Work Text:
"Oh, HELL no."
Viola Hastings crossed her arms and stared at her friend like she had just suggested something deeply, personally offensive to her, her ancestors, and anyone who had ever loved her. Which, for the record, she had.
"Viola-"
"No. Absolutely not. Do you hear me? Not a chance." She pointed a finger. "I am already being a guy five days a week, seven hours a day, in a school full of people who would lose their entire minds if they found out. I eat lunch as a guy. I sleep in a dorm as a guy. I have had to watch seventeen YouTube tutorials on how to walk like a guy - like, specifically, how to walk, and I still don't think I've got it right-"
"You've totally got it right-"
"-THE POINT IS," Viola said loudly, "I have to draw a line somewhere. On weekends, I am Viola. V-I-O-L-A. She/her."
Kia, to her credit, did not flinch. She sat cross-legged on her bed with her chin resting in both hands and her eyes doing the thing, the thing where you feel like you just kicked a puppy into the sky if you said no.
"Please," she said.
"No."
"Please.”
"Kia."
"Viola."
"I just- okay, wild idea, bear with me-" Viola spread her hands like she was presenting something reasonable, "what if you just asked him out yourself?"
Kia made a noise like Viola had suggested she swim to Canada. "All I need is for Derek to see that other guys are interested in me so he stops just standing there being all cute and oblivious behind his little smoothie counter and actually DO something about it." Kia hugged a pillow to her chest. "You show up, flirt a little, Derek gets jealous, then Derek will finally ask me out."
"Why didn’t you ask Paul?" Viola said.
"You know I love Paul," Kia said, immediately and with great sincerity, "but Paul took one look at a picture of Derek and said, and I quote - 'oh honey, no, I wish you nothing but the best though.'"
Viola stared at the ceiling for a long moment.
"I hate this," she said.
"I know."
"I genuinely, deeply, from the bottom of my soul, hate this."
"I know."
"You owe me so much. You owe me a car. Wait no, you owe me two cars and a fruit basket. Not even edible arrangements, I want the one they send movie stars to try to convince them on one of the worst scripts they ever read."
Kia was already off the bed and pulling the Sebastian wig out of Viola's bag, and somewhere in the back of Viola's mind was already making a checklist: voice, walk, swag, and DO NOT answer to Viola.
She looked at her reflection in Kia's mirror as the wig went on.
Sebastian looked back.
"I hate this," Sebastian said.
"You look great," Kia said.
݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁·ꕤ
The mall on a Saturday was a sensory overload of noise and movement, thick with the smell of buttered pretzels and way too much body spray. Viola moved through it with her hands shoved into her jean pockets and her brain fully locked into Sebastian mode.
Kia was practically vibrating beside her. “He’s at the smoothie counter and gets off at three, he’s been working here for six months and I have come in for a smoothie every single week and we’ve talked about movies and his dog and his little sister and he has never asked for my number, which means he either isn’t interested or he needs a push, and I’m choosing to believe it’s the push-”
"It's the push," Viola assured. "Guys are oblivious. Trust me, I am currently one of them."
They came around the corner past a sunglasses kiosk and Kia grabbed her arm. "There. That's him."
Viola looked. Tall guy behind the smoothie counter, easy smile, and currently handing a drink to a customer.
Viola sighed. "Yeah, okay, I see it."
"Right?!" Kia whispered. “Alright I’m going to head over there, and you come over in a bit. I’ll signal, or I don’t know, do something obvious.”
Viola rolled her shoulders back. "Okay. Give me the signal when you're ready and I'll-"
"Sebastian?"
The voice came from her left, and then every single thought she'd just had evaporated completely.
Olivia Lennox was standing three feet away and she had a shopping bag looped over one arm and her purse over the other. Her hair was down around her shoulders and she was wearing this soft blue top that made her look effortlessly put-together in a way that Viola, even on her best Viola days, had never once managed. And she was looking right at her with this bright, genuinely delighted expression.
Oh no.
"Olivia," Viola said, which was not a sentence, but it was all her brain produced in the first half second and it also sounded too Viola-y. “Yo, what up girl? You’re here.” She cringed internally.
"Hi, yes- I’m here." Olivia laughed a little, shifting one of her bags and not a bit suspicious. "I didn't know you came to this mall. Are you shopping?"
"Cool. Cool cool cool. Yeah- I’m buying man stuff, gotta load up on those boxers!" Viola stepped forward, subtly angling herself so her body was between Olivia and Kia, which achieved nothing but felt necessary.
Olivia's smile tipped sideways, somewhere between amused and charmed. She opened her mouth to say something, and that's when Viola, in her peripheral vision, caught Kia staring at her from across the food court with an expression that communicated several things simultaneously, the most urgent of which was RIGHT NOW.
Viola looked at Olivia. Looked at Kia. Looked at Olivia again- still smiling, still waiting, completely unaware that she was standing in the middle of a tactical situation.
"Okay I am so sorry," she said out loud, already backing up, "I have to do one thing, it'll take like thirty seconds-"
She was already turning and crossing the food court at a pace that was technically a walk but deeply wanted to be a sprint. She got to the smoothie counter, planted one hand flat on the glass case, and dropped into the most aggressively unbothered lean she could physically produce.
"Hey."
"Hey?" Kia replied with a faux-shocked face.
"You are gorgeous." Viola said in the sleaziest way she could think of, “And that is genuinely unfair to everybody else in this building right now, like leave some hotness for other chicks."
Kia made a noise.
"No, seriously." Viola pointed at her own eyes. "These have seen a lot of things. A lot of things. And wow. Wow. I gotta say." She shook her head slowly like she was recovering from something. "What are you doing tonight? Because I got a car," Viola said, leaning further into the counter, "and the passenger seat is literally just sitting there calling your name, sexy."
“Oh, um actually-” Kia started, but before she could, Viola already put a finger to her lips and shushed her.
"Don’t worry, I already know the answer. I mean, how could you say no to this?” She gestured aggressively towards herself, “I’ll see you at Cesario's. Eight o'clock." She actually winked.
Kia looked like it was about to explode, but she tucked a strand of hair to cover the smile. Viola risked a glance at the counter.
Derek had set the blender cup down. His eyes were doing the thing where they weren't quite looking at anything directly but were absolutely watching everything.
There it is, Viola thought, with a quiet, settled satisfaction she kept entirely off her face. That's exactly what we came here for.
She pointed one last time - she'd committed to the pointing somewhere around the wink and said, "Don't keep me waiting, hot stuff," pushed off the counter without looking back.
Viola weaved back through the small crowd toward where she’d left Olivia, who was surprisingly still standing exactly where she'd left her, except she wasn't smiling like she had been before. She was looking somewhere slightly past Viola's shoulder, one hand adjusting the strap of her bag, her expression trying to look careful and neutral that didn't quite fit the usual open warmth of her face.
Viola slowed a little as she got closer, a faint crease forming between her brows.
Olivia looked up when Viola reached her and put the smile back on, easy enough. "Sorry, you were saying-"
"Hey, so-"
They both stopped.
Viola shifted her weight, trying to figure out why it felt much awkward than before. Olivia’s smile held, but it didn’t quite land this time.
"You go," Viola said, gesturing awkwardly.
"No, it's fine, I just-" Olivia tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, then let her hand fall a little too quickly. "I actually have to-"
"Hey!"
They both turned.
Paul materialized from the direction of Sally’s with bags on both arms and sunglasses pushed up on his head. Yvonne was right behind him, phone in hand and typing furiously away.
Paul grabbed Viola in a one-armed hug that nearly lifted her off the ground. "We didn't know you'd be here!"
"I didn't know you'd be here," Viola said, which was completely true in every possible dimension.
Yvonne hugged her next, then immediately looked past her with laser focus. "Is that Kia? Why is Kia over there making eyes at the-" She stopped, a slow grin spread across her face. "Are you helping her make the smoothie guy jealous?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Viola said.
"You are absolutely helping her," Yvonne said, delighted.
It was at that point that both of them seemed to register Olivia standing there.
"Oh!" Viola said quickly. "This is Olivia - she goes to Illyria. Olivia, this is Paul and Yvone, we've basically known each other since birth." She did her best to emphasize the Illyria part, hoping it would lower the chances of her cover being blown.
"Hi," Olivia said, and shook their hands. "It's really nice to meet you."
"Likewise," Paul said, in a tone that managed to convey about thirty questions he wasn't asking yet.
Yvonne pointed toward a bush near the smoothie counter. "We should observe from over there," she announced, already moving. She looked back at Olivia. "Come with. It's more fun with witnesses."
And just like that, they were all moving. The bush had a perfect sightline to the smoothie counter, but enough camouflage that it wouldn’t be so obvious that four people were spying. They arranged themselves; Paul on one end, Yvonne beside him, and then Olivia. And because the bush was only so long, Viola crouched down next to her, close enough that their shoulders were almost touching. Viola became immediately and involuntarily aware of this.
Across the way, Derek was pretending to wipe down the counter. Kia was pretending to look at her phone. They were both doing it badly, which was almost sweet.
"He's going to self-destruct," Paul said, watching Derek wipe the same spot for the fourth time.
"He's been like this for weeks," Yvonne told Olivia. "He's obviously into her. But he just stands there, doing nothing. Being tall about it."
Olivia laughed softly. "Being tall about it?"
"You know the thing," Yvonne said. "Where they're cute and they know it so they think that's enough of an effort."
Olivia spared a glance longingly at Viola, who was completely unaware of it and too focused on spying.
"Does he know she likes him?" Olivia asked.
"No," Yvonne said. "She told literally no one except us."
“And half of what Sebastian just did probably looked too convincing,” Paul added, with a meaningful look at Viola.
Viola spread her hands. “I did what I was asked.”
Olivia was still turning that over in her head when a sudden burst of movement beside them made it very clear they had not, in fact, been as inconspicuous as they’d thought. Kia slid in next to Viola and immediately covered her face with both hands.
"He thinks you’re into me," she said through her fingers. "He made the face. You know the one where they've decided they've lost so they're not even going to try. He's going to go home tonight and think he never had a chance and I am going to be ALONE FOREVER-"
"Okay, breathe," Viola said.
"-single for life, I can’t even get one cute guy-"
"Kia-"
"-he barely even talked to me, Viola-"
There was a beat. A very loud, very noticeable beat as everyone slowly turned towards Olivia.
Kia's hands dropped from her face. Her eyes went wide as if she just registered who the new addition was. She looked at Viola. Viola looked at Kia. Paul and Yvonne looked at the sky.
"Sebastian," Kia corrected, at exactly the same time Viola said "but he does like you though-" They paused again, this time looking at each other in disbelief.
“I mean, god I need to go call Viola- okay bye guys!” And Kia dipped immediately with her phone pulled out, making that possibly the clumsiest save in recorded history.
That was close, Viola thought, heart thudding. That was way too close.
"Okay," said Olivia. She was already moving from her spot. "Come on."
Viola looked up at her. "Come on where?"
"We’re going to fix it." Olivia held out her hand.
Everyone looked at her. Viola stared at the hand dumbfounded.
"Trust me." Olivia said again, a little amused by the deer-in-headlights expression on Viola’s face. There was a gentle change in the way she said it, and Viola took her hand.
Behind the counter, Derek was halfway through blending something neon-colored when the movement caught his attention. He glanced up, and the routine motion slowed, then stalled completely.
His gaze flicked from Sebastian, to Olivia, and then down to where their hands were still linked.
"Hi!" Olivia said, and tucked herself a little closer to Viola's arm and Viola went still for exactly one second before her brain caught up and she relaxed into it. "Can we get two strawberry lemonades? We're actually celebrating," Olivia added, and let the word breathe, because she knew exactly how people worked, and she knew Derek would not be able to leave it alone.
He didn't. "What are you celebrating?"
"Our first date." Olivia beamed. She looked at Viola with an expression that said play along or I will end you in the most charming possible way. "He finally asked me out. I've been waiting."
Viola read it, processed it, and pulled on the most catastrophically self-satisfied Sebastian smile in her entire arsenal and said, "First date. Honestly, way overdue."
"Way overdue," Olivia confirmed, nodding seriously.
"So how'd you two meet?" Derek asked, which - okay, he was going to make this harder than it needed to be.
Viola opened her mouth. Olivia opened her mouth.
"Soccer," said Viola.
"Biology," said Olivia.
A moment of silence.
"Biology," Viola said immediately, pointing at Olivia. "She's right, it was biology. I genuinely don't know why I said soccer."
Olivia didn’t miss a beat. “He’s taken a few too many hits to the head out on that field,” she said lightly, reaching over to give his arm a quick, playful tap.
Derek set the lemonades on the counter and just like that the conversation wrapped up neatly. Viola picked up both cups and handed one to Olivia, and then - because she was fully in it now, and maybe standing this close to Olivia made her feel reckless in a way she couldn't entirely account for, she slid her arm around Olivia's shoulders as they made their way to one of the tables next to the counter
Olivia stopped breathing for one full, complete second and she took a long abashed sip of her lemonade immediately.
"Try this," she said, because she needed to change the topic.
Viola looked at the cup being held out toward her. "That's yours."
“I’m aware,” Olivia said, lifting a brow. “And I’m offering it”
"We have the same drink."
"He made them separately, Sebastian, just try it."
Viola tried it. "It tastes the same."
Olivia pulled the cup back like she’d just been personally insulted. “It absolutely does not taste the same. Mine has more lemon-”
"Olivia, that is-"
"Don't say that's what lemonade is."
"-that is what lemonade is."
Olivia stared at her. "Okay, you know what, you're wrong, and I'm not going to argue about it because you're clearly not going to be reasonable-"
"I'm being extremely reasonable-"
“Mm. No,” Olivia said, taking another pointed sip. “I’m going to enjoy mine, which is better, and you can enjoy yours, which is not.”
"What if," Viola said, thoughtfully, "I enjoy both?"
Before Olivia could react, she leaned in and took another sip from her cup.
Olivia turned and stared at her with an expression that was trying extremely hard to be outraged and not quite getting there because her mouth kept wanting to do something else.
"Yours is better," Viola admitted. Olivia pressed her lips together very hard and suddenly looked at the menu board like it contained something extremely interesting that required her full attention.
Viola slid her stool a little closer. Because Derek was definitely watching, and that was the whole point- to fix things for Kia, not get distracted by Olivia’s niceness and weirdly nice looking face (makes sense whyshe’s the most popular girl in school). She rested her elbow on the table and propped her chin on her fist, mirroring Olivia exactly, and waited until she looked back.
Olivia looked back and raised an eyebrow.
"Do I have something on my face?" Olivia said.
"Nothing." Viola grinned. "You look pretty."
It came out more sincere than she meant it to. Not really performed, it was oddly just true, sitting there in the open air between them before Viola could do anything about it.
Olivia blinked. The warmth climbed her cheeks fast, and she turned back to the menu board she had already thoroughly read and said, with impressive composure, "Thank you."
"You're welcome," Viola said.
That was Sebastian, Olivia told herself, firmly and with great conviction. Sebastian says things like that. Sebastian thinks nothing of it. Sebastian is extremely comfortable with- Olivia's ears have gone pink again.
"Tell me something about yourself," Viola said.
Olivia looked at her sideways. "Is this the bit or are you actually asking?"
"Both," Viola said.
Olivia considered this for a moment, and then she turned on her stool to face Viola more fully, tucking one foot up underneath her, and said, "Okay. I want to be a therapist. I genuinely like school, which I know sounds like something a robot would say, but I actually mean it. And I cried at the end of the last book I read, which was embarrassing because I was in the library."
"Your turn, tell me something," Olivia said, wanting to quickly switch subjects before Sebastian could say anything about her crying in the library. “It’s only fair.”
Viola considered that for a moment, her gaze drifting like she was sorting through options before landing on one that amused her. “Alright,” she said finally. “I’ve never actually watched a full soccer game on TV. Not once.”
Olivia stared at her. "You play soccer."
"I play soccer," Viola repeated, like that clarified everything. “Watching it is completely different. I fall asleep every time. Within like ten minutes actually, it’s a real problem." She said it with complete sincerity, like this was a medical condition she had come to terms with. "My teammates don't know, and I think it would destroy them."
Olivia looked at her for a long moment. Then she pressed her lips together and looked away, and Viola could tell she was trying not to smile and losing, which felt like winning.
"Your turn," Viola said.
"I wasn't aware we were taking turns."
"We're taking turns."
Olivia seemed genuinely surprised to be invited back, and she wasn't really sure how to respond. "I don't know," she said. "I think I like understanding things. How things work. Why do people do what they do?" She shrugged a little, like she was self-conscious about it. "I think that's why I like biology. It's all systems. Everything has a reason."
"Even people?"
"Especially people." She glanced up. "Everyone thinks they're so complicated, but mostly they're just scared and don't know how to say it, so they do weird stuff instead."
Viola looked at her for a moment. She wasn't performing anymore, she'd forgotten about Derek entirely for a second and she wondered if Olivia did too.
"I think that's actually pretty cool," Viola said.
Olivia stared at her, confused, like she wasn’t used to a guy properly listening to her.
"I mean it," Viola said, holding her gaze. "Most people just get annoyed by other people's baggage and leave it at that. You actually try to understand them."
A small, self-deprecating smile touched Olivia's lips, though a faint blush crept up her cheeks. "Well, most people are annoyed for a pretty good reason. But what about you? What do you actually care about?"
"Soccer," she said, and it came out immediately and completely unguarded. "Genuinely. I care about it more than I know how to explain without sounding insane. And I care about my friends. Like-" She glanced toward where Kia was sitting across the food court, completely unaware. "Like, my friend needed something today and there was no version of that where I didn't show up, you know? Even if it's this."
"I know," she smiled. "I think anyone can tell that you'd do anything for them if you're choosing to spend your perfectly good free day to do this."
Viola looked at her. Something was happening in her chest, something she didn't have the language for yet and felt less like butterflies and more like a window opening. She's looking at me like she sees me, Viola thought. Not Sebastian. Me.
Neither of them said anything for a moment.
"So," Olivia said, at a completely normal volume, as nothing had happened. "This is going well."
"Really well," Viola agreed.
"Derek looks like he's doing tax returns in his head."
Viola risked a glance. He was. He was standing behind the counter with both hands flat on it and contemplating like he was doing rapid mental arithmetic. "Mission accomplished," she murmured.
Olivia smiled into her drink and that was when Viola’s phone went off. And again. And then three times in a row like an alarm, and she pulled it out and looked at the screen.
KIA (4 missed calls)
kia: PICK UP THE PHONE RIGHT NOW
"I'm so sorry," Viola said, already sliding off her stool, holding up the phone apologetically. "One second. It's Kia, I promise two minutes-"
"Go," Olivia said, waving her off. "I'll be here."
Viola pressed the phone to her ear and stepped away from the table.
"VIOLA." The volume was alarming. "It's working. It is working. He keeps looking over here, he can't stop, and he made me a smoothie I didn't order and just like, slid it across the counter and said 'this is something special I made’ and didn't say anything else and I think I actually levitated-"
"Okay, okay-"
“No, you don’t understand, this is just so! Thank you, thank you so much, you guys actually did it- wait.” There was a sharp pause on the other end. “Why is he walking over to Olivia?”
Viola straightened. “He’s going to who?”
She turned instinctively, scanning back toward the stand, and sure enough, Derek was no longer behind the counter.
He was standing next to Olivia and whispering something. Olivia was listening, head tipped slightly toward him, and then, as if she felt it, she glanced up.
Across the stretch of the food court, her eyes found Viola’s without any real effort. There was a spark of glee, like she’d just been handed a development she hadn’t been expecting and wasn’t entirely mad about.
Viola never hung up so quickly before and crossed back to the blonde in six fast steps.
“-I just figured you should know,” Derek was saying, arms crossed. “I mean, I saw it. He was being pretty obvious about it.”
“Sebastian.” Olivia said it quietly. The quiet was immeasurably worse than loud would have been.
Viola stopped walking. Olivia turned on her stool to face her fully, her expression giving away nothing. “Is that true,” she said, like she already knew the answer and was waiting to see if Viola was going to tell the truth about it.
“Is what true?”
“You were here,” Olivia said, and her voice began to climb “with me. And you were over there hitting on someone else?”
Viola let out a short, disbelieving breath. “Wait- she didn’t mean-”
“Oh, SHE!” Olivia stood up off her stool so fast it nearly scraped back. “She! Wonderful! Great! She! So we're specifying a she now, are we?!” She turned to Derek, hand extended like she was presenting evidence to a jury. “Did you hear that? A she.”
Derek, baffled, agreed. “I did hear- yeah, I caught the she.”
“Unbelievable,” Olivia said, pacing now, one hand pressed dramatically to her chest. “I cannot believe I fell for this. I cannot believe I ignored the signs. All of those red flags and deeply concerning behavioral patterns that I, apparently, chose to overlook.”
Derek coughed, very obviously disguising a laugh.
“What patterns?” Viola asked, her voice caught somewhere between confused and slightly concerned.
Olivia turned on her immediately, “Oh, I don’t know, maybe the fact that you can’t fall asleep unless you’re physically holding a soccer ball, or how you told me after I used the restrooms that handwashing is ‘more of a suggestion than a rule-”
She was like a machine gun, firing insults after insults leaving zero time for Viola to properly respond.
“-and how you keep protein bars in your pillowcase, Sebastian, like that’s a normal, human thing to do,” Olivia continued without missing a beat, her voice rising with every increasingly unhinged detail. “Or the way you cannot stop asking me if I like ‘short kings’ for real or not every time we walk past someone 5’9 or taller.”
Derek made a choked sound and turned slightly away, one hand coming up to his mouth.
“And you know what?” Olivia cut in, voice dropping just enough to land the blow. “It’s fine. It’s actually completely fine, because frankly-” she gestured vaguely to down there, as if searching for the right level of dismissal, “-I’ve had better. Bigger.”
There was a very brief, very loaded silence.
Derek swallowed. “Oh-”
“I think I’m- uh- I think I’m interrupting something,” he added quickly, already taking a step back.
“No, stay,” Olivia said instantly, not even looking at him, her focus locked entirely on Viola.
Viola opened her mouth, clearly out of her depth now. “Olivia, I genuinely think there’s been some kind of-”
“A mistake?” Olivia finished smoothly. “Yeah, a big one.”
She stepped closer, just enough to close the distance, and before Viola could react there was a SMACK. It wasn’t hard, but it was loud enough to turn heads (well, even more than the ones paying attention to Olivia’s rant)
Viola jerked back, stunned. “Okay- wowza lady!”
Olivia drew herself up, composure fully restored in an instant. “Goodbye, Sebastian.”
Then she turned and strode off without another glance, leaving behind a stunned Viola and Derek, who watched her go, then slowly looked back at Viola with wide eyes.
"Women, amirite? She'll come around," Viola said with confidence that she absolutely had no reason to have, and patted him twice on the shoulder and bolted after the blonde.
She caught up with Olivia around the corner, and Olivia had already slowed to a restless pace, which Viola took as permission to fall into step beside her and gently steer them both behind one of the wide concrete pillars without a word.
They stood there for a second, close and quiet, and then Olivia made eye contact with her, and whatever composure she had left simply gave way. She laughed, and Viola went with it completely, one hand pressed over her mouth, both of them leaning slightly into each other against the pillar, trying to keep it together and failing entirely.
“The short king thing,” Viola said when she could breathe again.
“I have no idea where that came from,” Olivia admitted, which made them both laugh even harder.
“Am I really… that short?” Viola asked, tilting her head, trying to sound serious but failing completely.
“Looks like I didn’t even have to make anything up back there if that’s what you’re worried about,” Olivia shot back, smirking, eyes sparkling.
They erupted into laughter again, Olivia grabbed onto Viola's sleeve to keep herself upright and Viola let her. It took another moment before the laughter faded into quiet, soft giggles. Olivia looked at her, cheeks still pink, eyes warm and open.
"I went a bit far," she said apologetically.
"You were spectacular," Viola said, and it came out softer than she intended.
Olivia glanced down for just a moment, looking between pleased and flustered, and then backed up. "You kept up pretty well."
"I had good practice with being your lab partner first," Viola said simply. "Turns out the skill set applies."
Olivia smiled at that, small and real and nothing like the performance either of them had just put on. Neither of them said anything for a moment, and the moment was one you didn't think too much about until you remember later when you're trying to sleep, and you think - oh.
Viola's phone buzzed.
kia: HE ASKED FOR MY NUMBER. HE JUST ASKED FOR MY NUMBER TO ASK ME OUT. IM GOING TO PASS AWAY I OWE YOU EVERYTHING YOU CAN HAVE MY CAR
kia: ALSO MY FIRSTBORN
Viola showed Olivia the screen without thinking. Olivia leaned in, bumping their heads slightly, to read it and laughed, bright and sudden and right next to Viola's shoulder.
"A firstborn?" Olivia questioned.
"She's very grateful," Viola said.
"She should be." Olivia straightened up. "That was an extensive operation."
They both looked over at the smoothie counter at the same time.
Derek was back behind it. He was looking across the food court at Kia, lacking his usual “oh god i’m gonna sound and look like an idiot in front of this pretty girl”, but instead looked like he finally made up his mind about something and was relieved to have done it. Kia had her phone in her hand, and her chin tucked down, and was smiling like someone trying not to look too happy too fast.
"Oh," Olivia said softly. "Look at that."
They watched for a moment.
"Yeah," Viola said.
Viola became aware, slowly, that Olivia's fingers were still loosely wrapped around her sleeve, and neither of them had moved. Olivia probably hadn't noticed. Viola had noticed. She was definitely not going to say anything about it.
"We should probably go find everyone else," Olivia said.
"Probably," Viola said.
Neither of them moved for another second.
Then Olivia let go of her sleeve, straightened up, and said, "Come on," and Viola fell into step beside her, and their arms brushed once as they turned the corner, and neither of them moved away.
Later, Viola thought. I'll figure out what this is later.
But she was smiling, and she couldn't entirely make herself stop, and she didn't really try.