” she said and smiled, “but mostly because he was joyous around you. He likes you, Aubrey, he likes you a lot. You’re a beautiful woman and you have to wake up at some point and see that about yourself. Just because your slutty friend does her best to push you into the background, you have to know that you don’t belong in the shadows. You are Isaac’s equal, and you are worthy of him…and any man you choose to grace with your love and attention. Don’t you forget it.”
    I’d never really heard such high praise from my aunt. She tended to be more practical and would generally compliment me on my skills in the kitchen or my mean Scrabble abilities. To hear her call me beautiful made me blush a little, but also possibly almost believe it for the first time in my life.
    My mother had been a beauty, why not me?
    “Thank you,” I managed to say before tearing up. I sipped my tea and munched on the heavily buttered toast she set in front of me. Tea and toast, Auntie Abby’s favourite breakfast.
    My phone buzzed and I almost broke a finger grabbing it from the table, I swear. I slid it open and mentally crossed my fingers, praying it was Isaac.
    I guess I must have a direct line to God, because it was from Mr. James himself.
    “Morning love, did your ark survive the night?”
    “Is it him?” Auntie Abby asked me, “never mind, I can tell by your secretive little smile that it is. I will leave you to call him, or chat him, or sext him…whatever you kids are doing these days.”
    “It’s just regular texting,” I said and felt a small thrill at the thought of dirty talking with Isaac James.
    “Either way,” she said and stood, knocking a couple cats off her lap in the process, and continued, “I’ll leave you to it. I have a hot yoga class to attend in an hour. Not as hot as your boyfriend’s fine behind, but it will do.”
    “Nice one,” I said and laughed. In spite of acting more like a grandmother, she was in such great shape for her age; I was convinced she’d live forever. She was probably teaching the class to a bunch of girls my age for all I knew.
    “We made it,” I texted back.
    “Did you miss me?”
    “Of course.”
    “I missed you. I wanted to wake with you in my arms.”
    “Maybe tonight?” I backspaced, erased my bold suggestion, then typed it again and hit send before I could back out again. For a few long seconds I sat clutching the phone in my hand, staring at the screen, waiting for his response.
    It felt like hours before he texted back, “Not tonight, love. I’m on the way to the airport, assignment in LA.”
    My heart sunk. Had he been playing me all along? If he knew he was leaving town, why would he have invited me to spend the night? Had he been planning on forcing me to make the walk of shame this morning? That would have been far more humiliating than what the gossip pages were reporting already.
    “It just came up,” another text came through. “I didn’t know about it until an hour ago.”
    “How long will you be gone?” I texted back.
    “Three days. Can I see you Friday? I’ll come from the airport to pick you up.”
    “I guess. That might be nice.”
    “I’ll bring you back something special.”
    “Just bring yourself and I’ll be happy.”
    “Take care, love. I’ll talk to you from L.A.”
    I smiled and held the phone to my chest, let the weird, warm waves of happiness wash over me. This was so strange, this feeling of complete joy. I wasn’t necessarily an emo type, I’d never cut myself or had an eating disorder, none of the pathologically normal depressed teen things. But I’d always been a little morose. I can’t lie; I tended towards the sad side of things.
    I used to say I wasn’t a cynic, I was a realist.
    But cynicism has no place when falling in love, and realism doesn’t belong in a world where I want to curl up under my blankets and drift on fantasies