“So…” Lindsay said to Oliver.  “Do you have a plan of what you would like me to do for you in exchange for this ride?”

He gave her a sideways glance and a playful smile.  “I do.”

“What?” Lindsay asked curiously.

“I want you to act out a scene with me.”

Lindsay scoffed.  “Yeah, what kind?  Under what circumstances and for what audience?”

He smiled and explained.  “I want a kissing scene.”

“I should have guessed,” Lindsay said with an eye roll.

“Listen, it will be perfect.  Here’s what I want you to do.  Tonight, when you get off work, come to the salon.  It’s just down the road from the clothing store.  Ricky is doing a dye job for a regular client who has no time during the work week, so she’ll be there.  I’ll text her the words, ‘I’m outside’.  When I see her through the window, I’ll tap my leg.  That will be your cue.”

“My cue to do what?”

“Act like Marissa.  Act like you’re Marissa and I’m Gavin and you can’t stand for me to dump you.  Throw your arms around me and kiss me and I’ll let you down gently.  Then…”

“Then what?” she asked, giving him a sideways glance.

“I’ll go inside and explain to Ricky that she’s the only one for me,” Oliver said gravely.

“You’re sure you can do that?” Lindsay asked skeptically.

“I have to,” he groaned.  

“Really?  After all the time you’ve known her and loved her and all the time you’ve gone without saying anything to her, why have you got to say something to her now?”

“I’ve been offered an acting job,” he answered.  “It’s for a comedy sitcom that’s being filmed in Vancouver.  I have to give them an answer tomorrow.  If Ricky says yes, she loves me, I’ll stay.  If she says she doesn’t, I’m going back to Vancouver… And if I ever come back, I won’t be staying at her place,” he said under his breath.  

Lindsay didn’t reply, but let his resolution take form in her head.  “If you promise me that you’ll confess to her afterward, then I’ll do it.  Gavin won’t like it though.”

Oliver looked at her when he should have been watching the road.  “Did something happen with you two last night?”

“Nothing.”  Lindsay pushed his temple with her index finger to make him face forward.  “Don’t crash,” she said gently before she leaned back in her seat.  “Nothing at all.  I was so tired, I fell asleep on his couch and he was nice enough to leave me there.”

“Then Marissa came over this morning?”

Lindsay sighed.  “I’m so done with those two.  I can’t be Gavin’s girlfriend if he can’t get her out of the picture.”

“Do you mean you’re going to punish him for seeing her? Just for seeing her?” Oliver asked incredulously.  “Isn’t that a little harsh?”

“I’m going to punish him whether he deserves punishment or not.  I have a really big problem.”  Lindsay had not had the guts to tell Gavin in detail what was really going on with her mother and her sister and the money they needed, but she had no problem telling Oliver.  She told him everything.

“So you need to try to raise three thousand by the end of the month?” he asked, scratching his head.

“My mother and Sharelyn are working on it too.  I just have to work as hard as I can and as long as I can until then, so I can give as much as possible.  So, I won’t have much time to play lovers-in-love with Gavin until it’s sorted.  Plus, if he hears about the little scene I’m doing with you in front of the salon, his feelings for me will undoubtedly cool.  You don’t think I’ll be unlucky enough for him to see us?”

“Why would he be at the marina at five o’clock on a Sunday afternoon?”

“To pick me up from work,” Lindsay suggested.

“Hmm… Let’s hope he doesn’t show up.”

Oliver pulled up in front of 999 Things to Wear.  

“Thank you so much,” Lindsay said as she swung down from the height of the truck.  “I’ll see you at five,” she promised before she ran into her apartment to freshen up before work.

Lindsay thought about the whole mess as she changed her clothes and sprayed her hair with dry shampoo.  

She really didn’t have a choice.  

She couldn’t have made Gavin leave Marissa to take her back to work.  He needed to do everything possible to sever that connection and Marissa would not be satisfied with anything other than an all-out, do-or-die, fight.  And who was Lindsay to get in the way of that?  She wasn’t Gavin’s girlfriend.  They hadn’t even kissed!

She had to call Oliver to save her that morning and get her to work on time.  He was the only other person she knew and she couldn’t expect him to do another thing for her for free, even if he was borrowing Ricky’s truck.  It wasn’t his, but it was something he could use that she couldn’t.  If he wanted her to help him with his little problem with Ricky in exchange, she had to follow through.  He wouldn’t be able to help her with anything if he took the acting job and went back to the mainland.

Besides, kissing Oliver wasn’t that big of a deal.  He was cute.  He was fun.  He was lovable in a way that would never last.  Lindsay knew the way their scene would go when she saw him later.  She just hoped that she would be lucky for once in her life and Gavin would be anywhere else.

***

It was lucky for Lindsay that she liked clothes.  If she hadn’t liked clothes, the time she spent at 999 Things To Wear would have been unbearable.  As it was, she was okay.  She could keep going.  She could do the shift.  

At lunch, she locked the front doors and put up a back in five minutes sign.  Then she hopped up to her apartment where she unceremoniously scarfed a peanut butter and banana sandwich.  It was her first meal of the day.  She already knew from experience that when you start chopping meals, you chop breakfast first.

Then she rushed back to the shop and went back to folding shirts for the table displays.  The people who came in for two seconds always managed to mess them up.

At five, Lindsay was feeling the opposite of great, but instead of forcing herself to look on the bright side, she let herself feel the hopelessness she had refused to let herself feel since she’d gotten the news about her mother.

If Oliver left and if Gavin was angry with her for not being available in the coming weeks, if she didn’t have enough money to eat, and if she had to work all the time… What would her new life on the island look like?  She rolled her eyes and then rubbed away the dampness that had mysteriously appeared at her nose instead of in her eyes.  

Everything that happened was all her own fault.  All of it.

She wiped her nose.

Only babies felt sorry for themselves, but it was okay if she felt sorry for herself just then. She had to go act out her scene with Oliver and the unhappiness she felt naturally would help her make the scene more convincing.  

It was going to be the last scene she ever acted out so she wanted to do a good job.

She locked up 999 Things to Wear at five and sorrowfully sauntered toward the hairdressers.  From quite far off, she saw Oliver.  He was leaning against Ricky’s truck.  Lindsay saw him text Ricky and wave to her inside the shop.  Lindsay saw him turn toward her and rub his leg, the way he said he would to indicate the start of the scene.

It was show time.

Quietly, Lindsay jumped up on the stoppers to stop people from pulling up too close into the parking spaces.  It was only five inches up in the air, but she treated it like a trapeze rope and came toward him.

The look on Oliver’s face was odd, like he was expecting something different.

“Hi,” she said breathily as she arrived at the stopper in front of Ricky’s truck.  “I was hoping I’d see you here,” she said, letting the corners of her mouth droop unhappily.

“I’m here,” Oliver said briefly.  If he was trying to be Gavin, Lindsay supposed he was doing a good job.  Sometimes he didn’t say much.

“I don’t want us to be apart,” she said softly, looking into his eyes like her heart would break.  “Please change your mind,” she reached up to put her hand on his shoulder.

He looked sideways and then took an abrupt step backward… Out of her reach.  “No,” he said, not looking at Lindsay at all.  “This isn’t what I want.”

What was he looking at?  

Lindsay looked around.  Ricky was watching from the salon window, but that wasn’t where Oliver was looking.  Lindsay followed his eyes and saw Gavin leaning against a wall by a set of stairs that led down to the water.  

“Lindsay,” Oliver said, looking down at her with a different expression than she’d ever seen.  Perhaps for one moment in his life, he hadn’t been thinking only of himself.  “I can’t screw up this thing you have going on with Gavin.  I want your help with Ricky, just maybe not the way I had been planning.  I think I want something else.  Come on.”  He grabbed her hand and hauled her over to where Gavin was.  “Come with us,” Oliver called to his brother.

“Where are we going?” Gavin shouted back.

“You’re going to be my audience,” Oliver announced cheerfully.

He hauled both of them into the beauty salon.  Ricky’s client was gone and she was organizing a cart with a collection of bottles on it.  

“Richenda,” he said, not calling her Ricky.  “We need to talk and I need these two idiots to watch.”

Her eyebrows lowered like she did not like the look of what was about to happen.  “Did you total my truck?  Is that why you need people here?  So I can’t kill you without witnesses?”

“No,” he said, acting like a real man.  He only said one word, but Lindsay was impressed.  He didn’t normally act like he was in charge like that.  It only got better as he kept talking.  “I am in love with you.”

Lindsay grabbed Gavin’s elbow as she needed something to hold onto as the scene unfolded.  

“I have been in love with you as long as we’ve been friends,” he said bluntly.

Richenda’s lips parted and her jaw hung open.  “You’ve… What?”

“I realize that all of that is dishonest and cowardly,” he said, having to look up to look to hold her gaze.  “I kept quiet because I can think of a million reasons why I would want to be with you, but I can’t think of any reasons why you would want to be with me.  I’m shorter than you,” he said, addressing the elephant in the room without hesitation.  “You’ve always dated men who were taller than you and I didn’t feel like I could possibly measure up.”

Richenda looked around the room uncomfortably.  “I have never been asked on a date by a man shorter than me,” she admitted.

“Well, here I am.  I’m shorter than you and I’m asking you on a date, but I have to warn you that if you let me take you out even once, I’m going to want a lot more than anyone has ever wanted on a first date.  I’m going to want to hold your hand the whole time.  If I am not holding your hand every moment of this date, I will feel horribly cheated.  If I’m not holding your hand, then I want my arm around your waist.  I’ll want you to look at me,” he continued.  “I feel like I have watched you look at other men all the time I’ve known you and I’ve had enough.  I want you to look at me and I want the ‘friend’ facade that you and I have built to be blown apart.  I can’t be your friend anymore and I can’t stand for you to look at me like that anymore.”

“I thought you only wanted to be friends,” Richenda said helplessly, overwhelmed by everything Oliver was saying.

“If you walk by me after a shower wearing only a towel and look at me like I’m your kid brother one more time, I’ll lose it,” he confessed noisily.

“You’ve never acted like it bothered you,” she said softly.

“Yeah, well, I’m an actor.  I’ve been acting all the time we’ve been friends.  But I’m through acting.  From now on, I’ll never act in front of you again.  From now on, I’m not going to pretend anything.  I want you and my heart will break if you won’t give me a chance.  Will you go on a date with me and let me shower you with all the love I’ve held inside?”

Lindsay was only watching, but her breath caught.  

Richenda’s eyes cut to Lindsay and Gavin.  “Do those two have to be here for this?  Can’t we talk about this privately?”

“No.  They’re here to support me.  They can leave after you give me an answer.  I’m sorry to put all this pressure on you.”  Oliver’s face really was sorry.  “I shouldn’t have let it get to this point, where I’m boiling over in this way, but it is what it is.  Will you go on a date with me?”

She put a hand to her face, bringing her hairdresser’s apron up to cover her mouth and her flushed cheeks.  “Uh… Yes.  Let’s go on a date.”

Oliver stepped forward and put his arms around her carefully, like she was a treasure, and whispered, “Thank you.”

Gavin put his hand over Lindsay’s on his elbow and said softly, “We’ll just let ourselves out.”

Gavin was pulling on Lindsay, encouraging her to leave the scene, but Lindsay couldn’t stop watching.  

Richenda was kissing Oliver’s forehead, then his cheek, and finally down to his lips.  She saw him get the kiss he was waiting for.