Never Crossed My Mind

After three days of Olivia avoiding the set during the day and not speaking to him at the house when they got home at night, Johnny couldn't stand it anymore. He was in the kitchen when she came down for a bottled water from the refrigerator, and he hurried to block her path back to the stairs.

"I was going to have a cigarette outside. You want to join me?"

Arms folded in front of her chest, she shook her head. He waited but couldn't get her to say anything else. Letting out a deep breath, Johnny's guard came down and Olivia squeezed past him.

"Livvy," Johnny groaned as he followed her up the stairs. "Come on, Livvy, tell me what's going on."

At the bedroom door, she spun around to face him. "Olivia, Knoxville. My name is Olivia."

She tried to slam the door in his face, but he caught it and held it open. "Okay, fine. You want to fill me in on what has you so silent the last few days, Olivia?"

"Fine, let's have it out so I can go back to not talking to you. I am fucking pissed. At you. Isn't that what usually prevents one person from having the desire to talk to another person?"

Johnny took a deep breath and tried to remain patient. He never thought Olivia could be mad in the first place, let alone this cold in her anger. "Fair enough. How did I piss you off then?"

"Remember that night back in New York?"

"Oh my gosh! You cannot possibly be mad about that - I thought I explained, I wasn't rejecting you!"

"This isn't about that! My point is, you told Bam!"

Johnny's hands flew up in frustration. "Fucking a! I'm sorry I didn't know that information was off limits to the rest of the world, especially one of my best friends."

"Everybody on this project already thinks we're hiding something, and that is going to fuel the rumors. Do you realize Jeff called me into his office the other day to make sure you and I weren't fucking around because he is so worried about what that would do for my role in future projects. I worked a long time to get here and I won't let you ruin this!" She slammed the water bottle down on the desk and resisted throwing the remaining pillow on the bed at him.

"Right because that's what I want to do, ruin the one thing that keeps you in my life."

Olivia was stopped short. She had plenty of comebacks and insults to hurl at him when he was being selfish and spilling personal facts all over Los Angeles - okay, just to Bam, but whatever - but when he said something like that ...

"Can you leave, please? I am just going to pack my things and find a hotel."

"Please, don't. Liv-Olivia, please stay. You're right, I shouldn't have said anything to anyone."

"This," she said, pointing back and forth between herself and Johnny, "is a distraction, and it is one I can't afford to give in to."

Johnny nodded. "I know. Listen, I promise you, I will back off. I will let you work and we really will just be friends. Professional friends. Please just stay."

"I will sleep on it," she offered. "But I'm done arguing for tonight."

“Good night,” Johnny said with a nod before leaving the room. Maybe she was still angry, but at least now he knew why.

***

“No, you’re all goofy-footed,” Bam instructed her.

“Well, that’s what feels normal,” Olivia told him. She moved her back foot up just a smidge on the skateboard and felt perfectly balanced. “Now what?”

“Time to fall,” Bam laughed. “It’s going to happen, so you might as well accept it.”

Olivia nodded, not at all catching his drift. “Fair enough.”

Bam instructed her how to push off and which way to put her weight if she needed to turn, adding that he didn’t think she’d make it to a turn, but it was fine.

“You have little-to-no faith in me, you know that,” Olivia said, pushing off smoothly. “Hey, this isn’t so bad.”

Just as she was getting ready to turn on the sidewalk, Dave and Ehren let loose with two bags of marbles each on the sidewalk.

“We actually wanted to use way more marbles,” Dave said. “But we figured maybe since she was still a little bit new, we’d take it easy on her.”

“Oh shit!” Olivia yelped, seeing the marbles just when it was too late to bail before she hit them. She flew back off the skateboard and rolled onto the sidewalk, feeling as though she was hitting every possible joint in her body as she tumbled.

“Did you see her fly?” Bam laughed, approaching the girl to make sure she was okay.
“Really, Liv, you should be more careful.”

Dave and Ehren nearly couldn’t compose themselves. Olivia pushed herself off the ground and chased after them with fists flying, but they couldn’t run far before laughter overtook them again.

“Hey, we had to test your pain tolerance before you can do a stunt,” Ehren told her. “Wusses don’t perform.”

“Then what are you doing around here, Danger?” Olivia teased back.

“Hey, you know you’re bleeding,” Dave said pointing to her arm. “Ew, you’re dripping!”

“Damn,” Olivia let out under her breath. “But you know, I’d think with all the blood you guys see, you’d be used to it by now.”

“I can’t believe how high you flew!” Bam exclaimed, laughing again.

“Yeah I didn’t see that coming at all,” Olivia sighed, chewing on her fingernail. “Jackass, two. Olivia, zero.”

***

Sitting on the bed with her laptop, Olivia peeled off the bandage on her forearm and held it up to the webcam.

Julie made a face and shivered. “That’s pretty gnarly.”

“Yeah, it surprisingly wasn’t that painful,” Olivia assured her, placing the bandage back in place. “And from how much it was bleeding, you’d have thought it was way worse before it got cleaned up.”

“I’m glad you’re having fun out there. My vacation days are coming up -- do you think it would be too much of a distraction if I came out there?” Julie asked.

“I don’t think so. No more distraction than I’m getting now.”

“Things are still up in the air with Johnny, then?”

Olivia heaved a huge sigh. “I’m not really mad at him anymore. It’s not like he told Bam out of spite or anything, and Bam I don’t think will say anything to anyone else. He’s just catching me off-guard, especially when he said something about this being the only thing keeping me in his life.”

“See, I think I should come out there so I can judge this for myself, not just from what you tell me.”

A knock on the door interrupted the conversation, and Olivia called for the person to come in. Johnny appeared in the doorway and she motioned him over.

“C’mere, I want you to meet someone,” Olivia told him. He fell comfortably on the bed, laying on his side next to where she sat. “This is my cousin Julie. Jules, this is Johnny Knoxville.”
“Hi,” Julie said with a smile and wave.

“Nice to meet you,” Johnny nodded. “And thanks for letting us steal Olivia here.”

Julie chuckled. “Not a problem. I think she might actually be having a good time.”

“We were just discussing the possibility of Julie coming to LA on her vacation days,” Olivia informed him. “She’s anxious to see that I’m behaving myself, I think.”

“Yeah, come on out,” Johnny encouraged. “The more the merrier. You can even crash here.”
“I don’t want to ruin the slumber party,” Julie teased.

Olivia’s eyes grew, and Johnny wanted so badly to build on her embarrassment but still wasn’t sure where he stood with her. Instead he just laughed and shook his head.

“She’ll fit right in.” Johnny lifted himself from the bed. “I’ll let you two finish your conversation. Come find me when you’re done, would ya?”

“For sure,” Olivia agreed. She waited for him to shut the door behind him before going back to Julie. “I can’t wait for you to be here.”

“It’ll be a few weeks, but I’m excited, too.” Julie seemed to be choosing her next words before continuing. “And maybe you guys are still sort of in that argument, but it’s plain to see how stuck on each other you are. You completely relaxed when he was there.”

Olivia rolled his eyes. “Let’s not talk about it. Besides, after that meeting with Jeff, it’s not like I can do anything about anything. So what dates are you coming out here?”

The girls worked out all the details, and Julie even went ahead and bought her plane ticket. Olivia couldn't believe how excited she was to see her cousin.

"Yeah, I'm excited, too. Now go talk to your boy toy over there and text me later."

"Later, Jules." Olivia disconnected from the video chat and closed the laptop. Checking the mirror to make sure she looked presentable, she headed to find Johnny.

He was waiting near the pool, smoking a cigarette. Olivia bummed one from him and commented how nice the evening weather had turned out to be.

"It's not too bad," Johnny agreed. "So I guess you're going to stay."

Olivia nodded. "If that's still all right with you."

"Of course it is."

"I'm sorry I got so angry. Maybe I was just embarrassed that people would know I more or less threw myself at you. I worried what they might think."

"Everyone out here loves you. I don't think you would have had to worry about that. I get what you're saying though, and I really do apologize. Also, I wanted to tell you that I am going to back off with the flirting and stuff. It was wrong of me to keep after you when we agreed that we were just going to be friends."

She felt her heart fall a little but knew that he was right. They had to stop pretending like just because nothing physical had gone on between them, there wasn't anything more than friendship going on. Olivia nodded and took a long drag from the cigarette, but didn't say anything.

"That being said, I wanted you to hear from me that I have a date tomorrow night. She's a friend of a friend, so it's a blind date thing. Anyway, I just didn't want you to think I was hiding it or anything."

"Thanks for telling me," Olivia answered meekly. What else was she supposed to say? She had made it very clear that she wasn't going to let anything distract her from her work. That's what her life was always about, work.

"So we'll see you on set tomorrow?" Johnny asked, seeking her gaze.

Olivia made herself smile at him. "Yeah, I'll be there."

"Great. Night, Olivia."

She stayed in her chair and nodded a good night as he stooped to kiss her forehead and then went inside.

***

Olivia arrived back on set the next amidst a few cheers and a few playful boo's. She curtsied and bowed and returned the hug that Ehren offered.

"How's the arm?" he asked.

"Still scraped up, but it's whatever," Olivia smiled.

"So they got over their little lover's spat and Liv came back," Bam sighed, rolling his eyes. "Actually it's kind of great because Olivia is fun to have around. Maybe more fun than Knoxville, actually."

"Hey Liv, any secret talents we should know about? I mean like other than the ones maybe Knox knows about that we don't," Wee Man laughed.

Johnny covered his mouth to hide his laughter - it was funny, after all - but Olivia just smiled sweetly.

"First of all we can't joke about that anymore. Knoxville has a date tonight."

Everyone's eyes quickly went to Johnny and he shrugged. "Shit happens."

"At that point I lost a thousand dollars to Dave," Ehren sighed.

Dave, sitting next to Ehren, grinned. "You have to be a little bit of a softie, but you have to know when to spot two people who really like each other, and when a dude is just after a slut. Liv isn't a slut, so it was kind of like process of elimination."

"You really think they really like each other?" Ehren asked.

Dave rolled his eyes. "Where the fuck have you been?"

"Hello, I believe we were talking about me," Olivia spoke up, able to tell right away that she shouldn't have said anything about Johnny's date."I need a hula hoop."

Surprisingly enough, it only took a few minutes to track down a hula hoop. Olivia slipped it over her head and down to her hips. Taking a deep breath, she started spinning the hoop around her body.

“Big deal,” Wee Man scoffed. “Lots of people can do that.”

Olivia spotted an additional prop nearby and smiled to herself. Still spinning, she walked over and picked up the paintball gun. “Well, how many people do you know that can spin a hula hoop and shoot a paintball gun at the same time?”

Before any of them could process what she meant, all of the men were being pelted with paintballs. Olivia laughed over their screams and chased after them, still spinning the hula hoop around her hips. It went on for a couple of minutes before the paintballs ran out, and Olivia let the hoop fall down to her feet.

“Jackass two, Olivia one,” Olivia grinned. “I didn’t even have to plan it. I got them all good, too.”

“That was priceless,” Jeff assured her, laughing hysterically. “Well done, Liv.”

Olivia high-fived him and patted herself on the back. Really she wouldn’t have thought she could come up with something like that on the spot, but she was pretty proud of herself.

“You suck!” Dave exclaimed, pulling up his shirt to reveal bruises that were already forming on his abdomen and ribs. “Oh my gosh, you suck so bad.”

“I should have shot you with marbles,” Olivia replied.

The familiar cackling laugh that she had grown to recognize instantly sounded behind her and she turned quickly, cautious of any immediate retribution.

“Don’t worry,” Johnny assured her. “I’m too shocked that you pulled that off to have a comeback right away. But trust me, it’s coming.”

They shared a hug; when Olivia pulled away, Johnny still held onto her. She gave him a puzzled look, and the mischievous smile looking back down at her tipped her off.

“Oh, hell no!” she screamed, trying to get away. He held on tightly to her until Bam was able to come up behind her and dropped a whole cooler of ice and cans of beer over her head. Because of the heat of the day, the ice had mostly melted, so she was both soaked with ice cold water and hit with full cans of beer.

“I told you it was coming!” Johnny told her, pointing and laughing.

“I’ll just have to be quicker with my revenge next time, I guess,” Olivia said, trying to squeeze some of the water from her hair.

***

“All right guys, I have to skedaddle,” Johnny announced. “Got to get home and get ready for this fucking blind date. Olivia, you riding with me?”

“Yeah, I’ll be right there.” She hurried to gather her things and make sure that Nick was okay sticking around.

“I thought you were coming out with us tonight,” Dave protested.

“I am but I’m not going out like this,” Olivia said. Her clothes were sticky and she reeked of fish and beer. All in a day’s work, she thought to herself.

“Sweet, we’ll see you soon.”

Olivia high-fived Dave and Ehren on the way out, then jumped into the SUV. “Oh my gosh, we both smell like shit. Roll the windows down, man.”

Johnny laughed. “You sure you’re having fun?”

“Yes,” she answered confidently. “Watching some of the older movies, I would have thought that I would never be able to do some of this stuff, but I like it. Who would have thought workaholic Olivia Moore could take a risk.”

“And actually enjoy it,” Johnny added.

The rest of the ride was silent, but it was a comfortable silence. Back at the house, Olivia bounced out of the car and into the house, excited to go out and have yet another good time with her new friends.