Page 130 of Fly with Me

STELLA

I think he’s napping. But Jocelyn had to leave early today and he’s going to be by himself longer than usual. If this is too much to ask, no worries.

OLIVE

It’s not too much to ask at all! Done. I’ll be there in thirty minutes. Just got out of seeing Jake.

The little circles appeared and disappeared several times. Was Olive making things awkward by bringing him up? Was this what Lindsay had meant about Olive being a bummer most of the time?

STELLA

Are you okay?

Olive typed several things and then deleted them. The conversation with her mother had shaken her. Everything seemed less clear than an hour ago.

OLIVE

Yeah, I’m fine!

STELLA

You sure?

OLIVE

Can I call you later and talk about it?

STELLA

Yes!!!! Of course!!!! I’m about to head into a meeting, but I’ll call as soon as I get out.

OLIVE

Thank you

She actually put a smiley face. It was a joke between her and Derek that Olive only knew how to use the facepalm emoji and the grimace one. Now she was apparently a regular smiley-face person. But only with Stella.

Chapter 47

Stella arrived in uniform a few hours before they were scheduled to go to the Allied Airlines Pilots’ Gala. Olive had just finished taking Gus for a walk. After Olive hung his leash by the door, Stella dipped her in an almost cinematic kiss.

“Someone’s excited,” Olive said, kissing Stella one more time after coming vertical again.

“I can’t wait.” Stella slipped her shoes off at the door, placing them perfectly perpendicular to the wall as she always did. “Oh, and my dad said you stopped by today?”

“He made me promise to come back again because he liked kicking my ass in chess last week.” Olive braced herself. “I hope that’s not weird. I told him to text me if he needed anything. Mainly, he’s just been texting me every day to compare Wordle scores, and he always does better. It’s okay that I went?”

“More than okay.” Stella grinned. “I think it’s great. He really likes you.”

“I really like him. He’s kind of a hoot.”

“He’ll like that, I think.” Stella smiled and kissed her.

Olive’s mind had been clouded all day. Not because she hadn’t had a great time playing chess, but because she had. It was weird. She’d found out today that Hector went to the same church as her mom when he still occasionally attended mass. Had he ever met her? Hector never seemed like he let the rigidity of a religion dictate who he was. It was weird to think of someone like Hector Soriano existing in the same space as Mary Ellen Murphy. Maybe Hector had even seen all the candles her mother lit for Jake. All of this left Olive feeling raw, because having a loving, kind, supportive parental figure in her life?

It was so nice.

And tonight was the last night of the fake relationship. It was probably weird that she was worried about losing Hector now too.