;; to make an end, is to make a beginning

[Andante.Lola]

XXXXXSO MUCH TO SAYXXXXXI FORGET TO STARTXXXXXSO MUCH TO SAYXXXXXI FORGET TO START
XXXXTHERE GOES A DAYXXXXFADING AS IT PASSESXXXXTHERE GOES A DAYXXXXFADING AS IT PASSES
XXXFORGET THE GREY.XXXLET IT FALL⇘ A P A R T.XXXFORGET THE GREY.XXXLET IT FALL⇘ A P A R T.

XXITʻS OKAY.XITʻS OKAY.XITʻS OKAY.

XI LIKE YOU IN G L A S S E S.

tab It had been a time in the weeks since the new year had begun.

Olive's appointment for her abortion had come and gone and, while Olive had spent a rather tumultuous two days in bed, Milo found himself actually feeling better... Which sickened him a little bit. He didn't like to think that getting rid of that pregnancy was something that would make him happier and more secure, but it had, and that was a demon he had to deal with now. For the days following the appointment, Milo had alternated between cuddling Olive while she cried, his shirt sleeves soaked in tears and snot as he'd stroke her hair and listen to her unintelligible sobs... And being kicked away with the ferocity of a pissed off mule. It had been exhausting and he was happy when he was down in the kitchen with the paper in the early morning, his one respite being while she was asleep, and she'd come down with dry cheeks and her hair combed, asking whether or not he'd made coffee yet (which he obviously had).

... but now the sex deprivation had her acting like a psychopath again.

More than once he'd had to explain to her that he had a literal piece of paper telling them that they couldn't have sex for a minimum of two weeks. Up to four, though the thought of dealing with this for two additional weeks was almost enough to push him to prayer.

... Which was why he really hadn't been looking forward to telling her that Dianna was going to be staying with them... for awhile.

Two weeks was supposed to be up this weekend... Which just so happened to be the weekend that Milo had scheduled to attend a Behavior conference in Atlanta with Kelley and Sara... And now his girlfriend, who he could barely trust to feed herself, was now going to be irritable, horny, and responsible for his daughter, his dog, and his collection of cacti while he jet-setted off to somewhere warm with two young women.

.. Somehow, he wasn't horribly hopeful for how this was going to go. But for now, he had to focus on the snarky girl with the chestnut brown hair sitting across from him at the table.

"So. You're just staying here.... to visit?"

Milo was facing the stove, pulling the whistling kettle off of the heat before turning back to the kitchen table where his nineteen year old daughter, Dianna, was seated, still in her uniform from the preparatory day school she was attending for this year between high school and college. He poured the hot water between the three mismatched mugs on the table, passing one to her and absently passing one to Olive who sat down at the other end, though Milo's focus was so clearly on his daughter, that the fact that he remembered she was there at all was nothing short of a miracle.

"Well, sure. Am I not allowed to visit my estranged father? Is there only enough room in your house for one co-ed at a time?"

Milo rolled his eyes at his daughter's thinly veiled jab at him and his girlfriend. He ignored her quip, instead forging ahead with his own question. "I think 'estranged' is a little melodramatic considering we just had lunch this past weekend, but whatever. So this is purely a social visit, huh? It's got nothing at all to do with the fact that your mom caught you trying to sneak out of the house in the middle of the night to meet some guy?"

Dianna's jaw dropped slightly and her gray eyes, an identical match to her father's, shifted to the side. Clearly, she hadn't been expecting him to know about that. A small, self-satisfied smile came across his face as he sat down across from her. ]"Yeah. You may not live with me anymore, but I've been telling you this since the day you were born. I. Know. Everything."


The two mirrored each other's motions perfectly as they subconsciously looped the tail of the tea bag around the handle, creating a pulley system to pull it out of the water. The family resemblance between the two was striking. Aside from the similarities in their hair and eye color, Dianna had also inherited her father's sharp tongue and quick wit, his slight overbite (though years of expensive orthodontic work had fixed that), and his thick curls, which she battled against with her straightener on a daily basis. Luckily for her, she’d gotten her mother’s finer features as well. A delicate jawline. A cute, gently upturned nose. Long legs. The ability to speak to people without that feeling of absolute dread Milo got in the pit of his stomach.

Milo took a sip from his cup, pulling back a bit as the tea burnt his tongue. He lowered it to the table, his eyes drawn back up to his daughter's face. "... Also, I just hung out with Mom for like three hours at Tristan's hockey game a couple days ago and she mentioned it." He picked up the mug once more, again burning himself. He’d never learn. He sighed, dropping his chin to his chest. “So, you’re having a problem with your mother, over a boy, no less, and you decide that the solution is to come stay with your father, who you know is leaving town for a few days starting at 4:00 AM tomorrow.”

"Right."

Milo bowed his head and rubbed his temples. “I’ve got to write a letter to those fine folks over at Preston Academy. Clearly, they’re doing a great job teaching those critical thinking skills they talk so much about when they take my checks.” When Dianna had called him and asked to stay the night, of course he'd said yes without a second thought. It wasn't until he'd been driving to her school to collect her that he'd realized he'd be leaving the following morning... And it was on that drive that she revealed that she'd really been intending to stay considerably longer.

As in indefinitely.

Milo groaned, taking another sip of his tea. Much of Dianna's childhood had been spent in chats like this. Even when she'd been little, she'd been rather serious, also much like her father. "We'll come back around to why sneaking out of your mother's home is unacceptable behavior later... So, who is he? ", Milo inquired, sounding exhausted with the conversation already.

Dianna shifted in her seat, reaching down to pull up her knee sock that had begun to slip down, but mostly as a means of avoiding her dad's gaze. She averted her eyes, her normally clear and confident voice reduced to a mumble. "Um... He might be one of your students..." Milo's eyebrows shot up. That was impossible. His students were in college. Dianna was still a kid. He roughly set his cup down on the tabletop, the ceramic clattering against the wood as his voice grew more stern. "Dianna. Who is it?"

The young girl sighed, looking down at her hands. "Don't get mad," she prompted, looking back up to meet her father's eyes. She could see the tension in his shoulders, clearly not ready for this discussion. "Scott Thompson. Now before you get mad--"

Milo gestured toward her with an open hand in disbelief. "Scott Thompson? Really? I gave you only two rules to follow for boyfriends. What were they?" Dianna leaned her elbows on the table, burying her face in her hands, clearly annoyed with how this conversation was going. "Dad, don't--"

"Dianna."

The girl groaned, her voice clearly annoyed and flat. "Ugh. No conservatives and no pre-meds," she droned, to her father's satisfaction. "Right. No conservatives and no pre-meds... So what do you do? Find some red state redneck who thinks he's going to be a doctor despite the fact that he still can't differentiate a prokaryote from a eukaryote. What were you thinking?"

Dianna's face had grown red. She had figured this would go something like this, but perhaps not quite as violently quite as quickly. "Well, I was hoping you could help me show Mom what a nice guy he is so she wouldn't freak out on me again... Maybe if you got to know him..."? Milo looked at his daughter with a deadpan expression. "I don't really like interacting with undergrads outside of class. You know that."

Dianna's head popped up then as she wildly gestured to the rest of the house behind her, clearly indicating the space he shared with Olive. "Seriously, Dad? Really? You're going to try and say that to me right now?" Milo's cheeks flushed bright red as he turned to look at his girlfriend, who had been doing a really great job of minding her own business down at the other end of the table

She had him there.

Milo cleared his throat, obviously caught by his own daughter and trying to regain control of the situation. "Alright, alright, smartass. We'll talk about that later." His voice suddenly hushed a bit, not particularly wanting Olive to hear. "Did you bring the thing from Mom's house I asked for?" Dianna's mouth turned up into a mischievous smirk, rejecting her father's obvious request for subtlety as she raised her voice. "Oh, you mean the Dead Dad Folder? Yeah, I brought it." Milo's eyes widened in irritation as he gestured for her to lower her voice, craning his neck to look behind him as he whispered through gritted teeth. "Will you keep it down? Yes, the 'Dead Dad Folder'." Dianna reached down into her school bag and pulled out a thick manila envelope and slid it across the table to her father. "You know, you might as well tell her about it. She's got every right to know she's living with an insane person," she snarked, her words becoming more forceful toward the end, clearly taking pleasure in her father's discomfort. Milo rolled his eyes, taking the folder under his arm before rubbing his forehead in exasperation. "Jesus Christ. Who raised you?"

Dianna leaned back, a self-satisfied smile on her face, happy for the moment to have turned the tables and made her father uncomfortable instead of vice versa. It was fun making him squirm.



━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Where ⇒ Beach House With ⇒ Just Olive. For now. What ⇒ kitchen confidential Why ⇒ "Oh no oh no oh no..."

[katyfaise]

the rocking of this house
had me holding on
but i knew i was safe
from then on out

God this was awkward.

Olive usually tended to carry herself better in awkward situations, at least better than Milo did. But all she could do was sit quietly, her legs curled up in the chair she sat in, and listen as Milo and Dianna went back and forth with each other. At least Milo remembered to make her a cup of tea as well with how distracted he seemed. It was nice to have something else to focus on instead of letting her face give away how disappointed she was that Dianna would be staying there.

With her.

Without Milo.

Just the two of them alone.

Olive wanted to vomit.

She took a sip from the hot tea, more than okay with how it burned her tongue. The more she sat quietly and listened, the more she couldn’t help but pull her eyes away from the two of them. It was just honestly entertaining. She was sure that her fights with her father had been extremely similar to this, a fact she wasn’t going to point out to Milo. As she continued to listen though, she wanted to laugh. Milo’s disgust with the boy Dianna had deemed worthy enough to sneak out and see annoyed even her, so she was sure that Dianna felt even worse. Olive loved a lot of things about him, but Milo had a sense of pretentiousness about him that he never seemed to realize was a downfall.

Of course that was another issue Olive stayed quiet on. She knew how to pick her battles.

“Literally no regular person knows the difference between a prokaryote and a eukaryote after ninth grade, Milo,” Olive pointed out, her one addition to the conversation she had no place in. After that though, she sipped her tea, watching as Dianna gave it right back to Milo. They were so similar that it was odd watching them interact so closely. Every other time it had been in short bursts where Olive knew she would eventually have an escape. But now that Dianna had decided to stay the weekend that Milo was gone, and for God only knew how long after that, she was going to have to just suck it up.

This was going to be such a long weekend.

No sex. No Milo. And now an addition of Dianna.

She was trying to figure out what she’d done to deserve this sort of punishment in her life when she realized that the conversation had switched to something she’d never heard of before and she could sense Milo’s sudden tenseness. Olive looked up, curiosity lining her features because Dianna had so blatantly tried to pull her into the conversation.

“I already know I’m living with an insane person,” Olive pointed out, lazily shrugging her shoulders. “What’s the ‘dead dad folder’ though?” Her attention switching from Milo to Dianna, because she wasn’t entirely sure she’d get an answer out of Milo.

[Andante.Lola]

XXXXXSO MUCH TO SAYXXXXXI FORGET TO STARTXXXXXSO MUCH TO SAYXXXXXI FORGET TO START
XXXXTHERE GOES A DAYXXXXFADING AS IT PASSESXXXXTHERE GOES A DAYXXXXFADING AS IT PASSES
XXXFORGET THE GREY.XXXLET IT FALL⇘ A P A R T.XXXFORGET THE GREY.XXXLET IT FALL⇘ A P A R T.

XXITʻS OKAY.XITʻS OKAY.XITʻS OKAY.

XI LIKE YOU IN G L A S S E S.

tab Milo had figured this would come out eventually.

He looked to his daughter, crossing his arms over his chest, his face decidedly unimpressed. "Well? Go ahead and tell her... but tell her what it actually is, and not what you and your brother say." Dianna smirked in her father's direction before turning to Olive.

"Dad has this folder that he makes Mom take out every time he goes out of town in case he burns up in a plane crash because he's a paranoid psychopath. It has to sit out the whole time he's gone and it can't be put away until he's back in the house or the voodoo magic won't work." She shrugged, as though this was common knowledge, shooting a glance in her father's direction. "It's got, like, his will, explicit instructions on what to do with his stuff, a bunch of sealed envelopes, and a list of places he wants to donate all of his organs and research papers to... Not that anyone would want any of that stuff, anyway. Where he doesn't want any of his stuff to go to..." she remarked, looking to her father, who had since buried his face in his hands. "Which lucky publication gets your life's work this year?" Without looking up, Milo's muffled voice came from between his hands, his cheeks on fire.

"Journal of Phylogenetics and Evolutionary Biology."

Dianna rolled her eyes before turning to face Olive again. "It changes every year based on who snubs him for publication." She took another sip of her tea. Maybe talking to Olive wasn't the absolute worst thing ever... if she could use it to make her dad uncomfortable. "Dad's had this insane thought his entire life that he's going to die young, so that's why he does all of this crazy stuff. He revises his will every year on his birthday. How morbid is that?" At this point, Milo popped his head up, his brows knitted together as he stared his daughter down. "I never told you any of that. Where did you hear that?"

The young girl shrugged again, leaning forward and placing her elbows on the table, her ankles crossing politely to the side. "Yeah, Mom told us all sorts of crazy things about you after you left. It was not a friendly environment for a few weeks, there." Milo laced his fingers and rested his chin on them, tucking the corner of his mouth into his cheek, clearly surprised and a little irritated. "Huh. I see," he muttered, his voice flat.

Dianna wasn't wrong. Milo had held this strange belief that he wasn't long for this world. He couldn't explain it. There was no support for his theory... but he just couldn't shake it. He was usually so rational about everything, and yet this one fear had managed to really stick under his skin and make him do crazy things. He'd had a will drawn up since he was twenty-nine. Practically still a child. Shannon had been tolerant of this morbid fixation for the most part, which had only gotten worse the older he got. She'd dealt with it with patience and understanding... Until one year when Milo had passed on an opportunity to attend a conference because he "had a bad feeling". Then she put her foot down.

Thus, the Dead Dad Folder was born.

A way to neatly package all of his responsibilities so that Milo could feel comfortable enough to leave without worrying what would happen if he got hit by a bus. Or eaten by cannibals. Or fell out of the sky in a plane.

"... but I don't see what he's so worried about. He's already old, so the train kind of left the station on the whole 'dying young' thing." A smirk crossed her face as she explained her thinking to Olive, only slyly glancing over to see Milo's reaction. Her father rolled his eyes before resting his head in his hand and looking over at Olive.

"So. Now that you know that I'm a crazy person, I'll give you fifteen minutes to collect your stuff and leave... but if you don't make it out by then, you're stuck with me and can't complain about it." He lazily lifted his wrist, looking at the face of the watch Olive had given him.

"Time starts now."



━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Where ⇒ Beach House With ⇒ Just Olive. For now. What ⇒ kitchen confidential Why ⇒ "Oh no oh no oh no..."

[katyfaise]

the rocking of this house
had me holding on
but i knew i was safe
from then on out

First, Olive couldn’t help but be surprised that Dianna was so willingly speaking to her, without a single smart remark on her behalf (of course she figured it had a lot to do with the fact that she was making enough about her father to cover them both).

Second, she really was living with an insane person.

She tried to focus on her tea and not laugh, mostly for Milo’s benefit. But trying to be supportive was hard when she thought it was ridiculous just like Dianna did. It was more ammunition for her and there was some spot that was grateful for the sudden inclusion of his daughter when it came to busting Milo’s chops. Olive smiled though, able to swallow her laughter down as she glanced back up at the two of them, though it threatened to bubble up again when she could see how exasperated Milo looked.

“I just hope the cacti have their own section in the will. I’d hate for them to end up in the wrong hands,” Olive said with a flat voice, feigning seriousness before she smirked. She wasn’t going to say anything else about it since Dianna had already covered the bases when it came to making fun of Milo, but it took a lot of self control to keep from continuing on. Olive leaned back in the chair, feeling strangely at ease even in the presence of someone who had made their dislike of her known rather openly. As much as she felt like an outsider, it wasn’t too bad when she was watching Dianna torture Milo, because it was also one of her favorite past times.

Milo had probably gotten the short end of the stick when it came to the women in his life. And that made her chuckle again.

She took a drink from her tea, shrugging lightly when Milo offered his fifteen minute out. “You know well enough that fifteen minutes is nowhere near enough time to gather my clothes. And that’s not fair.” Olive wasn’t sure if things would be this nice when it was just her and Dianna alone in the house though. Dianna was nineteen and fully capable of taking care of herself, something that Olive could barely do herself. She really wasn’t sure what to do with Milo’s daughter under the same roof. Clearly she couldn’t be responsible for her, right? Even if that was something Milo might have been expecting. Hell, if anything Dianna would be the most mature person in the the house once Milo left and Olive wasn’t sure if she liked the idea of that.

Four am was going to come far too quickly and then she was going to be left alone with an empty bed and a forced to share space with Dianna - someone she wasn’t entirely sure she even felt comfortable around.

No. She was definitely sure she didn’t feel comfortable your her. And the longer she sat there she was sure the conversation would eventually turn away from Milo and possibly to her - something she wasn’t entirely sure that she could take in stride. Olive had tough skin but with the way her hormones were out of control she was sure that she’d start crying if Dianna said one thing that was too much for her to handle. And letting Dianna see her cry would probably end horribly.

Growing more serious, she leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. “Are you done packing?”. At least if he wasn't she could have some sort of an out. And even though she didn't particularly want to help him pack, it was a way for her to escape upstairs without looking like she was running from the situation. Which she completely was.

Plus it would probably garner some sort of appreciation from Milo since she was trying to help - appreciation that she expected to be rewarded for ten fold when he returned.

[Andante.Lola]

XXXXXSO MUCH TO SAYXXXXXI FORGET TO STARTXXXXXSO MUCH TO SAYXXXXXI FORGET TO START
XXXXTHERE GOES A DAYXXXXFADING AS IT PASSESXXXXTHERE GOES A DAYXXXXFADING AS IT PASSES
XXXFORGET THE GREY.XXXLET IT FALL⇘ A P A R T.XXXFORGET THE GREY.XXXLET IT FALL⇘ A P A R T.

XXITʻS OKAY.XITʻS OKAY.XITʻS OKAY.

XI LIKE YOU IN G L A S S E S.

tab Milo sighed with his head still in his hands. "... I know you think you're making a joke about the cacti... but they're absolutely in there."

Which was absolutely true. The big, ugly one, his favorite, was to go back to the botanist he won it from. The others were to be donated to the university's botany program.

This was humiliating.

He smirked in Olive's direction as she pointed out the vast expanse of her closet being the reason she couldn't leave him. She wasn't kidding. He was intimately familiar with most everything in there, so he knew it would take a team of ten men and at least an hour to empty her closet and dresser. Milo shrugged when she inquired as to the status of his packing job. "Mostly. It'd help if you would leave my clothes where I put them so I could find them when I need them... I'd really like to bring that one blue shirt I have..." which was exceptionally vague, as there were at least ten shirts of his that could be described as "that one blue shirt", but he knew Olive knew the one he was talking about. She'd know because he'd just seen her wearing it the other day before it disappeared. "... And the one sweater with the elbow patches."

Dianna downed the remainder of her tea and rolled her eyes, briskly rising to her feet. "Well, you guys are boring now. I'm going to my room." Milo laughed. "I didn't ask." She shrugged, her eyebrows raised in indifference. "Well, I didn't ask to be a statistic from a broken family either, now did I? But I got it just the same." With that, she grabbed her school bag and turned on her heel, heading up the stairs. From the threshold by the door, Milo turned to face Olive, an exasperated smile spread across his face. "The melodrama with that girl... It gets exhausting. I think I forgot just how much."

With Dianna gone, he walked back in the kitchen toward Olive, finally responding to her quip from earlier. "And, by the way," he began, coming up behind her where she sat in the kitchen chair, "Students who actually paid attention to the material in my intro class absolutely know how to differentiate between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, darling. It's on the first exam... On which, from what I remember, someone didn't do very well." Truthfully, he couldn't really remember how she'd done on the test. That was back when she was just a name on a roster... A fact that was so hard for him to believe now. If only he'd known then what he knew now. He leaned down and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, roughing his cheek against hers so his beard scratched at her skin in exactly the way he knew she always said she hated. A quiet laugh came from him as he teased her, enjoying the closeness. He turned his head and placed a quick, cursory kiss on the back of her neck.

Her skin was so soft.

It was as though a switch had been flipped in him. Closing his eyes, he kissed her again and again, each time for longer and in a considerably less casual manner. His arms tightened around her as he gently dragged his teeth across the skin of her shoulder, revealed from the wide neck of the shirt she wore. Working his way back up her neck, he kissed her behind her ear, his voice landing somewhere between a whisper and a growl. "God, I've missed you." Another kiss and he opened his eyes, pulling back away from her. He took a few steps back and leaned against the counter, running a hand back through his hair and releasing a shaky breath through his nose.

Christ, he felt like a seventeen year old boy.

He'd really only been aiming for a silly little affectionate moment. Just to annoy her with the scratchiness of his facial hair... so what was that all about? Truthfully, he'd been dealing with this for awhile.. For nearly two weeks now. After she'd had her appointment (and stopped snotting up his shirts for the two days afterwards), he'd been itching to lay his claim on her again... But he knew that he couldn't. Doctor's orders and all that. Milo was nothing if not obedient, but the constant temptation had turned every goodnight kiss into a battle of his instincts vs. his willpower as he fought against the way his body was telling him to grab her close. Each seemingly innocent point of contact was a conflict. Milo knew that it was essentially up to him to follow these rules, as Olive had proved time and time again that her willpower typically hovered somewhere around zero.

If he gave in, with his luck, he'd break her v****a or whatever it was that the doctors were advising against, and it would be all Milo's fault.

So he stood by the counter, trying to shake off these feelings. He forced his voice to something more relaxed, but sounded more strained than ever. "So, uh, yeah... I actually could use your help packing... If you wanna head up in a bit and try and help me find those shirts that I'm sure you've got squirreled away somewhere?"

In a very unlike-himself fashion, he left the mugs on the table in favor of running out of the room like he was being chased. He headed up the stairs, breathing a bit easier now that there was some distance between them. Grateful for the distraction, he walked past Dianna's room, door closed as always when she was home, and into his own. The canvas and leather duffel bag he used to travel laid mostly full on the floor. Milo took a pair of sweatpants from the depths of his dresser and folded them, laying them on top of the bag. Like they had in the past, this trip was one where he'd be sharing a hotel room with Kelley and Sara, which was fine.

... Though he could never forget the first time they'd done that. Milo hadn't slept in anything more than his underwear and sometimes a t-shirt in practically his entire life. It wasn't even anything to consider, in his mind... Until they got to the hotel that night and he had realized his mistake. He spent the first night sleeping in the khakis he was to wear to give his talk the next day, and headed out early that morning to purchase a pair of entirely overpriced sweatpants from the University of California-Davis bookstore. The only ones he owned to this day

He'd never make that mistake again.

For now, though, he was feeling a little better. A little more in control. Focusing on leaving for this trip would help, and then he'd have all the way until Tuesday to not worry about it.

Instead, he'd have to worry about coming home to find out that his girlfriend and his daughter had murdered one another in his absence... and he wasn't entirely sure which one was more stressful to him.





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Where ⇒ Beach House With ⇒ Just Olive. For now. What ⇒ kitchen confidential Why ⇒ "Oh no oh no oh no..."

[katyfaise]

the rocking of this house
had me holding on
but i knew i was safe
from then on out

Olive sat up straighter, watching as Dianna excused herself from the table to go upstairs. It was amazing how much easier it was to relax when she didn’t feel as if she had to be on guard. One wrong thing from her and Dianna would probably have enough ammunition for the whole time she stayed with them and Olive knew she wasn’t ready for it. Any other time Olive was sure she would be able to handle this - to hold her own against a nineteen year old who didn’t even live there. But not when she’d just recently stopped being pregnant, a thought that was sort of hard to wrap her head around in itself.

“Oh, don’t take that sweater. I love that sweater,” Olive said, pouting a bit, even as she wracked her brain to remember where it was. Maybe her car. It could be in the laundry room. It was possible it was upstairs near her side of the bed.

It had become a regular addition in her wardrobe whenever she could get her hands on it.

Milo moved closer to her, slinking behind where she was sitting and she instinctively leaned back. “I did say normal people. Not everyone chooses to stay in your class and suffer like a masochist. After the first test half of the class dropped.” When he wrapped his arms around her shoulders, Olive sighed, actually content for once. One thing her sudden hormone change had brought about was the feeling of closeness she craved. Not sex. Not anything inappropriate. She just wanted to be close to Milo. It had been something that she’d expected to wear off, just like every other symptom, but she couldn’t help but think that it was the reason she was so sour about him leaving on his trip. He had always been more than willing to hold her, and now that she actually wanted to indulge him, he was going away to a much warmer state with two lab assistants that, while she had nothing against personally, she couldn’t help but loathe.

While she had expected a chaste kiss on her skin, Milo continued, littering her back with kisses, and Olive gripped the edge of the table hard enough that her knuckles were turning white.

She was going to kill him.

The low growl in her ear didn’t help one bit. She felt a punch in her very core and she moaned out, past feeling ashamed of the fact that she desperately wanted to have sex. The space where he kissed behind her ear felt like pure torture and Olive could only squeeze her legs together and try not to explode. And even if she had wanted to react, Milo seemed to realize his mistake and pull away. Olive closed her eyes, trying to regain whatever amount of composure she had left - mostly so she wouldn’t either try to jump Milo’s bones or kill him, she hadn’t decided yet. She didn’t even watch when he hurried from the room, instead elected to calm herself while still at the table alone. This was just… too much. Dianna being there to grate her nerves. Milo turning her on when she was already in a perpetual state of horniness. There was too much going through her mind.

And she just wanted to get laid.

Olive finally stood up from the table after what felt like a lifetime. She stopped to locate his sweater from the laundry room, though she had no idea where his blue shirt was - probably at the bottom of the hamper if it managed to get there. When she did make it upstairs to their room, still feeling like a bundle of sensitive nerve endings, she folded the sweater carefully and lightly tossed it into his duffle, hoping it would be enough to satisfy him because she really didn’t want to look for whatever shirt he was talking about. Which was probably what she should have done. Instead, she came up behind Milo and hooked her arms around his waist, pressing her front flush against his back. She rubbed her pelvis against him, searching for some sort of friction to end her torture and after a moment she sighed as her hands tempted lower on his waist.

“You cannot do that to me unless you’re going to ******** me. Do you understand?” she said, her voice steady for once. “I am going to lose my mind. And you’re supposed to be the only insane person in this house.” She was trying her absolute best to be good - to follow the doctor’s orders for Milo because it was what he seemed to want. But if he was going to make it hard for her, then she knew she would never make it.

[Andante.Lola]

XXXXXSO MUCH TO SAYXXXXXI FORGET TO STARTXXXXXSO MUCH TO SAYXXXXXI FORGET TO START
XXXXTHERE GOES A DAYXXXXFADING AS IT PASSESXXXXTHERE GOES A DAYXXXXFADING AS IT PASSES
XXXFORGET THE GREY.XXXLET IT FALL⇘ A P A R T.XXXFORGET THE GREY.XXXLET IT FALL⇘ A P A R T.

XXITʻS OKAY.XITʻS OKAY.XITʻS OKAY.

XI LIKE YOU IN G L A S S E S.

tab Well, ********. She was back.

In his time spent alone in their room, he'd managed to calm himself down a bit, his breaths coming easily now instead of rasping over his lips. When he saw her calmly deposit his sweater in his bag, a small smile came over his face. Clearly, she'd come down a significant amount as well if she was able to remember where that shirt had been.

Milo could barely remember his own name right now.

"Oh, hey, thanks," he tried to say casually, having busied himself with some other menial task in the room to keep his distance from Olive. At this point, it was going to take a trip on an airplane to keep him from ******** her... And he still wasn't sure he wouldn't run back on foot if he had to. But he was really trying to do the right thing. Surely, there had to be some solid medical reason they weren't supposed to do it. The doctor had likely explained this to Milo at some point, but he'd either been too distracted from the emotional weight of it all, or made too uncomfortable by the glares he received in the waiting room to focus.

When her arms latched around his waist, his breath caught in his throat. This was new. It wasn't often that Olive exhibited this level of desperation for him, usually playing the role of the tease and then getting frustrated when Milo wouldn't bite... But with the way she was grinding that little body against him? He couldn't tease her if he tried. He felt her hands slide down lower on the front of him and his eyes rolled back in his head as he took a sharp breath in. He wasn't expecting her telling him what he couldn't do to her to be such a turn on. Turning around within her grasp, he dropped his hands to her waist as well, pulling her into him tightly and returning her motions against her. He dropped his head her neck again, his hand reaching up to tangle in her hair, which he pulled, admittedly a little roughly, to make her turn her head to the side, exposing more of her neck to him. "Oh, is that so?" he whispered against her skin.

... but that was all he had in him.

Normally, he'd kill for a chance to tease her like this. To turn the tables... but it had been too long. He was too far gone.

He pulled his head up from her collarbone, slightly out of breath already. "I mean, we made it twelve days..." not even trying to make it look like he hadn't been counting. "Twelve out of fourteen is pretty good. That's an 85%. And you'll definitely have the next four days off while I'm away, or at least I hope so. Two days shouldn't hurt, right?" He wasn't sure why he was looking to Olive to be the voice of reason. That had never really worked out before. Maybe it was because he wasn't entirely sure he could stop himself at this point. Maybe it was because he wanted to be able to place the blame on her if something went wrong.

Maybe it was because he knew she'd tell him exactly what he wanted to hear.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Where ⇒ Beach House With ⇒ Just Olive. For now. What ⇒ kitchen confidential Why ⇒ "Oh no oh no oh no..."

[katyfaise]

the rocking of this house
had me holding on
but i knew i was safe
from then on out

The way Milo reacted to her touch would normally put a smirk on her face. She would usually tease him, give him everything just to the point of fulfillment before turning away only to start the process all over again. It was her favorite thing to do, but she just couldn’t handle that right now. She wanted him in a very needy way, a way that she tended to ignore any other time. But given that actually being pregnant had kept her from wanting to sleep with him, the new time limit put against them after the abortion had just made everything more tense. When he turned in her arms, Olive immediately pushed closer to him, even as Milo pulled her that way. He was telling her constantly that he couldn’t handle her sex drive, a complaint that she tended to ignore, but now that he’d had to go so long without actual sex she wondered if those complaints would ease off for a while. As much as he liked to give her s**t about how much she wanted sex, she’d seen what happened when he had been forced to go without it first hand and it wasn’t that pretty.

Now it was her turn to suffer she guessed.

He gripped her hair, just the way he would when they were in bed, and when his lips touched her skin again Olive nearly melted then and there. Once more, every single nerve ending was on alert and she was sure that if he just touched her the right way she would come apart over and over again (which was exactly what she wanted in the first place). When he pulled away, Olive felt his absence almost painfully so, her face strained. But he was out of breath too and his words instantly brought a smile to her face. He was beating around the bush, sure, but Olive wasn’t going to let this chance slip her by.

“I’m fine, I promise,” she said quickly, reassuring Milo more than herself. Honestly, the reason she’d tried to be so good the whole time was for Milo’s sake and not her own. The initial soreness from weeks ago had worn off only a few days after the procedure anyway, and the bleeding the doctor had warned her about had ended days before. Olive felt fine - just like she’d never been pregnant in the first place and had to go through something she’d never imagined, and besides her overbearing hormones she couldn’t tell that anything had even changed. Even the hormones felt normal, given how much she and Milo had sex before she’d gotten knocked up. She could only smile though, nodding enthusiastically. He’d had a legitimate excuse to keep her waiting for sex and he was giving in early. This was better than Christmas.

Well, anything was better than their Christmas.

She stretched up to kiss him, this time allowing herself to go deeper than any other kiss they’d shared in the last two weeks. As much as she liked making out like teenagers, she was tired of pulling away from him before things got too hot and heavy. Now she could cross that bridge without worrying about Milo stopping her thanks to the bullshit doctor’s warning. She reached up to push his sweater off of his shoulders, because frankly she was tired of layers separating them, but she kept her lips on any part of his skin that she could find. Her hands worked on his belt, unbuckling it swiftly before she took a step back toward their bed, pulling her shirt off in the process. She was trying her best to not let her excitement show through, but she was pretty sure that with her mind running as fast as it currently was, Milo would be able to tell that she was only focusing on getting laid. And now that he’d allowed her to do so, she couldn’t really bother with anything else. “If you back out on me, I can’t guarantee you’ll be alive to make it to your flight in the morning,” she said, smirking before she moved back, wrapping her arms lazily around his neck in order to kiss him again.

[Andante.Lola]

XXXXXSO MUCH TO SAYXXXXXI FORGET TO STARTXXXXXSO MUCH TO SAYXXXXXI FORGET TO START
XXXXTHERE GOES A DAYXXXXFADING AS IT PASSESXXXXTHERE GOES A DAYXXXXFADING AS IT PASSES
XXXFORGET THE GREY.XXXLET IT FALL⇘ A P A R T.XXXFORGET THE GREY.XXXLET IT FALL⇘ A P A R T.

XXITʻS OKAY.XITʻS OKAY.XITʻS OKAY.

XI LIKE YOU IN G L A S S E S.

tab Of course he was going to give in to her. Milo struggled to remember a time when Olive had wanted something that was within his capacity to give her and he'd refused... He came up empty.

And this? This was just as much for him.

Olive's words of reassurance were all the confirmation he needed. She was certainly acting normally, if not slightly more crazed than usual... She wouldn't be craving it that way if it was bad for her, right? When she pushed his sweater off of his shoulders, he shed the garment as though it had been burning him.

Olive's constant pursuit of him had been a bit of a point of contention in their relationship. He appreciated the attention. He certainly appreciated the sex... but he was constantly exhausted and sore. He had hickeys to explain away, despite being far past the age where that was acceptable. No matter how often he gave in to her or how ferociously he attacked her, it had never been quite enough. Now, for a man who had gotten to have sex once every few months or so if he was lucky, this challenge was a bit daunting.

He'd had some serious learning to do.

... but Milo was nothing if not a willing student.

Relief flooded him as she reached up to kiss him, realizing that he didn't have to fight with himself not to let things get too carried away. He was going to see this thing through. Before he really could comprehend what was happening, Olive was already furiously fighting with his belt and pulling her own shirt off. This girl wasn't wasting any time. He followed her as she moved toward their bed, closing the distance between them and propping one of his knees up on the mattress. He yanked his henley off over his head, no grace or foreplay there, just simply getting down to business before he tossed it aside. His hands found her bare back, sliding down her warm skin as he gently pushed her down. He kneeled over her, leaning down to kiss her as she looped her arms around his neck. Her threat didn't fall on deaf ears. He returned her smirk, his hand idly skimming down her bare stomach toward the waistband of her jeans. "Oh, I'm not backing out. And if I have my way, I can't guarantee that you're going to be able to walk tomorrow."

His fingers found their way under her jeans, popping the button and moving to slide the zipper down. He inched them down over her thighs the best he could one-handed, catching a glimpse of what he'd been looking for.

Milo was a sucker for pretty underwear.

This was one aspect of Olive's shopping addiction that he'd never complained about. Seeing her in anything from lingerie to a simple matching set drove him insane. He supposed that was likely a byproduct of being married for the past twenty-odd years, where small details like that were often the first thing to go. He appreciated it and often told her as such. His eyes took in the curves of her body. Curves he was finally allowed to explore with every part of himself that she'd allow after far too long of an absence. "Jesus Christ, you're beautiful..." he whispered, almost more to himself than to her.

Suddenly, though, Milo found himself getting a little nervous. He paused his hand, looking into her face. What if he hurt her? Clearly, this was the moment she was worried about, considering her threat from before as she called him out. He furrowed his eyebrows for a minute before quickly yanking her jeans the rest of the way off and laying down beside her, his voice serious. "Let's talk logistics," he began, though he couldn't keep his hands still. It had been so long since she'd let him touch her like this that he just couldn't seem to stop himself. His hands rediscovered all of his favorite places on her body as he tried to maintain his focus long enough to figure out where they were going from here. "How are we doing this? I don't want to hurt you, so tell me what I have to do."

If it were up to him, he knew what he wanted. Milo was an a** man all day long. Any situation where he could hang on to her butt for dear life was his favorite... Which was probably why bending her over his desk in his office at the university had been even more exciting for him than he'd thought. There was no better view than that.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Where ⇒ Beach House With ⇒ Just Olive. For now. What ⇒ kitchen confidential Why ⇒ "Oh no oh no oh no..."

[katyfaise]

the rocking of this house
had me holding on
but i knew i was safe
from then on out

Oh.

Oh.

She was finally going to get laid and she couldn’t be happier. Olive had always been a sexual person, even growing up. She’d lost her virginity at sixteen with a boy her father didn’t approve of (a trend she seemed to be continuing). But even before then she’d always been far too curious for her own good. Growing up had only led to various sexual partners that Olive tended to use in order to tease Milo (a trend she was going to end after getting knocked up). She’d never really gone without sex unless it was a decision she made for herself - like some self appointed pledge of celibacy she’d made once before that only lasted a few months. Now, the fact that she couldn’t have sex whenever she damn well pleased was only making this much better than she’d expected. Olive looked up appreciatively when he pushed her onto the bed, his hands touching her bare skin finally. She wanted to explode right then and there, and when he returned her threat tenfold, Olive was glad she wasn’t standing up before her knees actually went weak.

Olive relaxed back against the bed, letting Milo deal with her jeans. If she had her way the two of them would be naked already and she’d be on top of him, but Olive could find a strange happiness in the way his hands were slow and reverent. While she loved how gentle he could be, how he could worship her body and slowly bring her over the edge over and over again she also couldn’t handle that right now. Olive wanted something animalistic from him, because it was exactly what she missed. She would have four days without him after this and she knew well that it was like a tease. But if she could have her way she planned on ******** him one good time, just to end the tension she felt between her legs, and then having her way with him until he absolutely had to leave.

Which in her current state, she didn’t even want to think about.

She barely noticed that he had slowed, since she’d closed her eyes and began to breathe through her nose, trying to keep calm in only her underwear and Milo so close to her. But when he laid down beside her, Olive was forced to look over at him. She propped herself up on her elbows and turned her head to stare at him.

And then she laughed.

“Any other man wouldn’t even bother with asking,” she pointed out once her giggles subsided. Milo might not have been as experienced in bed as the men her age she’d slept with, but being married for two decades meant that he understood the basics of a woman and he respected her. And she appreciated that. She leaned over, kissing him softly once and then again. “I love you,” she said when she pulled away, a smile on her face.

“I’m fine, Milo,” Olive said once more, growing serious. “I know you’re worried but I’m okay. You’re not going to break me.” She reached behind her back to unhook her bra, pulling it off of her body and tossing it aside in a way that Milo would usually complain about - if he wasn’t about to get laid. Olive turned slightly onto her side, enough so that she could reach out and caress his cheek softly. She leaned close to kiss him again before pulling back to stare at him, the smile far from her lips and her face serious. “I just need you to [******** me.”

[Andante.Lola]

XXXXXSO MUCH TO SAYXXXXXI FORGET TO STARTXXXXXSO MUCH TO SAYXXXXXI FORGET TO START
XXXXTHERE GOES A DAYXXXXFADING AS IT PASSESXXXXTHERE GOES A DAYXXXXFADING AS IT PASSES
XXXFORGET THE GREY.XXXLET IT FALL⇘ A P A R T.XXXFORGET THE GREY.XXXLET IT FALL⇘ A P A R T.

XXITʻS OKAY.XITʻS OKAY.XITʻS OKAY.

XI LIKE YOU IN G L A S S E S.

tab As Olive made a hasty retreat to the bathroom, Milo flopped backwards onto the bed, his feet still remaining on the floor. He'd learned the hard way not to follow a woman after sex. No one needed those mental images. He laid his arm over his eyes, groaning as he thought back on the awkward exchange. "This is a complete disaster..." Rubbing his eyes, he sat up and called out to Olive so she could hear him from the bathroom.

"There's no way I didn't scar her. I don't care how old she is, no one wants to see their dad ******** someone," he pointed out, his voice exhausted. "I mean, put yourself in her position. Visiting your darling father, granted, I understand that I'm much more interesting and attractive than your dad, but bear with me," he joked before continuing "... and, through no fault of your own, you find yourself staring down old Jep really... uh..." He gestured with a closed fist in front of himself as he searched for the word he was looking for. "... Really giving it to someone. Someone who isn't your mom, by the way."

He shuddered at the thought.

He shrugged then, considering the alternative. "Or it could absolutely also be someone ******** your mom. You're closer with her, so it's probably a better comparison. Someone, who isn't your dad, nailing your mom. Think on that and get back to me." A sigh escaped him again as he started talking to himself, trying to formulate some sort of game plan for this new situation that he'd found himself in. He buried his head in his hands, knotting his fingers through his hair. "Okay, Milo. Now what? Do I talk to her? Do I act like it didn't happen? Do I have to address this? Does she need therapy?" His head jolted up, fingers sprawled across his face, his voice absolutely mortified. "Oh... Oh no. She's going to tell Shannon about this."

There was no doubt in his mind his daughter was going to rat him out to his ex-wife. Frankly, if she hadn't already texted her, he'd be amazed. Then, not only would he have to have an awkward conversation with his daughter, but with Shannon as well. Oh, he could only imagine how that was going to go. "Hey, so our daughter may have seen me giving it to someone from behind... Someone barely older than her who I chose instead of you and broke up our family, by the way. You're cool with that, right?"

Ugh.

Suddenly, he replayed a part of what Olive had said to him back in his head, his eyebrows drawing together as he thought it over. He grew agitated as his voice raised a little bit. "And what do you mean 'I'm sure she has sex'?! She's still a kid, Olivia. She lives at home. She's an honor student. Shannon and I are good parents. There's no way," he snapped. He shook his head, trying to dislodge the thought from his brain... but then he realized that he knew next to nothing about nineteen year old girls.

"... Right? I mean, when did you start having sex?"

He was actually surprised that they hadn't discussed this before. Maybe Olive actually knew more about his daughter right now than he did. Maybe she understood her...

... Which was probably the most terrifying thought he'd ever had in his entire life.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Where ⇒ Beach House With ⇒ Just Olive. For now. What ⇒ kitchen confidential Why ⇒ "Oh no oh no oh no..."

[katyfaise]

the rocking of this house
had me holding on
but i knew i was safe
from then on out

She stood in the bathroom, listening as Milo’s stream of consciousness completely sidestepped his brain and instead was pushed right through his mouth. Olive rolled her eyes, wondering if Milo knew how ridiculous he sounded. Dianna catching them in the middle of sex didn’t seem like too much of a big deal, at least not in Olive’s opinion. As far as she was concerned it was something that Dianna would get over.

Eventually.

Right now though, Olive was just going to have to deal with any fall out from Milo’s side. As much as she didn’t particularly want to deal with it.

“Personally, I’d congratulate mom if she got ******** by someone other than dad,” she said from the bathroom. “It would mean she’s getting ********] Olive never really saw any sort of affection between her parents - it was strange whenever she would see the two of them share a chaste kiss or even touch hands. She’d honestly be more bothered seeing her parents sleeping with each other than any strangers. But that wasn’t anything she would actually admit to Milo. Denying that fact was much easier than buying into Milo’s paranoia about the current status of his relationship with Dianna. Things would get easier.

“Therapy?” she questioned, stepping back and sticking her head out of the bathroom to look at Milo, rolling her eyes again. “You’re ridiculous. Look, just apologize. Nothing’s going to change just because she saw us having sex.” She stepped back into the bathroom, running a brush through her hair before she pulled it up in a ponytail. “Oh she’s definitely going to tell Shannon. Might as well get ready for that one.” Olive would tell her mother if she was in Dianna’s position, but that was probably because she was relatively close to her own mother. She wasn’t sure how Dianna and Shannon’s relationship was - especially given that some fight had driven her to stay with her father, but even under the worst circumstances she assumed that would be the sort of information one shared with their jilted mother. “Doesn’t mean you have to bring it up, but I’m sure she already knows by this point.” She couldn’t help but feel a bit of pride regarding the fact that Shannon might know. Sure, it probably did nothing good regarding Shannon’s opinion of her, but the bitter, ‘home wrecking’ version in her mind only felt some sort of vindication.

Casually, she walked out of the bathroom, ignoring the fact that Milo currently seemed to be even more on edge now that she had brought up Dianna’s sex life… or lack there of if Milo had his way. She gathered up her jeans, pulling them back on before she sat on the edge of the bed.

“I lost my virginity when I was sixteen,” she said simply, glancing to Milo over her shoulder. “Should I be offended? Because, I was an honor student who lived at home and had excellent parents too. It doesn’t mean s**t when a teenager wants to have sex.”

[Andante.Lola]

XXXXXSO MUCH TO SAYXXXXXI FORGET TO STARTXXXXXSO MUCH TO SAYXXXXXI FORGET TO START
XXXXTHERE GOES A DAYXXXXFADING AS IT PASSESXXXXTHERE GOES A DAYXXXXFADING AS IT PASSES
XXXFORGET THE GREY.XXXLET IT FALL⇘ A P A R T.XXXFORGET THE GREY.XXXLET IT FALL⇘ A P A R T.

XXITʻS OKAY.XITʻS OKAY.XITʻS OKAY.

XI LIKE YOU IN G L A S S E S.

tab Milo considered her comment regarding her mother and shrugged, actually kind of agreeing with her. Annette was an attractive woman.

He'd let that happen.

Not that he'd ever tell Olive that.

The idea of Shannon knowing about this whole experience was enough to make Milo nauseous. Obviously, she knew that he and Olive had been having sex. They had gotten divorced due to that very fact... But he didn't exactly think she needed the detailed account their daughter was sure to deliver. He covered his eyes and groaned again, preparing himself for an exceptionally awkward phone call with his ex-wife. Now, the true test of just how upset with Shannon Dianna was. Would she stay here, in the house where she'd just witnessed her dad plowing a girl half his age, or go back home to her mother?

Time would tell.

When he looked up from his hands, Olive was seated next to him on the bed, informing him of when she'd begun having sex... And his answer, frankly, disturbed him.

"Sixteen? Really? There's... There's no way Dianna is having sex. I'd know. Shannon would know," he reassured himself, though his voice took on an air of uncertainty by the end. He shook his head slowly, eyes still wide in shock that he was dealing with this at all.

... Until he realized that he really didn't have to deal with it for much longer.

"... Well, damn. I might not be able to talk to her about this after all..." He glanced at his watch. "My flight is in twelve hours... And you know how long it takes to get through security. Maybe I'll see if Kelley and Sara want to get to the airport a little earlier than usual..."

He was dodging, obviously. He took his phone out and set it on the bed next to him, turning to Olive. "She's nineteen. She can take care of herself. Just please try and keep her breathing and out of jail until Tuesday. I'm leaving her the keys to the Jetta, which I hope she still remembers how to drive stick, but I guess we'll find out. You really don't have to worry about her. I'm more worried about you killing my cacti while I'm gone."

He picked up his phone, shooting off a quick message in the group text he shared with his students... Hoping that he wasn't the only one that was desperately game to start this trip obscenely early... But, on the inside, he knew this plan wasn't going to work.

"Just please, please don't kill each other. I have a biological obligation to keep her alive.... And an entirely different biological reason to keep you around."

He had never been more anxious, in both directions, about a trip in his life.



━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Where ⇒ Beach House With ⇒ Just Olive. For now. What ⇒ kitchen confidential Why ⇒ "Oh no oh no oh no..."

[katyfaise]

the rocking of this house
had me holding on
but i knew i was safe
from then on out

Olive stared at Milo, her mouth slightly open with disbelief. There was no way he could believe his daughter was truly so innocent. “Oh my god, you’re insane,” she whispered, shaking her head. “Were you ever not,” she gestured at him with her hands, unsure of what words to use, “this?” She sighed, truly hoping that Milo didn’t have his head buried in the sand as much as he seemed to. “At some point you had to not be this middle aged, suburban dad…” Olive trailed off, deciding against arguing with him. She figured that if Dianna was having sex and didn’t want her parents to know, they wouldn’t know. She’d been a teenage girl once, actually not too long ago, and she knew that if anyone had some sort of insight into Dianna’s life it was her.

That thought made Olive pull a face though. Even the mere idea of having something in common with Dianna was too much to deal with. It was easier to erase that thought from her mind than to dwell on it - especially when Milo’s dodging tactics were showing up in full force.

“Wait,” she demanded, eyes growing wide when she realized what was happening. “No! No, no, no! Milo, you are not doing this to me.” Twelve hours. Twelve hours away and he was deciding to leave now.

Security her a**.

She crawled onto her knees, anger growing in her system. Olive knew this was coming - she had somewhat prepared herself for the four days alone with Dianna. But those were four days alone she had assumed would be spent peacefully avoiding each other without the image of being caught ******** Milo looming over the both of them. Now, Olive was out of her element, and everything Milo had said before seemed ten times worse. She hadn’t expected to be the one to have to deal with this head on.

“You have to talk to her before you leave. You can’t just leave this out in the air like nothing happened.” Because if that’s what he did then Olive was going to get the brunt of Dianna’s sourness. “I will ******** kill your cacti out of spite, don’t test me,” she threatened, her lips set in a straight line.

She was suddenly very afraid of what was going to happen during the four days he was gone. Olive really didn’t want to admit that she was terrified of a nineteen year old, but that nineteen year old one, probably hated her more than usual right now, and two, held a lot of the cards in her hands when it came to her father. And what was even worse is that the same nineteen year old knew exactly how well she could play her father and did it at every chance she got.

********. They really were alike.

“She’s going to kill me before I ever get a chance to do anything to her don’t worry one bit,” Olive hissed through her teeth, trying to calm both her anger and her anxiety. This was all Milo’s fault - a fact she was going to make sure to remind him of whenever he got back from Atlanta.

[Andante.Lola]

XXXXXSO MUCH TO SAYXXXXXI FORGET TO STARTXXXXXSO MUCH TO SAYXXXXXI FORGET TO START
XXXXTHERE GOES A DAYXXXXFADING AS IT PASSESXXXXTHERE GOES A DAYXXXXFADING AS IT PASSES
XXXFORGET THE GREY.XXXLET IT FALL⇘ A P A R T.XXXFORGET THE GREY.XXXLET IT FALL⇘ A P A R T.

XXITʻS OKAY.XITʻS OKAY.XITʻS OKAY.

XI LIKE YOU IN G L A S S E S.

tab Milo's head pulled back, a little offended by the words coming from her mouth. "Hey, now. You didn't seem to mind this about twenty minutes ago," he retorted, mocking her hand gesture at himself. With a scoff, he answered her with "... And of course not. But, I was seventeen and already living away from home at boarding school. My mother and father basically stopped parenting me at sixteen. It's an entirely different thing."

... At least he thought it was.

The idea of his daughter being grown up enough to make those sorts of decisions, to have those sorts of feelings, was enough to make him nauseous. He hated to admit it, but he held a bit of a double standard so far as young people's sexuality went. He was a male, therefore it was okay and expected that he would start experimenting sexually sooner than he was comfortable with his daughter doing. Besides, the girl who took his virginity was twenty-three. Plenty old enough in his opinion... Obviously.

Milo leaned backwards, away from where Olive had begun posturing at him rather aggressively, hands up in his defense. "Of-of course not. I was kidding, Olive. Calm down. Stay away from the cacti. I'm not leaving until 4:00."

Damn. Thwarted.

At this point, sleeping on those weird benches at the airport terminal would be roughly a thousand times more comfortable than his own home.

He sighed and nervously ran a hand back through his hair. "I'll go and talk to her, but I'm warning you, it's not going to change anything for you. I know how this is going to go. She's going to stay in her room the rest of the night and be suspiciously quiet... and then all hell will break loose for the next 24-36 hours. She's operated that way since she was a toddler... and I'm not going to be around for the fallout." He patted his hand on Olive's knee, his face drawn.

"Your best bet is going to be to bribe her. Black olives and pineapple on her pizza, which is gross, but she loves it. She's food-motivated." He felt like some sort of general mapping out a battle plan during a war. He was going to be around for the easy part. With Dianna stewing in her bedroom, he and Olive could pretty much operate as usual, if he could ignore the crippling levels of humiliation and guilt in his belly.

Not likely.

He pulled his hand back from Olive and rubbed his own knees, bracing himself for what was to come. "Alright. Here goes nothing," he said nervously, swallowing hard before rising to his feet and exiting the room. Suddenly, the five feet down the hall to Dianna's door seemed like a mile. He gently rapped his knuckles against the dark wood, his voice quiet and clearly terrified.

"Uh, Dianna? Look, I just--"

His daughter's voice cut him off from the other side of the door, her tone harsh and razor-sharp around the edges. "Dad. Don't. Not now, not ever. Just leave me alone." Milo nodded from his spot in the hallway, reaching up to rub his forehead. "Yeah, I get it. I'm sorry you had to see that. If you want to talk about it like adults, fine. You know where to find me."

"Yeah, I do. INSIDE OF A GIRL PRACTICALLY MY AGE, she shouted at him from her side. Clearly, Milo's inability to raise his voice had not been passed down to his daughter. He could practically hear her venting about this over all forms of social media... Social media that was read by other people.

Like that guy she was seeing.

That guy that was in Milo's class.

This could only end badly.

Milo turned away from the door, his head dropped, face looking as though he'd been punched. "Okay, then, sweetheart. Good talk," he muttered as he beat a hasty retreat back to his room, where Olive still sat. He shrugged, looking utterly defeated.

"Well, I think that went well, don't you? You're sure I can't leave now?"

He walked back over to the bed, sitting down on it and instantly burying his head in his hands. He'd barely had a moment to sigh before his phone started to buzz in his pocket. Before he even looked, he instantly knew who it was going to be. He silenced the call for the moment, roughly dropping it onto the mattress where "one missed call" and "27 messages" lit up the screen after she'd hung up.

"You may have to deal with my daughter for the weekend... But I've got to deal with Shannon. Trust me, I'd rather take Dianna."

Granted, all the messages weren't from Shannon. In fact, the vast majority were from Kelley and Sara, but Olive didn't need to know that.


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Where ⇒ Beach House With ⇒ Just Olive. For now. What ⇒ kitchen confidential Why ⇒ "Oh no oh no oh no..."