"HAVE YOU SEEN MOM?" Olivia peeks at Noah's room where she sees him in an indian seat on the carpeted floor with his best friend, Miles, playing a video game. Miles looks up and his eyes widened and at the tv screen, his avatar gets showered with bullets and Noah rejoices. "Oh, hey Miles. I didn't know you were here."
Miles opens his mouth and starts croaking out lamely, his mind going completely blank. Miles developed a crush towards Olivia ever since he and Noah became friends. He drops his controller and waves at her, "H-h-hey! Good to see you, Olivia. Wow, you look.. " beautiful, stunning, captivating. He thought. "good."
"You've grown taller, Miles, and wow, you have muscles! Well, kinda but.. wow. Maybe you could get Noah to work out too." Olivia jokes and Noah makes a grunt. "Anyway, have you seen Mom? We're out of milk and cereal and also, Dom discovered the chocolate stash at the top drawer and as a result, we're also out of bonbons. Grayson's almost out of baby formula so I need Mom to run to the groceries."
"Yeah, well, tough luck, Mom left early for the shop and Dad's at work." Noah chuckles, knowing full well his sister didn't want to go out for people might recognize her. "Beth's out too, she's meeting up with her friends on town."
"Shit.." Olivia muttered and sighed, pulling out her phone to send a text at Beth to buy what she needs. Beth immediately replied with a "sorry, cant rn. won't be home until late afternoon. do u mind waiting until i get home?"
Olivia groaned and Noah rolls his eyes, gesturing towards the window and to their driveway. "You could always take your car, Miles and I won't be needing it anytime soon so.."
"I don't want to and I can't. I don't want people to see me." Olivia responds with dread. She stands still, obviously in deep thought and started weighing her options. She's dying for snacks right now but the refrigerator's been raided by her brothers long before she woke up and scourged for a snack. "Shit, the world's not on my side today."
She changes from her sleepwear to a gray crop top shirt and dark blue jeans and strappy sandals. She peeks again at Noah's room where Miles is gushing silently at Noah about how hot his sister is and Noah shoving him with disgust. She declares that she'll be out for an hour to buy groceries and reminded them to look after Owen and Dom.
She puts Grayson on his baby kangaroo carrier on her chest and takes the car keys from the kitchen counter. She plants a sloppy kiss on Owen and Dom's cheeks, earning a groan. "Ew. Stop it, Livvie."
"I'll be out for a moment, you guys stay here okay? Don't go out until I get back or else I'll evacuate the stash to a higher and hidden place." Olivia warns and the two nodded.
Owen screeched, "Can we come with you? We're hungry and it's boring here since Mom hid all our video games and Noah won't let us play with him just because Miles is here. Please, please, please?"
Olivia shakes her head, putting on a flowy cardigan. "Sorry, Owen, but you can't. You're grounded for another three days which means no going out or special treats. Mom will kill me if she finds out. Don't worry, I'll buy something on the way home."
She drives to Walplex and went straight to the 'Chocolates' section, filling almost the entire cart with it. Grayson babbles loudly, shrieking with happiness and giggling. Olivia takes this alone time to think while she gets everything she needs. Her mind wanders back to three days ago from when her Mom had told her about Grayson and Montgomery. She couldn't stop thinking about it and even Alex, who had a passionate dislike towards Montgomery, somehow agreed and told her to try before she says no, for the sake of the baby.
She was so deep in thought that when she was pushing the cart towards the cash register to pay for what she got, the end of her cart hits an incoming guy headed to the same direction on the hip bone.
The sudden sound startled Grayson and immediately, he started crying. She snaps out of her trance and focuses on the guy in front of her, three bottles of Corona on his right hand and the left clutching his sore hip. She apologizes immensely, walking up to the guy and holding out her hand while she tries to sooth her baby. The guy tensed at the sound of her voice and simultaneously his heart dramatically leaped at the voice he hadn't heard for a year.
He looks up and crystalline blue eyes met hers, sending chills on her spine. He still looked the same as the last time she saw him: softened blue eyes, messy hair, and pink kissable lips she've always loved. Instantly, his eyes filled with shock then with recognition and it changes to relief. He thought he wouldn't see her anymore and yet here she is, standing a couple of feet away from him, looking beautiful as always.
"Livvie." He breathes and he makes a move to envelop her into a hug but then stops short when his eyes travelled down to the baby sniffling mounted in her middle. "Wha....?"
Though Olivia didn't want to get out of the house and be seen by people she knew and lost contact with, a part of her still wanted to see them for she missed them and she had not gotten the chance to bid them farewell.
"Justin!" Her voice broke at the end and she gave him a side-hug so tight that they both felt like they didn't want to let go. "Oh God, Justey."
"I don't understand." He began. "Why did you leave? Where did you go? Why didn't you tell me? I was so fucking worried when I found out you were gone. And why do you have a baby with you? Is it Beth's? Are you a babysitter now?"
"It's kind of a long story." Olivia uttered. She's not sure whether she should tell Justin what happened but here's what she knows: Justin would always, always be the one she could trust and understand, apart from Alex.
"Livvie." There is a incredulous hint at his tone as he laughs. "You should know by now that for you, I will always have time."
★
"So, you're telling me that after Bryce's party at around October, you and Monty had sex and by November, you didn't have your period and it didn't occur to you that you were pregnant and blamed that innocent Chinese restaurant next to Crestmont?" Justin mused slowly, his eyes low as he digested her explanation.
"Yes and excuse me, that Chinese restaurant isn't innocent. It gave me a stomach flu for half a week last year, remember?"
From bumping into each other at Walplex, they both decided to catch up and talk at the old Starbucks shop they rarely go to. Grayson had been surprisingly quiet at the ride to the coffee shop and while Olivia drives, Justin held Grayson and played with him. Olivia was surprised with how calm and how Grayson immediately got attached to Justin that when she made a move to take him, he lets out an agitated cry.
"W-w-w-wait." Justin interrupts with a frown. "You're telling me that you didn't use any sort of protection: birth control pills, fucking condoms or some shit?"
"Obviously." Olivia says, gesturing her hand to the baby.
"Wow. His pull out game is weak as fuck." Justin joked. "But, seriously, what the fuck? Livvie, you were 5 months away from graduation, how-- what happened?"
"Dad sent me off to Beth and there, I continued senior year. It sucks, doesn't it?" She grimaced.
After finding out that she was carrying Monty's baby, she mustered up all her courage and told them a week after at the same day she and Montgomery broke up. Her Mom was shocked and horrified, she started off with being hysterical. Her dad, however, didn't take the news very well. He was fuming and he started yelling at her and she was shaking with fear because Michael Connelly never yells. He had sent her three brothers to the park in order for them not to witness his wrath. He finalized with the decision of sending her off with her sister at Los Angeles where she will wait to deliver the baby and continue her education. That day up until now, Michael couldn't stand to look at his daughter anymore.
"And you didn't tell Monty about this? You didn't tell him that you were late or that you were positive or whatsoever? You just... left." Justin clarified.
"I didn't have a choice and yeah, if it were up to me, I'd choose leaving than staying here in this shitty town with people talking behind my back about how a slut I am and people at school spreading false rumors about me and Montgomery to find out and push me to the abortion clinic and my brothers to get involved with this town's bullshit." Olivia goes on. "Dad sent me off to Beth because he was angry at me and I think he also did that to protect me and Grayson to this town's judgement. The school I transferred to was a private school with Dad's old friends as the principal. Surprisingly enough, people treated me good and didn't judge me because of my growing baby bump. If anything, they were more than nice and thoughtful because they tended me if I ever needed anything. Plus, they liked me."
Justin sits, deep in thought. He stares at Olivia for a long period of time and regards all the changes in her feautures. Her hair is no longer the unruly curls they once were, and her face inhabiting a worried frown instead of her genuine smile. In his eyes, she was still beautiful and the girl he fell in love with since the summer before his freshmen year.
"But.." Justin trailed off. "What would you do if Gray starts asking about his dad. Take it from me who experienced that kind of torture my whole life and believe me, it's fucking terrible and I still haven't gotten over his absence."
Olivia knew what Justin went through. She knew that it was hard for him to even talk about his father and how angry he was at him and how he once tried finding him but ended up empty handed.
"I don't know..." She murmured. "Montgomery's not fit for a father and I'm scared of what he will do to Grayson if it's those kind of days where he's overpowered by his anger."
Grayson starts crying and Olivia scrambled from her seat and scoops her baby with her arms and cradles him close to her chest. She stands up and tries soothing him, swaying side to side and bouncing him up and down to make him stop. When this doesn't work, she tries giving him his milk bottle but he cries louder even more and people turn their head to look. Justin stands up and takes him gently from her and traced circles at his back and the baby looked up at him and slowly stopped crying, staring intensely up at Justin.
Justin and Olivia shared an astonished look before sitting back down. Justin smirks at her, "He likes me."
Grayson lets out a happy shriek and clapped his hands, bouncing up and down at Justin's lap.
Justin lets out a laugh then coo's. "That's right. You like me, don't you? You like me more than your mommy, don't you? You're a good boy, aren't you? Yes, yes you are, baby."
Olivia rolls her eyes playfully, struck with awe as she watched the two boys infront of her. "Traitor. My son is a traitor. He chose you over me."
Justin laughed again and the sound itself made Grayson giggle uncontrollably, babbling incoherent sentences. He urges, "Say Da-da. Da-da! Come on, say 'You're my Da-da.'"
Grayson stares at him before shrieking and babbling "Da-da!"
Justin's eyes widened and he looks at Olivia with shock. "Holy shit did he just--?"
Olivia chuckles at him, shaking her head. Grayson had been imitating everyone's words for mo this now, his first word had been 'Mommy'. "Yes he did, Justin Foley."
"Again! Say it again. Say Da-da!"
"You're really good at this. With kids, I mean." Olivia praises, her heart bursting with awe.
Justin winks at her and asked, "Does that mean we're getting back together?"
Olivia shakes her head with a smirk, "Nope. Sorry."