Count Your Lucky Stars (Written in the Stars, #3)(19)

“Anyway, Brad wanted a baby and I didn’t, and when I made it crystal clear he seemed to accept it. Or I thought he did.” For a split second, her chest constricted, making it difficult to breathe. “I hadn’t told my dad the specifics, but he knew things between Brad and I weren’t great and I wasn’t happy. He suggested we go to couples counseling, which we did, once. It didn’t do much because Brad was different there . . . more open, but less honest? If that makes sense.”

Margot nibbled on her lip, listening intently.

“After that didn’t work, Dad finally told me if I wasn’t happy, I should . . . consider my options. Which was surprising, because Dad always got along with Brad. I mean, they still get along, which is good. I’m glad Dad has someone in town who he could call if he needed something. Anyway, I didn’t want to. Consider my options. I made a commitment. I figured every couple has a rough patch.” Olivia picked at her nails. How was this still difficult to talk about? “Then Emmy Caldwell—you remember her from school, right?—showed up at my front door to tell me she and Brad had been sleeping together for the past six months and she was pretty sure she was pregnant with his baby.”

“Jesus, Liv,” Margot murmured. “That’s . . . shit.”

Olivia sniffled then laughed, even though it wasn’t funny. It was either laugh or cry and she’d cried enough over Brad to last a lifetime. “It was pretty awful. I was shocked? I don’t—maybe I shouldn’t have been. There were probably signs, and the fact that I’d missed them speaks to how bad things between Brad and me had become. Anyway, I moved back in with my dad and I filed for divorce and we didn’t have many assets—we were renting the house from his parents—and he didn’t contest the filing, so it all moved pretty quickly. Within six weeks, we were divorced.”

“Damn, Liv. I don’t really know what to say.” Margot reached out and squeezed Olivia’s shoulder.

Olivia didn’t mean to, but she swayed into Margot’s touch, into the warmth of her hand seeping through the thin cotton of Olivia’s T-shirt.

She’d received plenty of warnings and advice before moving to Seattle, from Dad and from the internet. No one had ever warned her of the very specific loneliness that came with living in a city where you knew no one, how easy it was to become touch-starved. Of course she leaned into Margot’s touch. She was honestly surprised she didn’t climb into Margot’s lap and purr.

“There’s nothing to say, really. It was a mess.” She snorted. “Want to know the real kicker?”

Margot dropped her hand and cringed. “Do I?”

“Turns out, Emmy wasn’t even pregnant. Total false alarm. She found out and didn’t say anything to Brad because she was worried he’d . . . I don’t know, change his mind or something.” Which he had. He’d called and left voicemails and finally knocked on Olivia’s front door, begging her to come back, alternating between issuing apologies and being irate when she didn’t swoon. It was too late for that. “Long story short, I married the wrong guy. Wrong person.”

Her heart stuttered when all Margot did was stare.

“Anyway, enough about me.” Olivia curled her fingers around the edge of the list of roommate logistics she’d compiled, leaving damp fingerprints behind that turned the paper translucent. “I’ll just start at the top here. Laundry.”

“It might help if I told you where that was, huh?” Margot rolled her eyes at herself. “It’s in the basement, which is significantly less creepy than it sounds. Promise. You’ve got to use your key—the one for the outside door—to get inside, so it’s pretty secure. The lighting’s a fluorescent nightmare, but they put in new washers and dryers last year. Everything’s high-efficiency, so you don’t have to worry about wasting umpteen quarters to make sure your shit’s dry.”

She was just happy there was laundry on-site. “I think I might run a load of darks before bed. I can throw yours in with mine, if you want.”

For some inexplicable reason, the tips of Margot’s ears went pink. “It’s fine.”

“Are you sure? Because I don’t mind.” Laundry was one of those tasks she actually enjoyed, unlike washing dishes, which she did, but not without massive amounts of internal grumbling.

Margot nibbled on her lip for a moment before laughing under her breath. “You know what? Sure. You handled my vibrator, like, ten minutes ago. I guess touching my underwear is pretty tame by comparison.”

Handled wasn’t quite the word Olivia would have used. In a perfect world, her ideal scenario of how she might handle Margot’s vibrator would’ve included far less clothing.

“All right.” She forced herself to focus back on the list instead of the fantasy playing out inside her head. “Let’s see. I, uh, kind of googled a list of crucial conversations to have with a new roommate, but some of these sound silly since . . .” Her tongue darted out, wetting her bottom lip. “Like you said, we know each other. Unless you developed any allergies I don’t know about . . .”

“It would be news to me.”

Olivia smiled. “I guess we don’t really need to talk about pets, since you’re already well aware I have a cat.”

Margot snorted. “I don’t know. I asked Cameron what I needed to know about cats. He didn’t give me much to work off, but something tells me nothing could’ve prepared me for what happened in the hall.”