“If my eyes are covered by shadows

If my lips cannot utter a sound

The truth within me shall find you

By the light of our infinite bond.”

-Collette O'Mahony

Oliver stops in mid-sentence. His mouth is half-open while he looks at me. He doesn’t move.

Am I looking weird? I look down at my dress. No, it’s okay. I didn’t do much tonight. I might even look like I’m wearing no makeup if not for the lipstick.

I swallow and walk up to them. Jason glances at Oliver. He has a sly smile on his face like he knows something I don’t.

“Hi,” I say.

Oliver is still staring at me. I almost feel shy.

“You-you good?” I ask, stuttering.

Oliver finally looks away. He blinks. Jason is pressing his lips together. He looks like he’s fighting his laughter.

“Um, did I do something wrong?” I ask timidly as I sit down at one of the bar stools.

Jason smiles. “Nope. You did something fantastic!”

Oliver looks at Jason. A silent conversation passes between them.

“In fact,” Jason says looking at Oliver, “I’m going to leave you two alone so—”

“No,” Oliver says almost instantly.

I look from Jason to Oliver. Jason chuckles.

“Oh yeah,” he says. “I’ve got things to do!”

Jason stands up from his stool. Winking at us, he walks from the table. Oliver stares after him as he leaves.

I realize Oliver and I are alone. I look at him as he swallows. He glances at me. He is wearing a dark blue, almost black, button-down. His blonde hair is falling over his forehead, making me want to brush it away.

“Hey, we are almost matching,” I blurt out, looking down at my dress. Oliver glances at his shirt.

“Move over. Let me get a drink.” A guy walks to our bar table and stands between us, reaching for the drinks. I get annoyed. I look at Oliver.

Oliver stands up and gazes at me as if to ask if I want to leave.

I nod. More people crowd the table. It’s like they can’t give us a second of peace even in the corner.

We walk around aimlessly. Without Jason, we are kind of lost. I’m not even kidding. If he was here, he would have found something fun to do. I’m fun as long as I get to tease Oliver.

What will I even tease him about? His brother’s birthday? I don’t think so.

I look at Oliver sideways. He doesn’t look happy here. Honestly, I think he hates parties.

“You came out of your room,” I state.

Oliver looks at me. “I’m regretting it.”

I shake my head. A few moments later, someone bumps into me, making me crash into Oliver. He grabs my hand.

“Hey!” I shout after the girl who bumped me. She looks back and mouths sorry.

I look up at Oliver who’s staring down at me. “You good?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say as we stand apart.

The dance floor is right in front of us. I glance at Oliver and shake my head.

I can’t imagine Oliver on the dance floor. So I don’t even ask.

“So what do we do now?” I say to him. He is still holding my hand and I have nowhere to go.

I am not complaining.

“I’m going to my room. Do you want to stay here and maybe, I don’t know, look for Jason?”

Oliver says the sentence while looking at me, still holding my hand.

Here’s the catch. He’s drawing little circles on the back of my hand with his thumb as he’s speaking.

I’m not going to lie, it’s making me feel tingly and hot. Looking at Oliver, I don’t think he wants me to leave him and stay down here for Jason.

“I guess I will go with you?” I say. “If you don’t mind.”

Oliver gazes into my eyes. He nods slightly and heads for the stairs, taking me with him.

We reach upstairs, and the whole time Oliver is holding my hand and guiding me. We reach his room. Of course, it’s locked.

Oliver has to let go of my hand to open his door. It seems like he doesn’t want to.

He brings out his key as I stand aside. He opens the door and holds it open for me. I walk in.

I couldn’t imagine that a month ago.

Things change, huh?

As we get in, Oliver closes the door. It blocks out the sounds of the party. I look around his room. It’s dimly lit by the lights coming from the party downstairs.

Oliver makes no move of turning on the light.

I glance around, taking my time, while I feel the electricity in the air. I finally look at Oliver. He’s leaning against the door staring at me.

My stomach does a somersault. I swallow nervously.

“So, umm,” I start. I have nothing to say.

Oliver doesn’t even try to start a conversation. He keeps staring at my face, waiting for me to do—to do what?

I swear to God, I’ll jump on him if he doesn’t look away. It will be embarrassing.

But he doesn’t.

“So you never really took me to the secret room,” I say, finally getting an idea.

“That’s all you can think about?” Oliver says, almost accusingly.

Oh, crap. Of course, that’s not what I’m thinking about. He and I standing in his bedroom, in the dark, I can assure you that’s not what I’m thinking about.

“Well, um, I am not lying,” I say. “You didn’t show it to me. I need to see the picture you’ve been painting of me.”

Oliver closes his eyes and shakes his head. Then he stands up and heads for his closet.

Wait, is he really going to show me? What—

Oliver opens his walk-in closet door. I am still standing where I was before. I can’t believe my eyes.

Oliver turns back. “You coming?”

Of course, I am. I hurriedly follow him as he walks in. I gulp as we reach the other end and Oliver starts unlocking the door.

I’m going in there, in his room that he didn’t want me to see. My pulse dances in excitement.

Finally, the door unlocks. Oliver pushes it open and walks in. I follow him.

Something lights up the room instantly with LEDs. I look around, finding a little bulb-like thing in the corner.

There are little toys-like things all over the floor, here and there. There are nuts, bolts, pliers. I even see a circuit board. The room looks like Oliver left it a minute ago.

I look at the things on the floor.

“Are those...?”

“Robots,” Oliver states.

I snap my head at him. What is he doing with robots?

“What do you do with them?” I ask.

For the first time in the night, Oliver looks a little amused. “I make them.”

I blink, “You make robots?”

Oliver shrugs. I look at the bulb in the corner again. “Is that a robot too?”

“Yeah,” Oliver says.

“Oh,” I say as I see the computer in the corner of the room and a bed beside it. I’m pretty sure Oliver spends all his time here. That’s why his room, the one I saw before, always looks so impersonal.

Then I see the brown book. There’s more than one book with that same brown paper wrapping. They are right beside his computer.

I make my way there. I step on something, and I yelp as I slide.

“Careful,” Oliver says, leaning over me as he catches me from falling.

I think I stepped on a nut on the floor. I’m pretty sure he never cleans up.

Oliver is staring down at me. It reminds me of Halloween night and other things we did that night.

I can feel a shiver going down my spine.

God bless him and his nut.

I want to touch his hair. That one stray hair falling on his forehead is doing things to me I can’t describe.

Oliver helps me stand up. He doesn’t look away. It feels like he can only see me. I clear my throat and turn around. The air in the room feels charged. This room is only lit up by the robot’s LED, and that’s not much. I can’t hear a thing from the party.

I pick up one of the books. I see the title and look at Oliver.

“You were reading Artificial Intelligence and Robotics this whole time?” I say.

Oliver doesn’t reply.

I shake my head. “You weren’t reading this. You must be pretending to read while doing something else.”

The book has equations. It has programs on it. What was he even reading?

“Sometimes, I think you are a little too smart, and other times...” Oliver stops.

“Other times what?” I ask grinning.

Oliver takes the book from me. I turn around and see humanoids on the bed. Did he make those too?

“So you made those too?” I say, pointing at the humanoids.

Oliver shrugs like it’s no big deal.

There were courses in our school in robotics. They did a workshop. I participated, but I left halfway through. But here Oliver is making humanoids.

I find the controllers lying there. I pick one up.

“It controls this one, right?” I say as I push a button. One of the humanoids moves its leg.

Oliver watches me trying to control the robot.

I huff as I try to make it punch the air. I am pretty sure it can do that. Its arms move forward but not the way I want it.

“Grr, it’s not working!” I say angrily.

I look at Oliver who’s pressing his lips together. He is almost, almost smiling. He is amused by seeing me trying to control his robot.

I make another sound of annoyance. Finally, Oliver walks up behind me.

Before I can say what I want him to teach me, Oliver wraps his arms around me from behind, closing his wrist over mine, placing his fingers over my fingers on the controller.

My heart starts beating rapidly in my ear.

“Of course, it’s not working,” Oliver whispers in my ear.

He moves my fingers and places them on another button. I’m starting to radiate heat.

“If you want to punch,” Oliver moves my thumb with his, “tap this one and then rotate this button here.”

I can’t breathe. I’m running out of oxygen.

The robot in front of me punches in the air. “Just like that,” Oliver whispers.

To hell with robots. My heart is going to fly out of my chest.

Oliver moves behind me, his nose brushing my hair.

“So did you get it?” Oliver asks.

I breathe hard and gulp. “What if I want to kick?”

“Then,” Oliver moves my wrists as I look down. His fingers are way longer than mine. I never really saw that before.

He presses another button, using my hand, making me press it. The humanoid kicks.

Oliver doesn’t let go of me, although I think I got the buttons right. His hands are still over mine, his wrist closing up on mine.

“So...,” Oliver whispers. I shudder a little.

“Did you get it?” I feel something soft touching my earlobe.

It’s his lips.

Oliver Carlson is seducing me.

I shudder again, as my eyes close automatically. He knows it. He knows what he’s doing to me.

I can feel him grazing my earlobe with his lips. I almost make a sound out loud. He takes his time making his way down to my neck.

I feel like the room is on fire.

Then suddenly he stops. I open my eyes. Oliver moves away a little. He doesn’t move his hands yet. I look at the humanoid. It’s face first on the bed.

That happened.

“So, which button did that?” I blurt out.

“One of them,” Oliver says, removing his hands and taking the controller away.

I can’t look at Oliver. I still feel warm and giddy from what he just did, and I’m kind of disappointed he didn’t carry on.

“I have something you can teach me,” Oliver says, breaking the silence.

Oh, yes. I can teach him a lot of things, actually.

I glance at him finally, my body shivering a little. When I meet his eyes, I am sure I will end up being taught by him instead of teaching him.

Oliver’s hair is even messier now if that’s possible. His eyes are fixated on my face, dark and dilated.

I hope my heart is not the only heart beating like crazy.

“Come with me,” Oliver says, lending his hands towards me. I take it.

We walk out of his secret room. Oliver doesn’t even bother locking it. It seems like he’s almost impatient. We get out of the walk-in closet, to his bedroom, which is even darker.

He lets my hand go as he walks to his guitar and picks it up.

“I’ve been trying to learn the chords. But I need someone to teach me,” Oliver says as he looks down at the guitar in his hands.

“Oh, okay,” I say.

Oliver walks to me. I take the guitar from his hand. He turns and sits down on the edge of his bed. I follow him, sitting down as well, facing him with the guitar in my lap.

I didn’t see where I was sitting. Now our knees are brushing.

It’s not doing me any good.

I look at the guitar, thinking of the chords. It’s tuned, which is a good thing. Maybe he really was trying to learn.

I move the tuning to C major. I look at Oliver. He is not looking at the guitar. He is looking at me.

“So,” I clear my throat, “The first chord you need to learn is—”

Oliver’s eyes move from my eyes, down to my nose, to my lips as I talk.

Oliver Carlson is looking at my lips.

“Yes?” he says, still staring there.

What are the chords?

My brain has stopped working. Gwen.exe is not running anymore. It has stopped. Completely.

Oliver leans forwards a little, his knees digging with mine. “What do I need to learn first?”

“I—” I start. He glances back at my eyes for a brief second before looking at my mouth again.

“Did you forget the chords, Gwen?” Oliver asks. His eyes are unmoving, unforgiving.

He leans even closer, his hands on the guitar.

“I—”

So here’s a question. How do you form a sentence when your brain’s not working? Let alone remembering guitar chords.

Oliver smiles a little as if he saw this coming. He takes the guitar away from me and places it on his other side, lay it down on the bed.

I don’t know what to do with my hands now. Maybe place them on Oliver?

Oh, God. Save me.

“You are not a good teacher, Gwen,” Oliver states, smiling amusedly.

My mouth falls open. “What?”

“I thought you’d teach me but you look like you have blanked out,” Oliver says, still smiling.

I am so offended. This son of a—

“You are-you were looking at, looking at—” I point at him.

“Yes?” Oliver says.

I fume and try to reach for the guitar to prove him wrong. Oliver grabs my wrist, pulling me so I go towards him instead.

Oliver closes his fingers around mine. “When it comes to things, I always end up teaching you.”

With that, he places his lips on the side of my neck.

*****

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