Tell Me to Run by Charlotte Byrd

Author:Charlotte Byrd [Byrd, Charlotte]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Byrd Books, LLC
Published: 2019-11-01T18:30:00+00:00

18

Olive

When we make a compromise…

I think about it for a moment. I don’t want to want to do this but it would be a lie if I’d say I didn’t.

Suddenly, I have an itch to scratch again.

But this offer is also more than that. This would be a way out. This would be enough money for all of us to disappear. Together!

Now, that’s an idea! The only person who doesn’t need a reason to flee is me and yet if I want to keep both Owen and Nicholas in my life, going away together is the only way.

Nicholas has it all planned out.

I ask him to go over the details twice just to make sure that they all sound right.

The thing about coming up with these kind of plans is to think of all the things that can go wrong.

It’s not enough to just lay out the steps of what to do, you also have to lay out the steps of everything you would do if a hundred other things happened preventing you from doing the thing you planned on doing.

“We need Owen,” I say.

“Does that mean you’re in?” Nicholas’ eyes light up.

“I’m in if he’s in.”

He’s not happy to hear this.

I’m not surprised.

“Okay, hear me out. We need a third person and we’re doing this partly for him. So, what’s the point of sharing in the loot with a stranger when he is the one who would benefit?”

“That’s hard to argue with him,” he says after a moment.

I let out a sigh of relief.

“But I’ll give it a try,” Nicholas adds. “Owen hates my guts.”

I wait for him to say more, but he doesn’t.

“So?”

“So? Is that not enough?”

I inhale deeply.

“No, it’s not,” I finally say. “In most cases, it would be, but not this one.”

“Why?”

“Don’t you see that I’m stuck in the middle here? He’s my brother and you’re my boyfriend. You two have reasons to disappear, I don’t. But if I want to keep you in my life, both of you, we have to disappear together. All three of us.”

He looks at me as if I’m saying something ridiculous when we both know that he has thought about this a number of times before.

“You could disappear by yourself and he could also and you would never to have to deal with one another again, but if you want me then we have to do this thing together.”

Nicholas rubs his temples and stares out into the distance, somewhere past me.

“He’s not really your brother,” he says after a moment.

“That doesn’t change our history. It doesn’t change the way I feel about him.”

“It changes the way he feels about you, Olive. He’s in love with you.”

“I don’t care about that,” I say quickly, trying to change the topic. “He hasn’t said anything to me about it and he’s nothing but my brother in my eyes.”

Shaking his head, Nicholas makes his hands into fists until the whites of his knuckles appear.

I leave it at that for now. As long as he is not outwardly rejecting the proposition, it’s good enough for me.

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