Count Your Lucky Stars (Written in the Stars, #3)(35)

Olivia worried her bottom lip between her teeth. “Sure. I guess.” She stretched forward for the remote. “I’ll find something on TV.”

Margot escaped to the kitchen and braced her hands against the counter. Fuck, fuck, fuck. She needed to pull it together. Get a grip. Her feelings for Olivia had fucked everything up for her once; she refused to let that happen again, no matter how badly she ached to press Olivia down onto the couch and feel Olivia tremble beneath her fingers, around her fingers. Fuck.

Margot clenched her eyes shut, but all that did was superimpose a hundred fantasies on the back of her lids. A running reel of memories. Her fingers curled around the kitchen counter until her knuckles turned white.

Olivia had always been tactile and a little bit of a flirt. It didn’t mean anything. Just because she’d wanted Margot once, for that one week eleven years ago, didn’t mean she wanted Margot again, wanted her now.

Friends. Margot sucked in a deep breath, air shuddering between her lips. She held it until her lungs ached and her heart kicked at the wall of her chest, then let it out slowly, shoulders dropping and heart rate slowing to something approaching normal. Friends. Margot could totally do friends. She was great at doing friends. Oh, Jesus. Great at being friends.

Reaching inside the cabinet beside the stove, Margot pulled out a bag of extra-buttery movie-theater-style popcorn. She ripped off the plastic, unfolded the bag, and popped it in the microwave, adding an extra thirty seconds because there was nothing she hated more than anemic popcorn, pale and with the kernel unpopped, the center hard enough to break a tooth.

When the microwave beeped, Margot divided the popcorn into two bowls, one for her, one for Olivia, no chance of buttery fingers brushing when they both reached in at the same time.

A little less hot beneath the collar, Margot wandered back into the living room, a bowl in each hand. “Find something? We can always look on Netflix.”

Olivia took her bowl with a smile, gesturing to the TV with the remote. “TMC’s running a Shirley MacLaine marathon.”

Margot curled up on the opposite cushion. Right now, the channel was on a commercial. “What’s on?”

Olivia finished chewing before answering, “The Apartment.”

“That’s a good one.” Margot sifted through the bowl, picking out the darkest pieces, little kernels burnt to perfection.

“You remember when you had mono?”

“Oof. Don’t remind me. I thought I was going to die that summer.” Margot cringed.

Olivia bumped her shoulder and when Margot turned, her eyes brightened. “It wasn’t all bad. We stayed in bed, remember? That part was nice.”

“You practically moved in with me.” Margot’s chest squeezed, hot and tight. “You even skipped cheer camp.”

Olivia had surrendered her spot on the varsity squad sophomore year just so she could spend the summer marathoning Turner Classic Movies from Margot’s bed. In between spells of feverish fatigue and moments of feeling like run-over shit, Margot was pretty sure she’d thanked Olivia. Now she wasn’t sure.

“Worth it.” Olivia grinned and slipped a fingerful of popcorn in her mouth, her lips already glossy with butter. Margot swallowed a pitiful mewl. She’d never wanted to suck on something so badly in her life.

The commercial ended with a jingle, and Margot faced the screen, heartbeat drowning out the sound of Shirley MacLaine bantering with Jack Lemmon.

Not even five minutes later, Olivia nudged her arm. “Here.”

Margot blinked. Olivia held out her bowl of popcorn. She’d scavenged for the extra-dark pieces, burned and black, pushing them to one side and leaving the pale, golden kernels on the other.

“I know you like the burnt pieces best.” Olivia swayed close, bumping their shoulders together. “Or, you did.”

Something fluttered in her chest, quickly followed by an ache, like pressing on a tender bruise. It hurt, but she couldn’t leave it alone.

“I do.” Margot swallowed hard. “I—not much about my taste has changed.”

Olivia stared, gaze flickering between Margot’s eyes and her mouth.

“Same,” she breathed.

Margot’s heart thundered inside her head, drowning out the sound of the television until it was nothing but static, senseless white noise. She clutched the bowl of popcorn to her chest, the plastic rim pressing into her sternum. “Is there something on my face?”

Olivia’s eyes dipped, her lids lowering and her lashes casting a shadow against the skin beneath her eyes. The perfume of her hair, honeysuckle sweet, clouded Margot’s senses as she leaned in and—since when had Olivia gotten so close? Close enough to make out the blue veins on her eyelids, and admire the slightly crooked line of her nose, the finely formed bow of her lush lips, and the dimple in her chin.

Margot held impossibly still, arms all but vibrating, shaking around the bowl of popcorn in her lap. She couldn’t make herself move; it was the closest to an out-of-body experience she’d ever had, watching as Olivia crept closer, the distance between their faces dwindling.

Olivia exhaled, breath blowing buttery and sweet against Margot’s mouth, a prelude to the press of her lips. Goose bumps broke out along Margot’s skin as Olivia’s lips pillowed against hers, soft and so brief. Before Margot could even shut her eyes, Liv had drawn away, lashes fluttering open, looking into Margot’s eyes, gaze dreamy and—