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

[katyfaise]

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

It was always easy to threaten the cacti to get her way.

She let out a breath she’d been holding, her shoulders slumping once Milo said he was kidding. Olive knew he hadn’t been kidding - if he’d had the chance to get away earlier than he’d originally planned then she knew he would take it. But Olive wasn’t going to allow it. She knew that getting laid again was off the table at least for the rest of the night after getting caught by Dianna, but she genuinely wanted to spend some more time with Milo before he left for four days. Olive hated when he went away - it had been the same feeling back when they lived in her apartment together. As much as she complained about being cooped up with him alone during the holidays, she hated that he was leaving. It had a lot to do with spending the majority of her time with him, a fact that was now biting her in the a**.

She needed new friends. Or at least to hang out with the ones she had more.

Olive sighed through Milo’s explanation, the fear of a goddamn nineteen year old creeping up on her all over again. “I don’t care if Dianna likes me or not,” she finally said, trying her absolute best to seem as casual as possible. “I’d just prefer for her to not hate you.” It was mostly true - she didn’t want Dianna to suddenly hate Milo over what she had witnessed, but she sort of did want Dianna to like her too. Olive had always craved approval, it had stemmed from her relationship with her father (which explained so much about her current attractions), and turned into a craving for approval in nearly everything she did. The fact that Dianna disliked her for no real reason - beside being a driving force in the break up of her parents of course - got under her skin. Olive knew that if Dianna gave her a chance then they would probably get along. But that chance was very far away.

“I’m not getting pizza with black olives and pineapple.. that’s cruel and unfair.”

She scooted back on the bed, watching as Milo prepared himself. She sort of felt bad for him, especially given their shared habit of avoiding things head on. But it had to be done, and the most she could do was give some sort of silent moral support. Especially the silent part. Because she was nosy and she wanted to know what was said down the hallway. After a moment of listening though, Olive regretted it, wincing at Dianna’s outburst she’d heard clearly even in she and Milo’s room. When he returned, looking like he’d gone to war, Olive frowned deeply.

She’d expected it to go bad but this was out of control.

“Milo…” she trailed off, eyes on him as he sat back down. As she climbed back to her knees, she caught sight of the phone Milo dropped back on the bed and Shannon’s name cross the screen for a second. “Don’t worry about Shannon,” she said, pushing the phone aside as she crawled behind him and wrapped her arms around his middle, resting a cheek against his back. Olive stayed quiet, just inhaling him and feeling the way he breathed in and out. “Shannon doesn’t have a say anymore,” and even though the next part was shaky she managed out a, “I’ll deal with Dianna while you’re gone.” It was probably the hardest thing she’d ever had to say. She squeezed him lightly before stretching to place little kisses on his cheek and his neck - for once in an entirely innocent manner.

“You just have to promise to take me next time you go to a conference,” Olive said suddenly, smiling between each small kiss.

[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 Just the sound of his name on her lips made him feel a little better. Milo sighed as Olive's arms circled around him, taking some small shred of comfort in the warmth of her pressed up against his back. Why couldn't this have been what his daughter walked in to? Olive and Milo had plenty of quiet, sweet moments between the two of them. Moments that made their relationship seem real and intimate and not just some extended carnal affair. Why did the instance she managed to see them interacting with one another at all have to be the one time they'd finally given in and had rough, borderline-punishing sex for the first time in weeks after they had both gone through some pretty significant emotional trauma?

He placed one of his hands over hers around his middle, trying to find the words to say. "So far as who I'm sleeping with, you're absolutely right. Shannon doesn't get a say in that... but, remember, Dianna technically lives with her full time. Shannon's going to have to deal with her then. She's got every right to be pissed at me over this." He rubbed his eyes as he continued "Not to mention, I'm still close with her. It can't exactly feel great to get a play-by-play from your nearly hysterical daughter of your ex-husbands sexual exploits with a new woman, you know? I mean, clearly she knows we're having sex, but I don't think she wanted the details... So I have to worry about Shannon. For a couple reasons."

... but when she said that she'd deal with Dianna for the weekend, it was as though he had no idea who Shannon was.

He leaned into the gentle kisses she placed on him, closing his eyes. There was no way that this was how she wanted to spend her weekend. Dealing with an emotional Dianna would have been difficult enough even with Milo there as a buffer, but without him? He wasn't entirely sure where his daughter had inherited her temper from, considering both he and Shannon were generally pretty mellow people. He assumed it came from his mother. Dianna could get angry in a hurry and it wasn't always the easiest thing to do to calm her back down... Especially when she felt she had every right to be mad.

Olive was in for a treat, to be sure.

He turned his head to the side, stealing a kiss that had been intended for his cheek, before bowing his head into her and exhaling a large breath through his nose. "I have never loved you more than I do right now," he whispered, reaching up to place a kiss of his own on her cheek.

He couldn't help but laugh when she told him that she wanted to go to his next conference with him. He raised an eyebrow in her direction, actually pulling away from her a little bit, grateful for the distraction. "You don't want to go to a conference with me, trust me. You'd be bored to tears." He glanced back over at his packed bag, running down a quick checklist in his mind of its contents. "I wish you were coming to this one, though... There's this opening gala thing tomorrow night. It's fancy and dull and I'm bringing Kelley and Sara which means I'm basically going to be spending the night babysitting... Ugh."

He wasn't lying. He really wasn't particularly looking forward to traveling alone with Kelley and Sara again after their last awkward trip to California... but they were the only research students he had that had enough together to warrant presenting and he needed to bring along students in order to make his lab look as accomplished as possible... Not to mention, it was nice to have two additional hands to help schlep his stuff he needed for his talks. At the conferences themselves, they were fine. They represented the university and Milo himself well. They were smart and informed and presented their research masterfully...

... but after the last talks of the day?

They were typical twenty-six year old girls. And they drove him insane.

Milo nuzzled his forehead into Olive. "Besides, I can't bring you along. There are so many middle-aged professors there. You'd never come home with me," he teased.


━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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 wanted to make this better some how but Olive was at a loss. Olive didn’t know how to handle Dianna on a good day when the girl would simply make a smart remark and go about her life. Now, Dianna had definite ammo when it came to anything she could say to her. But it was easy to ignore that as long as Milo was still home. When he left though… well Olive wasn’t sure what she would actually do when it came to his daughter. She’d made a promise that she wasn’t exactly sure she could keep.

But at least it made Milo happy.

Olive let the thoughts of Dianna brush aside when Milo kissed her. Really there was no reason to focus on that right now - she still had a few hours to spend with Milo before he was gone and all hell broke loose. Besides, trying to convince Milo to take her along with him had been something she’d been trying to achieve for a while now. Having the familiar conversation with him felt normal again - not like there was some storm looming in the distance ready to destroy everything. Olive probably should have felt bad about comparing Milo’s lovely daughter to a storm but she couldn’t be bothered. She was still terrified, even with the momentary distraction.

“I could entertain myself,” she argued. “Everything you do at home bores me to tears. I’m not sure how it would be different.” Olive was mostly teasing, but she did find herself bored when it came to most of Milo’s interests. She tried as hard as she could, but they didn’t have a lot in common and she had an attention span of someone much younger than she was. Olive imagined it was hard for Milo to deal with, but it had never stopped him from going on long tangents about things he liked.

And it also never stopped her from ignoring him just like he would do to her when he wasn’t interested. The ability to ignore the other was at least one thing they had in common.

Olive smiled and dropped her arms, backing up so she could rest against a pillow and stretch out. “Well… I do have a type,” she said, winking in his direction. “But you know, unless I’m destroying a family, I don’t really see the point.” There might have been a bitter edge to her words as she trailed off, but she tried to smile through it. She didn’t want to make anything more awkward than it already was, especially since Milo was going to be leaving sooner rather than later. But she did have a strong talent of ruining the moment. “Just promise me when you come back and Dianna’s killed me that the story of her catching us ******** isn’t one that my parents hear. I need to die with the small amount of dignity I lived with.”

[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 "First of all, clearly not everything I do bores you to tears, and second, I don't think you understand," Milo said, only a small smirk on his face.

"As boring as you think I am, these people all think that I'm a rockstar," he explained. And it was true. In the world of biological conferences, Milo had a reputation of giving talks that other scientists went to when they wanted to have a good time. The Milo Richardson that stood on a dais or in the pit of a classroom and gave, thoughtful, entertaining lectures was an entirely different man from the one who would sit in his own home and do math out loud for hours on end. There was something about feeding off of the energy of a crowd that made Milo feel more confident. More at ease. He was able to come across as an expert in his field without seeming pretentious. He was funny. He wasn't awkward in the slightest... A very different person than the one who never quite knew what to say to the checkout clerk at the grocery store.

"It's just rooms and rooms full of boring scientists who are interested in the same boring things that I like. You'd die. I know you'll never believe me, but I'm pretty much the cool kid at these conferences. I don't think you want to go to a conference. I think you just want to go away somewhere," he teased. It had never particularly bothered Milo that the common interests he held with Olive seemed to fall only on their inability to focus on anything but the other. He figured it was normal for couples to have a hobby that they shared together.

Theirs just happened to be sex. What was so bad about that?

Even though 90% of what she said came across as either confusing or dull to him, he tried to listen dutifully... He liked the sound of her voice and she liked that she enjoyed telling him things... Even if he genuinely couldn't care less.

He rolled his eyes at her wink, but soon had to stop himself from wincing as she alluded to the fact that she'd, essentially, wrecked his family. He knew she was kidding, but the way she made it sound intentional, as though that was part of it for her, stung a little bit. Since the beginning, Milo had been spinning their story in his head as this love-at-first-sight sort of tale, where the two of them were helpless to stop something that destiny had set in motion by putting them in close proximity to one another, as opposed to what it was; a girl who had fetishized the notion of sleeping with her professor and a man who was desperate to regain a shred of his masculinity back after a long marriage to an alpha female and parenthood had nearly beaten it out of him.

The love hadn't come along until later.

But the thought of that left him from the moment he laid down next to her, wedging his arm behind her and pulling her into his chest so his chin could rest on the crown of her head. He placed a kiss on her head before, smoothing her hair back with his hand. "... and I don't know if I can promise that. The look on old Jep's face when he heard my detailed account of how I was caught nailing his daughter might be the only thing that gets me through the fact that my own daughter murdered my girlfriend," he teased, burying his nose into her hair and smiling through another kiss on her scalp before a yawn took him by surprise.

"Christ, I must be getting old if I'm tired already... I can never decide what I'm supposed to do for these early flights... Should I force myself to stay awake and just sleep on the plane? Or should I try and catch a few hours? You'd think by the time I'd had this many years of flying, I'd have it figured out... My phone hasn't gone off in a bit, so I'm guessing Sara and Kelley are actually asleep," he mused, voice sounding almost relieved as he pulled Olive closer to him. He wasn't looking forward to sleeping alone for the next four days. Even if Olive didn't let him hold her while they slept, there was something comforting about a warm presence next to him in the bed. He always missed that when he was away.


━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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 very thought of Milo being cool to anyone was nearly enough to make her laugh aloud. Then again, though it wasn’t something she would remind him of, there had been a time when she looked at him as if he roped the moon. But sleeping with him and ultimately living with him for some time had made everything Milo did relatively normal in her eyes. And he technically was right - she didn’t really care if she went to a conference with him or not. Olive just wanted to go somewhere far away alongside him. The trip to Cape Cod hadn’t counted, for various reasons that mostly included her parents being there. Not to mention Milo getting assaulted in some bar, even if he had been the one to start the fight. She wanted to escape somewhere relatively relaxing, somewhere she could spend her attention on Milo instead of keeping her parents at ease or her sister from attacking him.

Well, at least Valentine’s day was coming up in the next month. And if she survived the weekend with Dianna then she figured she deserved a reward. Or she could annoy him until he gave in.

Either way, Olive was going to get what she wanted eventually.

When Milo laid beside her and pulled her close, she instinctively cuddled against him, something that was new to even her. She was so used to pulling away and making a fuss about any sort of affection, but she liked being close to him. It probably had a lot to do with her hormones, even more to do with their fight, but she was going to let him enjoy it for as long as she could handle the feeling. Especially since she would have four days of no contact whatsoever. She couldn’t help but laugh, imagining the look on her father’s face that Milo had to be imagining as well.

“How could you live with driving such a kind, caring man to an early grave?” she questioned against his chest, managing to turn her head slightly to glance up at him with a smile.

She caught his yawn shortly after and despite wanting to convince him to have sex again, this time without being caught (because she didn’t exactly see Dianna leaving her room any time soon), she knew that rest was probably the best option with a four am flight. Olive snuggled close, listening to his slowed breathing and definitely intending to stay awake no matter how nice a nap sounded.

No matter what she intended though, Olive found herself waking up to a dark room and a quiet house and still held close to Milo. She wasn’t sure what time it was, and she didn’t know if Milo had thought to set some alarm before he had to leave, but she was a bit surprised that she’d dozed off so easily and hadn’t moved. Maybe subconsciously she knew that she needed to enjoy the nap with him before she had to walk through hell for the next four days. Or maybe she was just too lazy and turning away from a nap never really worked for her.

“Wake up,” she whispered, voice still sleepy. Olive craned her neck and kissed along his, following the trail of his skin up to his ear until she could bite down gently on his earlobe. “Not that I’d care, but I don’t want to hear your whining when you miss your flight. I don’t even know what time it is.”

[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 didn't even hear her tell him to wake up. He didn't so much as stir until her teeth clamped down on his ear, causing his eyes to pop open as he turned his neck, mashing his ear into his shoulder. "Hey, hey, hey. Quit it," he sleepily whined. When she mentioned that she didn't know what time it was, his heart raced in his chest as he quickly dislodged his arm from underneath her, struggling in their darkened bedroom to read his watch on his uncoordinated arm that had long since fallen asleep. Was he late? If he'd slept in, then it would be his fault that all three of them didn't make it to the conference on time. Surely, the Dean would have his head. He blew out a sigh and twisted his lips into a smirk as he turned to her. "My alarm goes off in three minutes. Don't think for a minute that I'm not going to take those three minutes back from you the first chance I get," he threatened, slowly moving to sit up. By the time he'd gotten himself standing, his alarm was sounding from the foot of the bed, where his phone had sat all night. He silenced it and rubbed his face in an attempt to rouse himself before dialing the number of the taxi company, leaning against the footboard.

"Uh, yes. Good morning. I'd like a car to Boston Logan, please," he said quietly, not wanting to disturb his (hopefully) sleeping daughter next door. He gave them his address and the time, his voice almost shockingly polite and pleasant for a 3:15 AM phone call, and certainly shockingly polite for a man who had just been caught having sex like he was some sort of teenager.

After showering, trimming his beard into something presentable, and a few other morning-type activities, he pulled on his jeans and a collared shirt (not flannel, for once), his wet hair combed back and leaving a mass of damp curls at the base of his neck, which was sure to freeze him in the Massachusetts winter waiting for him outside. He shot off a quick text to Kelley and Sara and sat on Olive's side of the bed while he tied his shoes, idly running his hand down her hip when he stopped to change feet. He dragged his bag over from the foot of the bed, bending down to open it and remove the sweater Olive had reluctantly placed in there that evening. He laid it on the bed next to her, a small smile on his lips. "I'm going to Atlanta. It's supposed to be like 80 degrees there. I think you're going to need this more here than I will there," he offered. He patted her hip again for a moment before leaning down and placing his hand under her chin. "It's only four days. I'll be back to bother you before you know it... Now just, please, don't kill my daughter in the meantime. Just try and stay out of her way until I'm back," he said, attempting not to sound as nervous as he felt... and failing. He gathered her up into his arms, holding her tight against him, his hand cradling the back of her head. "I love you. I'll miss you. Please let me know if you have any problems you can't handle on your own... Unless they happen between 2-4:00 on Monday. That's when I have my talk," he advised, releasing her just enough to place a chaste kiss on her lips, followed immediately by one on her forehead.

A soft knock was heard from the front door, which caused him to jump as he bent down to re-zip his bag before standing and slinging it over his shoulder. He walked to the door of their room before quickly turning around, remembering something he'd forgotten. "Oh, and I've left written instructions for the dog and the cacti on my desk. Please don't let any of my stuff die while I'm gone. Dianna included. No pressure."

And with a weak smile, he crept down the stairs, grabbed his leather school bag from its place by the front door, and locked the door behind him, securing the two most important girls in his life inside, He stepped into the cab... Never having been more relieved in his life to leave his own house.

Olive could handle this... right?

Who was he kidding? He buried his head in his hands in the back seat of the cab that headed toward Sara and Kelley's apartment building, wondering when he was going to get word that the first shots had rung out.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Where ⇒ Beach House With ⇒ Just Olive. For now. What ⇒ leaving on a jet plane 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

Watching Milo get up and ready for his flight was making the elephant in the room grow larger and larger with each passing moment.

She was going to be left alone with Dianna.

Alone.

With his daughter who already hated her and had witnessed them together in a position that made most people blush.

Olive was still sleepy and for the most part that lightened the load she felt on her shoulders, but she knew that in a few hours when she was actually awake she would lose it. But for right now, she took the chance to pull her jeans off and slip underneath the thick comforter while Milo was in the bathroom. She had no intention of following him downstairs to see him off, and honestly waiting for him to get ready was taking all of her self control. Olive was surprised she’d even managed to wake up - she was a light sleeper but she did love to sleep. And she tended to be grouchier than usual if she was awake when she didn’t want to be. She settled down in the bed, already favoring Milo’s empty side even though he technically wasn’t gone yet. When he removed the sweater from his bag, Olive looked up at him with a sleepy smile, not sure if she was happier that he was leaving it for her or that she’d gotten her way.

“I can’t make any promises,” she said in a teasing tone, although her words were more serious than she had intended. She wasn’t exactly sure what would happen between she and Dianna when he wasn’t around. It wasn’t like she had planned on this. And even though she had told Milo she would handle it, she wasn’t sure that the severity of that promise had actually hit her yet. She tried to catch a deeper kiss from him, but with the knock on the door downstairs, Milo was already distracted again. “Love you,” she replied simply, curling back into the bed and only nodding with his final instructions. She could take care of his plants. She could take care of his dog. She just wasn’t sure how she was going to take care of his daughter.

—

Olive slept for a few more hours but when she found herself unable to doze back off, but finally pulled herself out of bed. It was nearing ten and her stomach was growling, plus she needed a nice shower after falling asleep beside Milo in her clothes. Luckily she made it through a shower and brushing her teeth before the panic hit her like a brick.

She was alone with Dianna.

[********] she muttered under her breath. She tried to catch her breath, to calm her racing heart, but Olive couldn’t help but wish even more that Milo was there for her. As much as she wanted to call him already, or even send a text, she didn’t want to seem needy or like she couldn’t handle her situation. Instead she splashed cold water on her face, hoping that it would help - which it didn’t. But Olive knew there was no way she could avoid Dianna forever. Staying locked in her room seemed like a good option but she would have to eat eventually, and make sure Niko got taken out. Besides, if she could make it through these few days with Dianna then it would probably earn some sort of respect from Milo she’d never had before.

She could prove that she was mature enough for this.

Maybe.

Once dressed, the sweater Milo had left for her pulled over her grey dress, she slipped out the bedroom, eyes on Dianna’s still closed door as she passed it. She wasn’t sure what the girl was doing in there but she didn’t care. If Dianna stayed upstairs in her room for as long as possible then who was Olive to complain. It only made it easier on her. In the kitchen, she set about making a pot of coffee and then pulled the milk jug from the fridge so she could make a bowl of cereal. Each action was as quiet as she could manage, not wanting to bring attention to the fact that she was awake and downstairs. Olive didn’t want to bring any attention to herself. Honestly, she wanted to disappear as long as Milo wasn’t there.

[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 After helping both Kelley and Sara lug their bags into the cab, all three finally crammed back inside, Milo now sitting up front with their driver who seemed a little less than enthused with his new patrons. No sooner had they been seated than Kelley leaned forward, her fingers gripping the edge of Milo's seat and brushing his shoulder.

"So. Dr. R. You're sleeping with students now?"

Milo forcefully turned around in his seat, the color rushing to his cheeks as he scrambled for words to say, completely mortified. "W-What? How did... Where... Where did you hear that?" While his fellow faculty members mostly knew of his relationship with Olive, either by him telling them directly or through the grapevine from his loudmouth friends, he hadn't exactly been anxious for students to get their hands on that information. Kelley simply shrugged in response to his obvious discomfort.

"We're a little offended you didn't tell us. It came up on the University Confessions twitter last night."
"... The what?"

Sara rolled her eyes at his ignorance, much in the same way that Olive often did. "You know. Where people can submit confessions anonymously and then the people who run the twitter account put them up for everyone. We've been discussing this and it's not either of us... So we figure it's got to be one of your freshmen." Both Kelley and Sara had both done some TA-like work for him in the past, leaving them relatively familiar with at least a percentage of the students under his tutelage.

She pulled out her phone to demonstrate, reading from the screen. "Ah, here it is. 'Dr. Milo Richardson has sex with his students in his own home'," she read plaintively, as though it were a weather report and not the most intimate detail of Milo's private life put out on the internet for everyone to read. His jaw hung open as he shook his head, completely at a loss for words.

Well, it wasn't wrong.

Milo made a weak attempt at denying their claim, but they steamrolled right over him. With an air of certainty, Kelley made the first guess. "It's Maggie McConnolly from your 8:00 AM lab, isn't it? Isn't it?" Milo could only slowly shake his head, completely floored.

"What about Jenna Schmidt? She's cute. She looks like she could be into older guys," considered Sara, voice entirely too interested.

At this point, Milo leaned forward in his seat, knotting his hands in his hair under his baseball cap and groaning. At this point, he was praying for some sort of dramatic text from either Olive or Dianna just to serve as a distraction from these two proceeding to over-analyze every interaction he'd had with a female student for the past year.

This was going to be the longest weekend of his life.

----

Dianna had been stewing all night.

The nineteen year old had been staring at her ceiling for the better part of the evening, just angry.

Angry with her dad for not shutting the door.

Angry with Olive for being the one serving as her mother's replacement in her father's bed.

Angry with her mom for not noticing that there was something crumbling in her marriage and failing to fix it.

Angry with her dad, again, for being weak.

The things she'd seen that evening were not memories anyone wanted of their father... but her dad was gone for the weekend, as evidenced by the small, folded note he'd slipped under her door on his way out, the exact same way he'd done before he left for her entire life...

Someone was having a hard time adjusting to the fact that his daughter wasn't seven years old anymore.

After deciding that she couldn't possibly sit in her room for another minute, she dragged herself out of bed to the bathroom down the hall, carefully passing her father's room, where the door was still shut. Her dad had mentioned that Olive was a late sleeper, a trait that never would have survived in the home she grew up in, where breakfast was at 7:00 and if you weren't downstairs, you didn't eat. After showering and brushing her teeth, she pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater, her typical weekend fare. With no particular plans for the day, she bypassed the blow drying and straightening of her hair, letting it fall to her shoulders in some very familiar chestnut curls.

She made her way downstairs, Olive still not down yet, and grabbed an apple from the basket. Also, much like her father, she was never really hungry in the morning and ate more out of a sense of obligation than of any actual need. A cup of tea and piece of fruit was usually all she could stomach, which left her, again like her dad, cranky and starving by afternoon. Of course, with only Olive in the house all weekend, she was planning on being cranky more often than not anyway. After making a few vain attempts to entertain herself, she heard a quiet stirring in the kitchen. She could tell that Olive was trying desperately not to call attention to herself... Which was why Dianna decided to put the kibosh on that plan immediately.

"Just so we're clear," she said loudly from behind Olive, her voice heavy and enunciated. "While I know I look like my father, ******** me isn't going to get you money or whatever else it is that you're after from him." Her cold gray eyes bore a hole into the back of Olive's head as she crossed her arms over her chest in the threshold of the door to the kitchen.


━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Where ⇒ Beach House With ⇒ Just Olive. For now. What ⇒ leaving on a jet plane 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 should have known that her luck couldn’t last, not with someone like Dianna in the house. She jumped, much in the same way Milo did whenever she would surprise him. It took her a moment to turn and face Dianna, mostly out of fear, but there was a big part that was a bit shocked at her words. She sat her bowl of cereal down on the counter and slowly turned around, instantly wincing when she met Dianna’s eyes. She looked ready to pounce, ready to attack any sort of weakness that she could find - and Olive knew that at this point she was probably sweating weakness. She cleared her throat, shifting her weight from one foot to the other as she stood in front of Dianna, trying to figure out what she could say. Especially since Dianna had just accused her of sleeping with her father for money. She could only swallow the lump in her throat, wondering if anything she said would actually be able to defend herself.

“I don’t…” she trailed off, shaking her head. How was she even supposed to explain herself? Dianna didn’t have a right to attack her, she knew that, but she also understood that she did have a right to be mad. She just didn’t want those feelings taken out on her.

“Look, if I was trying to sleep with someone for money don’t you think I’d find someone other than your dad?”

It was Olive’s attempt at humor but it didn’t seem well received with Dianna, especially after her nervous chuckle. She busied herself with pouring a cup of coffee and with that and her bowl of cereal in her hands, she quietly navigated to the table and sat down, trying to keep her eyes off of Dianna. Just the way she was being stared at by grey eyes that were nowhere near as warm as her father’s was making her skin crawl.

s**t.

Olive hoped Dianna went into law. Or at least some sort of job where she could use that cold, calculated gaze to get somewhere in life.

“Dianna,” she began, finally sighing and looking back to the other girl, “I’m sorry that you saw what you did. I truly am.” Dianna couldn’t expect to take this anger out on her for the next four days, or Olive was going to lose her mind - more so than she already had. “You don’t have to protect your father from me. He’s made his choices and he’s living with them.” Olive really wasn’t sure if this was some personal vendetta that Dianna had against her or if it was strictly her trying to protect the family she was used to. Either way, Olive was trying to draw a line early on, one that might keep the young girl at a distance.

[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 That wasn't funny.

Dianna snorted with derision through her nose. "I guess that's a fair point. If you wanted the money but still felt like destroying my family, my mother would have been the better choice... Though she's not anywhere near as soft as my dad. You'd have to work a lot harder."

Looking at the way Olive was shifting her weight, Dianna knew the other girl was uncomfortable... Which was exactly the way she wanted her to feel. Had her father been here, Dianna would have been nowhere near as brazen as she was now. For as much s**t as she constantly gave him, it still only took one stern "Dianna, please." from him to shut her down. It had been ingrained in her early on not to disappoint or upset her dad, and if that included backing off from his girlfriend, then she'd deal with it. She had to firmly cement her place as his favorite, after all.

But Dad wasn't home now, was he?

She'd never been alone with Olive before. This was her first chance to really take her in. She looked her over, trying to find some scrap of her that was reminiscent of her mother... And, aside from the fact that she was pretty (something that Dianna admitted begrudgingly), she was coming up empty. Of course, Dianna hadn't known her mom at this age, but she couldn't imagine that she had ever been anything like the girl who stood in front of her.

She shrugged off Olive's apology, as though what she'd witnessed hadn't been eating away at her very core since yesterday afternoon. No one wanted to see their father in that position with anyone, nevertheless his new girlfriend that was only just barely older than his daughter. Dads weren't supposed to do that. Especially not her dad. He'd been the most mellow, gentle man she'd ever known. Since he was the one home during the day for most of her childhood, he'd been the one to collect her from school, walking the mile or so to pick her up and holding her hand the whole way back. He'd taught her how to run Welch's t-tests for his research while other kids her age were still memorizing their times tables. They'd dug holes all over the perimeter of their yard to get enough worms to spend the better part of the day fishing off the sailboat in the bay. He'd slept on the floor next to her bed when she'd been sick. He'd talked her through problems with kids at school from kindergarten all the way through high school, doing his best to instill confidence and security in her during a tumultuous time.

... And now he was, apparently, into having rough sex with a girl half his age.

The thought of that again made her want to vomit.

"Oh, I'm not protecting him from anything," she replied casually with a small shrug of her shoulders. "Dad's a grown man. He knows what he's doing... And besides, this little midlife crisis can't last forever. That's what mom says, anyway, and she knows him better than anyone else."

When cornered, like she was feeling right now, Dianna had a bit of a mean streak. Unlike her dad, it didn't take alcohol to bring it out of her, either. She was observant and sharp, knowing how to cut to the quick relatively quickly. She shrugged again, brushing off the weight of what she'd just laid down for Olive. Their relationship was temporary. It had already lived past its expiration date. Frankly, her dad being single and not with her mom would be preferable to this. She plucked the keys to her dad's car that he'd left on the kitchen table and headed to the front door, pulling on the pair of boots she'd left there the night before. "Anyway, I'm going out. I guess I should let you know that much, since you're my keeper for the weekend or whatever."


━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Where ⇒ Beach House With ⇒ Just Olive. For now. What ⇒ leaving on a jet plane 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 dear God,” Olive muttered under her breath, dropping her head into her hands. This was ridiculous. She knew that she’d made some shitty decisions regarding her relationship with Milo, but she really didn’t need Dianna reminding her of them. But this was exactly what she was getting into and Olive already regretted it. For a moment she wondered if she could escape and stay with Tanya while Milo was away. She could always come back and check on the house but leaving it alone with Dianna seemed like a good idea. She was nineteen - she could handle four days without setting anything on fire (probably better than she could herself honestly). If she packed a bag and ran for the hills could Milo really blame her? He knew how bad Dianna was. He’d made sure to warn Olive before. There was no way he could hold that against her.

But she wasn’t a coward.

Besides, she lived here. This was her house too… even if it was a house that she happened to mostly find herself annoyed with and she didn’t pay for.

She really wanted to tell Dianna that she was being an absolute brat and that it was unfair, but Olive stayed quiet instead. It wasn’t in her best interest to say anything that would further set Dianna off, not when she was already on the warpath. Maybe she just needed to get it out of her system. She was still sore about what she’d seen and she wanted Olive to suffer just as much as she had. Okay, Olive could handle that. But the fact that she had to, alone, was already rubbing her the wrong way.

Although Olive was trying to let the words roll off her back, it was when Dianna brought up Milo’s ‘midlife crisis’ that really got to her. She hated that description of their relationship because it was the same one she’d had in the beginning. Olive constantly blamed their whole relationship on Milo temporarily having a moment of weakness. She couldn’t help but think that one day he would wake up and come to his senses and go back to the woman who he had spent half of his life with. Olive nearly choked on her coffee, especially when Dianna let it out that Shannon believed the same thing she did. Whatever she had with Milo wasn’t real - that’s what everyone believed.

That’s what she tried not to believe.

Dianna had the upper hand because Olive was frozen, despite wanting to defend herself and the love she felt for Milo. She tried to swallow the lump in her throat but it wasn’t possible. Dianna was just as smart as her dad, Olive knew that much, but she was wrong about this. Or at least she hoped as much. Before she could stop the words tumbling out of her mouth, Olive had already sat up and said, “You’re wrong, Dianna.” The words surprised Olive even, but she tried to hold her ground. This was the first time she would attempt to stand up to Dianna and somewhere inside she had a feeling it was a huge mistake. But luckily she didn’t have time to ruminate on her sudden rush of courage. Dianna going out was a blessing. Olive didn’t really care how long she stayed out or where she went, as long as she didn’t die because then it would probably be a bit of her fault. She wanted to tell her to be careful, but that seemed a bit too mom to Olive and given that Dianna had already made it clear they weren’t friends, she stayed quiet and watched Dianna leave.

She didn’t breathe again until the door was closed and she was alone in the house.

Olive put her head down on the table, completely ignoring her cereal now that her appetite was gone. She wondered for a moment if she should text Milo and inform him that she was now a gold digger but she decided against it almost immediately. There was no point in dragging Milo into this, not so early anyway.

Besides, things couldn’t get worse, could they?

[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 Dianna grabbed her coat out of the closet, pulling it on and facing the door, she heard Olive refute her claim. Her lips twisted into a wicked smirk as she turned back to face the older girl, her her cold gray eyes full of mock concern. "Am I, though, Olive?" she questioned, her voice cloyingly sweet. "I'll let you think on that while I'm gone."

And with one last derisive "hmph" through her nose, she shut the door behind her.

Her boots crunched through the light dusting of snow that had fallen since her father had left early that morning (the man never would have left it if he'd been around when it covered the driveway) on her way out to his car, keys jingling in her hand. There was a brief moment where she almost felt bad for the things she'd said to Olive... but her resolve quickly steeled when she realized that this, her entire predicament for the past year, had been caused by her. It had to be Olive's fault. In her entire life, she barely saw her father be brave enough to be the first one to make a move of affection on his own wife... There was no way he was the one who instigated something with a student.

So that meant that it had to be Olive's fault.

She'd single handedly forced her way into their lives by disrupting what had been a very nearly idyllic adolescence. Her parents had been happy, so far as she'd noticed, until Olive had to go and ******** everything up. How could she be expected to be civil to someone who ruined everything in her life... and then flaunted it in front of her face (albeit accidentally) by neglecting to do something so simple as lock a door? So she deserved the way she was treating her.

... Right?

Dianna collapsed into the driver's seat of the familiar car, pulling the seat significantly more forward than where it sat for her dad. Rubbing her hands together against the cold, she considered the fact that she honestly didn't even have a plan of where she was going. She could probably go to her aunt and uncle's house... Her cousin, Julia, was typically down to do something and, if not, it would at least serve as a temporary escape. She could hardly wait to get out of this house, despite the fact that she'd gone there voluntarily, and away from Olive. She placed the key in the ignition and turned it

... and nothing happened.

Her breath escaped in a fog in front of her as she looked down at the gear shift to her right, her eyes wide. [********. That's right. Dad drives manual."

She couldn't help but roll her eyes. Of course he drove stick. She was pretty sure he did it merely for the fact that not everyone could and it made him feel better about himself. He'd always taken some sick pleasure in knowing things that others didn't, why not extend it to something as simple as driving? Dianna's hands flew to her face as she tried to recall the many frustrating hours she'd spent in this stupid little car, her dad adamant about teaching her to drive stick before she could just drive a normal car like every other person in the entire world. He'd made her learn how to drive his car well enough to pass her driver's test on it before she was allowed to even think about driving her mother's significantly easier (and nicer) car, which meant that she was among the last of her friends to start driving. By the time she'd finally earned her license, she was determined to never look at another manual transmission for the rest of her life and had mostly succeeded. It had been years now. She gripped the steering wheel and looked down again at the gear shift, trying to remember her father's instructions in his patient, but completely terrified voice. After a minute, she had the clutch pressed to the floor, the car still in gear, and turned the ignition again... Which caused the small wagon to lunge forward like some sort of wildcat.

Which caused her to promptly panic and lift her foot completely from the clutch, the engine stalling and leaving her in a stuffy winter silence aside from her scream of frustration.

This was not the escape she had planned on making.

With a huff, she angrily slammed the door shut on the car, threatening to knock it off of its hinge and kicked a foot at one of the tires. Even when he was away, her father was finding a way to make her own up to her actions. Had she been at their old house, she could have walked a few familiar places, but here, she wasn't sure where to go, and while she could look something up on her phone, it was too cold to wander aimlessly around the neighborhood. This meant one thing; she had to go back inside. She huffed out a breath into the winter air and marched her way back into the house, but not before shooting off an angry text to her father.

I hate your stupid car.

Tapping the snow off of her boots in the doorway, she called back out to where Olive was still sitting at the table. This was humiliating. There was an annoyed edge to her voice as she struggled to sound casual, as though she was back here of her own accord and not because she lacked the skill set to leave the premises. "Ah, change of plans. I'm staying."

Her cheeks flamed red, exactly the way her father's did when he was caught in something, her eyes on the floor as she took her coat off again and peeled her boots from around her jeans.

... Now what?

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Where ⇒ Beach House With ⇒ Just Olive. For now. What ⇒ leaving on a jet plane 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

When Olive managed to lift her head from the table, it finally hit her that she was alone. Sure, the initial meeting with Dianna had been absolute s**t, but now she didn’t have to worry about it. She’d gotten an escape - an escape she was sure was going to be spent running the words Dianna had said over and over in her mind until the other girl returned to throw more insults at her. Olive sank down against the chair and sipped her coffee, still in a bit of a shell shock thanks to everything Dianna had insinuated. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard them, but it was rare they were said to her face. Olive had always thought it would be easier to handle accusations about her intentions if they were said straight to her instead of whispered behind her back. Dianna had just proved her assumptions wrong - as far as she was concerned she could ignore anyone else talking about her if she didn’t have to hear it. Dianna staring her down was far too much to deal with.

Just as she felt herself calming, starting to build back a bit of her normal breathing pattern, Olive heard the car lunge forward and the loud slamming that followed sent her back into a spiral.

[********]

Olive gathered her bowl up and went to the sink to wash it, and mostly to distract herself if Dianna decided to come back inside and blame her lack of distance on her as well. She heard the other girls voice over the water and Olive nodded to herself. It took all of the courage she could find, but once she sat the bowl in the dish rack and dried her hands, she carefully left the kitchen and made her way to the foyer. Dianna definitely didn’t look happy about her predicament and Olive couldn’t say that she was happy either. The moment Dianna mentioned she was going out seemed like a silver lining to everything she had just put up with.

She should have known she couldn’t get too lucky.

“Yeah…” she began, clearing her throat as she leaned against the stairs. “Your dad said you might not remember how to drive stick.” Olive couldn’t drive stick either. It had been something her father had tried to teach her when she was younger, but Olive didn’t really take to things she didn’t excel at immediately. So when she’d stalled twice in a row she’d only got frustrated and declared she didn’t care enough to keep trying. She thought for a moment to offer Dianna her car, but she hadn’t moved it in days and she was sure it was worth more trouble getting it mobilized again. Plus, Olive really wouldn’t put it past Dianna to ‘accidentally’ get a scratch or two. “I don’t really know why he insists on keeping that car. He tries too hard to be unique.” Olive shrugged, clearing her throat again, which she was sure was becoming a nervous habit at this point.

“How long have you been awake? Do you want something to eat… or.. I can leave you alone and pretend I don’t even know you’re here.”

[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 since survived a plane ride mashed into the window seat with two girls who seemed intent on questioning him on every female student he'd had... Which, as it would turn out, was quite a lot. All Milo could do at this point was shake his head as they ticked through his entire roster. At one point, he was fairly certain that they were making up names, as he had no recollection of them whatsoever. He hadn't managed to fall asleep on the plane, due to their interruptions, so by the time they touched down in Atlanta, he was more than a little tired and more than a little irritated.

As soon as the wheels hit the tarmac, Milo yanked his phone from his pocket, absolutely sure there was going to be an onslaught of text messages and missed calls from his daughter or his girlfriend... But more likely both.

... Only one message? And it was about his car, of all things?

He barely had any time to process how strange that was before instantly flying into a panic. Did she stall and got stranded somewhere? Did she need help? The text could have been sent hours ago, for all he knew... And, apparently, his anxiety showed on his face. Kelley leaned over to him, trying to peek at his phone over his shoulder. "Oooh... Is that her?"

Milo turned his head back toward her, his jaw set as he ground out a gruff "No, it's my daughter. Now lay off, would you?"

She backed away, hands up, leaving him to fire off a message back to Massachusetts where he was certain his home was likely nearly bulldozed by now.

Are you okay? Did you stall? Do you need help?

The conference hadn't even begun and he was already looking forward to going home... Until he remembered what was waiting for him at home. Maybe he could stay in Georgia forever and no one would notice.

---

Dianna pulled her head back at Olive's accusation that she couldn't remember how to drive her father's car, her face turned up in indignation. "It's not that I don't remember how to drive, it's.." She scrambled to come up with a better reason for her sudden return when Olive continued with how obnoxious her father could be.

... Now this was a conversation she could get into.

She dropped her shoulders, heaving an exasperated sigh at the sudden flood of relief that came from someone else understanding her frustration. "Right? Why can't he have a normal car like a normal person? That car is almost as old as my brother. I think it's going to outlive him." She groaned, her eyes rolling skyward in about as melodramatic of a fashion as she could muster "He's just. so. frustrating."

... and she was exactly like him.

She shrugged at Olive's line of questioning. Honestly, she hovered in a space between sleeping and wakefulness most of the night, her seething preventing her from getting any real rest. "I'm not really hungry... but if you've got coffee made, I'll grab some of that." Her voice lacked the steely edge it had possessed all morning, becoming a little bit softer. This mutual annoyance with her father could have been the start of some common ground to find, not that Dianna would ever admit that.

She walked past Olive back into the kitchen, grabbing down a mug from the cabinet. Without looking up, she casually said "I like your dress, by the way," before continuing to get her coffee together. She'd barely sat down when she felt her phone go off in her pocket. Reading the text from her father and sending off one that reassured him that she was fine at home, she smirked.

"Well, Dad's safe in Atlanta and already worrying. Plus one for the Dead Dad Folder."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Where ⇒ Beach House With ⇒ Just Olive. For now. What ⇒ leaving on a jet plane 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

Dianna’s exasperated sigh made her laugh, and Olive had to admit that it was nice to not be on guard for a moment. Sure, she still felt highly tense, but it was always easy to express her frustration regarding Milo. And since Dianna knew first hand, and had much better experience with the subject, Olive didn’t mind joining in.

“Or it’s going to be your dad, his car, and his plants at the end of the world, all alone… Because nobody else will want to put up with him.”

If it meant throwing Milo under the bus to find some sort of common ground with his daughter then she was sure he would understand. It wasn’t like it was out of the ordinary anyway. Olive constantly found a way to poke fun at Milo as it was because he was such an easy target. And as long as she stayed away from sensitive subjects then he took it in stride. But having Dianna on her side meant that she could call Milo crazy and someone would agree with her, because most of the time Milo wouldn’t admit that he was in fact, crazy. Olive really didn’t mind walking on eggshells and picking her conversations carefully when it came to Dianna. It was going to be stressful, but if it meant that she could avoid Dianna’s accusations then she would do what she had to.

She nodded and followed her into the kitchen again, sitting down at the table where she had been previously. At the compliment, Olive was sure her mouth dropped open, which was why she was glad Dianna was too focused on fixing herself a mug of coffee. That would have been embarrassing - well, more embarrassing. She wasn’t used to hearing nice things from Dianna. Every time she’d been in the other girls presence it had led to smart a** comments, or truly mean ones if she thought back to earlier. But Olive managed to squeak out her thanks before she hid her face in her own coffee cup, eyes watching Dianna over the mouth of the mug as she sat down and checked her phone. “I haven’t spoken to him yet - it’s more fun to make him sweat, anyway.” She had honestly expected herself to send Milo a play by play of everything that had happened so far, but she had held off well. If things were going to get a little better between she and Dianna then it didn’t really concern him. At least not while he was off in Atlanta.

“I’m sure he’s pulling his hair out with worry over if we’ve…” She stopped short, not wanting to bring up the two of them potentially killing each other, especially when if she had to take bets, she’d put all her money on Dianna. She had the upper hand right now, even if she had been forced to retreat back inside. “If I’ve set the house on fire or let Niko get away,” Olive quickly continued, sitting her mug down on the table. She’d rather make fun of her own shortcomings than have Dianna do it for her anyway. “It’s going to be pretty ironic when he stresses himself to death instead of dying in whatever completely weird way he has dreamed up.”