To Hate Adam Connor

Don’t judge me. Tell me, what would you do if you ended up being the neighbor of one of your favorite actors? Of course you’d spy on the guy…or at least you’d attempt to. Don’t even try to deny it.

Despite his legendary parents, Adam Connor was a closed book. Of course, everybody knew about him—even before he landed his first movie—but he was still somewhat of a mystery. Who doesn’t love a mysterious guy? Certainly not me.

He was a quiet guy, one of those actors who smiles at the cameras when he doesn’t want to answer a question, one of those hot guys who only talks when he has something good to say, wildly successful at his job, married at twenty-three, a seemingly good dad, possessor of an out-of-this world body…and those were just a few of Adam Connor’s attributes. Of course, how much can you really know a public figure just from stalking them online every now and then…

“Lucy, you can’t break into his house.”

“Didn’t I just say I had no plans to do such thing?” I asked Olive in a quiet voice as I took a step down.

“You even mentioning it scares me. It means it crossed your mind at some point.”

When I was finally standing on solid ground, I gave all my attention to Olive. “I’m not stepping foot on the other side of this wall, cross my heart. Okay?”

She narrowed her eyes at me, and I gave her a reassuring smile with a thumbs-up. I really wasn’t planning on jumping over the wall, so I wasn’t actually lying to my friend. Now, if I ended up climbing the ladder again…well, I couldn’t see any harm in that.

Done with the intense eye contact Olive was making, I reached out and forced the edges of her lips upward with my fingers. “Smile, Olive. Show me your teeth.” Just to help her along, I gave her a big grin. “Come on, you can do this. I know you can. I’ve seen you do it before.”

When she cracked and started smiling on her own, I took a step back and almost fell over another damn bush. “What was the point of surrounding the whole damn place with these things? To kill me?”

“You’ll have to ask Jason about that,” she said, pulling me away from the greenery. “I’m feeling a little dizzy, I think. Let’s just sit down for a while.”

Heading toward the pool, we plopped down on the grass when she found a spot she was happy with.

“Are you going to call Jameson?” Olive asked after we quietly watched the stars for a while.

“Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know. It was a stupid question, forget about it.”

I glanced at her from the corner of my eye and felt uneasy when I saw her expression.

“Olive, are you okay?”

“Nope. I’m still angry.”

“Angry? At me?”

“No. At Jameson.” She turned her head and frowned at me. “Why would I be angry at you? Anything else you’re keeping from me?”

“Nope. No reason.” I sighed and glanced back at the stars—the few we could see above the city lights. “I’m sorry for not telling you before. I didn’t want to bother you since I knew you were getting close to your deadline. And maybe…maybe I didn’t like the fact that I couldn’t just shrug it off and move on like he didn’t mean anything to me.”

“I know what you mean, but you don’t have to do everything on your own. And, Lucy?” She paused, so I looked at her again. “I’m your friend. Your sister from another mister. Nothing is more important than you. I don’t care how deep I’m buried in words, you always come first. And now that you know it, you can never use that against me again.” She turned her head back toward the sky and added, “Which means if you take away my friendship rights again, I’ll have to kick your ass.”

I let out a small laugh and looked away too. “Gee, Olive, I had no idea you were looking forward to being miserable. I promise, the next time someone breaks my heart—which is pretty unlikely since I’m never falling in love again—you’ll be the first person to hear it.”

“Good.”

“You know you’re my person, right?” she asked a minute later.

A small smile played on my lips. “Grey’s Anatomy? Like Christina and Meredith?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah, you’re my person too, my green Olive.”

And she always would be.

“Good. Lucy?”

I glanced at her again. “Olive?”

“Don’t tell Jason I said this, but I think Adam is seriously hot.”

“Is that so?” someone asked from right behind us; both Olive and I let out a shriek that echoed through the night. If the neighbors around the property hadn’t heard Olive’s first scream, they were sure to hear that one.

“Jason!” Olive yelled at him as she struggled to get up.

I pressed my hand to my chest. “Did you want to give me a heart attack just because I’m staying over for a few days?” I asked, helping Olive stand up. “Why would you sneak up on us like that?”

“I wasn’t sneaking up on anyone. I simply walked into my house to hear my wife admit”—he paused to give Olive a look—“how ‘hot’ she finds this guy…this guy who is not her husband.”

“Jason,” Olive repeated in a completely different tone as she started walking toward him. She was drunk off her ass and had stars in her eyes, pretty, shiny little stars.

Jason took a few steps forward to catch his wife so she could fall into his arms instead of falling on her face. Glancing at me, he asked, “I take it the celebrations went well?”

“She is angry at me for not sending her an invite for my very own pity party, but she kinda got over it after the second shot of tequila.”

He caught Olive in his arms and let her pull down his face to give him a long kiss. Looking at them, so beautifully in love, I caught myself smiling and realized once again that I loved very much how beautiful love looked on my friend. For me it had never been like that.

“I missed you,” Olive whispered, or more likely thought she whispered—she was still yelling. “And you missed our impromptu concert. We were so good, Jason.”

Gently pushing the hair out of her face, he gave her a warm smile, one that clearly said, I’m deeply in love with you, and kissed her lips again. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, we had to stay late to wrap things up on set.”

“I think it’s sleep time for your wife, Jason,” I said, interrupting their private little bubble, and they both turned to look at me. “I’m planning on waking her up pretty early, and I know for a fact that she’s going to hate that, so…”

I wasn’t trying to get rid of them, not necessarily, but I didn’t want them to feel awkward around me, or feel the need to keep me company when I knew they had much better things to do—like get their freak on in their bedroom before I made it to my room that was right across from them. Not to mention, it wouldn’t hurt to be alone for a short while.

Olive let go of Jason and walked back to my side to give me a hug. “I love you, Lucy Meyer,” she said, still holding on to me. “And I promise you’ll fall in love again.” Taking a step back, she looked me in the eyes and added, “And you know what? When you do, it’s going to be epic, and not just your plain old epic, it’ll be out-of-this-world epic.”