Olivia's Hypothesis

dates and detectives

Panic clawed at my already tangled stomach as I stood, looking around the room for something to busy myself with. Something that would stop the conversation from lulling, from looping back to whatever happened that afternoon. Sure, I could've gone back to my room to get some homework to work on, but I was worried that if I suggested it, Aiden would feel the need to escort me to make sure that Elijah had truly left. Which would inevitably segue into a discussion about Elijah himself. AKA: the last thing on earth that I wanted to talk about, especially with Aiden.

Who was already sauntering back towards me with a shy smile.

"Listen, I've been thi—"

"Laptop!" I cried.

He scrunched up his face. He looked unfairly pretty while doing so. "Laptop?"

I nodded as though my cry of panic was completely, utterly understandable. "Can I use your laptop?"

"For?"

"For research." I scoffed to buy myself time, still stringing a believable excuse together in my head. "Kiara accepted my Facebook friend request today. Which means that we have more access to her stuff now."

Aiden continued to peer at me cautiously. I breathed steadily through my nose, trying to appear casual—innocent—under his interrogative stare.

He failed to swallow an amused chuckle. "Right. You're still on crazy cyber-stalker mode."

No, I'm on secure-that-coveted-internship mode. By any means necessary.

I grinned. "Sure am."

Aiden hesitated. After a second of thought, he shook his head, walking to his side of the room to retrieve his laptop.

"Knock yourself out," he joked. But instead of walking back over to hand it to me, he plopped it down on his bed.

On the other side of the room.

I let out a loud, pointed groan, making a show of hoisting myself off Will's bed and trudging over to Aiden's. But navigating a laptop—hell, navigating anything—with my untrained left hand was a hell of a lot harder than I thought it would be.

I caught Aiden watching my efforts from the corner of my eye. He was leaning back against his bedhead, scrolling mindlessly through his phone. Funny, how he almost always seemed to be on that thing, but never answered my damn messages.

"You know, we need a name for you."

"A name?" I questioned, punching my login information into the bar.

Aiden nodded thoughtfully, chewing on his bottom lip while he appraised me. "Yeah. A detective name, or a spy name. Like... Olivia Drew. Olivia Bond."

I couldn't help but notice that he'd refrained from calling me Liv that evening. He was usually so stubborn about it, that it was hard not to notice. The logical part of my brain chalked it up to coincidence; it wasn't like Aiden to back down. But another part, a smaller, juvenile part, was telling me that it might have had something to do with Elijah's visit.

I was probably overthinking it.

"Wow," I replied dryly, searching for Kiara's profile amongst the faces on my friends' list. So many of them seemed like strangers now. "All such great options—"

"Christ!" Aiden exclaimed, slapping his hand to his forehead comically. "It's right there in front of us." He motioned to me dramatically, as though presenting me on stage to accept an award. "Watson!"

I looked up to find his reflection on the computer screen. That irritating smirk was once again tugging at his lips.

I smiled weakly at his grand gesture. "Ha. Yeah."

"Jeez, it's perfect, isn't it?" He cocked his head, narrowing his sparkling blue eyes. He looked quite pleased with himself. "Holmes and Watson," he mused, more to himself than to me. "I like it."

"And who's Holmes?" I asked, scrolling all the way down on Holly's profile. When my question went unanswered, I turned to James with a raised eyebrow. "Who's Holmes, Aiden?"

He motioned around the empty room guiltily. "Well... me."

Shock thundered through me.

And then I laughed.

Actually, genuinely laughed. The pain in my hand was secondary to belly-aching amusement as I lifted it to cover my gaping mouth, my eyes probably squinting so much they looked like squished bugs. So I didn't know why Aiden was suddenly looking at me like I'd performed some kind of magic trick.

"What the hell makes you think you're Holmes?" I managed to ask between hysterical breaths. "If anything, I should be Holmes. I'm the one who gathered intel on Kiara. I'm the one who initiated contact. If this whole thing was left up to you, Will would still be moping about in this room, shooting zombies on his computer. If anyone's Sherlock here, Aiden, it's me."

I watched his brow furrow, his head tilted in thought. "But that doesn't make sense. Your last name's Watson—"

"And your last name's Bennet. That doesn't mean we're a couple from some sappy Jane Austen novel."

The words spilled from my lips before I could stop them.

Then, silence. Nothing but silence rang in my ears.

God, why did I say that?

To my relief, Aiden left the comment alone. I turned back to his laptop, grateful to the makeup that had survived my crying for shielding my pink cheeks, and letting my hair fall forward to hide everything it couldn't. The silence that suddenly cloaked us was probably for the best, allowing me to concentrate solely on the task at hand. Though my laughter left when it came.

After a few more minutes of quiet scrolling, I'd learned that Kiara was an avid gamer, that she used to work at her local art gallery, and that she had a Dalmatian called Winkie who was the sweetest, cutest boy I'd ever damn seen. I was knee-deep in puppy pictures, trying to think of a way to use my newfound knowledge for Will's benefit when Aiden cleared his throat from his spot on the bed behind me.

"Should we talk?"

I turned my face in his direction, but my eyes were still tied to the screen. "About?"

A shadow crept over his careful gaze. He swallowed a light laugh, locking his phone and tossing it aside. "About what happened."