Fix You: Bash and Olivia by Christine Bell Read Free Book Online Page B

didn’t know. But she sounded brittle. At the end of her rope. God, I knew how that felt. The dread that had been dogging me all week since they’d first told me about their financial issues came back, hard.
    “Any news on the house? Did something else happen?”
    “No,” she said quickly. Too quickly? “Nothing you need to worry about. I just called to check in and see if you made it on the plane.”
    I waited for her to tell me to at least come home for the week, but she didn’t. Part of me was relieved. As lonely as I was here, for some reason, I didn’t want to leave right now. Another part of me grew even more suspicious. They were definitely hiding something.
    “Well, now you know. I’m still at school, and I’m fine, so don’t worry.” And I’ll see you over Easter weekend, I added silently. Once I’d squared everything away with Andy, I’d be in a better frame of mind to go down to Connecticut and get to the bottom of whatever was happening with my parents. One crisis at a time.
    “Okay, well, Dad and I love you and we’ll talk to you soon.”
    “Love you too.”
    I disconnected and a second later the phone rang again. I answered it quickly, assuming my mom forgot to tell me something. “Yeah?”
    “Hey.”
    Bash. For real this time. I sank back onto the mattress, my legs suddenly weak. I thought I’d have hours to think of what to say before I talked to him again. Hours to work on witty banter, scintillating conversation, and, yeah, maybe even a few jokes. Now here I was again, at a loss, mouth opening and closing like a trout on a hook.
    “Hello?” he said, a little louder this time.
    I considered gurgling into the phone and playing the bad connection card, but instead I squared my shoulders and cleared my throat. You can do this. He’s just a guy. “Yep, I’m here. How are you?”
    “Good. I was actually calling because I have a few hours free this afternoon and wondered if you still wanted some self-defense lessons.”
    “Really?” My heart beat wildly in my chest and I stood because I couldn’t stand to sit for another second. He hadn’t seemed exactly keen when I’d asked him the night before, but something must have changed his mind. Especially if they didn’t even have any classes running and he was offering to teach me one-on-one. Either he was bored, or thought I realllly needed them.
    Didn’t matter which. He was right, I did need them. Not for Andy. For myself.
    “I’d love that. I can come by at like noon and we c—”
    “No.” His tone had gone from warm to cool and clipped in an instant. “Can we do it there? Your dorm has a fitness center or something we can use, right?”
    It had been a momentary blip and he seemed casual and friendly again a second later, but clearly he didn’t want me at his gym. Why was that? He’d mentioned he lived in the apartment upstairs. Maybe he had a live-in girlfriend?
    The thought hadn’t even occurred to me until now, but once it had, I couldn’t shake it. Still, it would’ve been super weird to counter his friendly offer to help me with some self-defense moves by then asking if he was in a relationship. Like, what did that have to do with anything? Unless, of course, I thought this was a date.
    Which I didn’t.
    I tugged at the curl that flopped over my eyes and tamped back my irrational jealousy. Bash wasn’t my boyfriend and whether he had a girlfriend or not was none of my business.
    “Yeah, here’s fine. We have a really nice gym, so come on over. Nobody’s here anyway, so we’ll have the place to ourselves.”
    That hadn’t sounded nearly as suggestive in my head, but now that it was out there, it was all I could do not to fall headlong into a daydream about Bash and me sprawled on one of those soft blue mats—
    “Sounds good. I’ll be there around noon.”
    Fabulous. Three hours to obsess over what to wear…and work on my witty banter.
    ***
    “Cold enough out there for you?”
    I winced even as the words