Kiss Me Like You Mean It

My old roommate from college was a petite girl named Tawny with a short bob that looked like she might’ve overdosed on Manic Panic Vampire Red hair dye. She was really sweet and had even tried to maintain a friendship with me after I’d dropped out of Kingsborough and moved across the city with no explanation, but being that I hadn’t seen her for six months, I was pretty caught off guard when she came trotting through the front door of Sam Goody with her brown eyes wide and maroon-colored lips pouting almost angrily.

“Violet Halloway,” she called, charging up to me. Even despite my bewilderment, I was pretty sure I knew what her unexpected drop-in was about. She’d texted me twice since Oliver had decided to clutter his Instagram with pictures of me. The first message had said, Violet, I saw you on Instagram! and the other was simply, I seriously need to talk to you.

“Hey, Tawny,” I greeted dryly.

“When in the world did you become friends with Oliver Sykes?” she practically screamed.

I pressed my lips together into a thin line. “He came in here a few days ago looking for some new bands to check out.”

She lowered her eyes at me and put her hands on her hips. “And then he just happened to take you to see Skrillex and Diplo last night?”

Pretty much. Tawny really was a sweet girl, but I’d already gotten past my freak-out over Oliver’s career. He’d been patient with my meltdown, but I wasn’t a very patient person, so I doubted I would return the favor to Tawny. Plus, he was probably used to those types of reactions from people—I wasn’t.

“You know he’s married, right?” she said, as if it made a difference to anything—as if him and I seeing Skrillex and Diplo was something more than it was.

“He’s separated,” I corrected; “and we’re...friends, or something.” I didn’t think we’d known each other long enough to be friends, per se, but he didn’t annoy me, so that was a step up from the rest of the world.

“Or something?”

“Well I don’t hate him,” I offered.

“You hate everyone.”

I rolled my eyes. “I don’t hate everyone.” In all fairness, I didn’t hate her. She just irritated me.

She lowered her own eyes at me. “I lived with you for two years, Violet. The only person you didn’t hate was Shawn.”

I cringed at the mention of my ex-boyfriend’s name. I hadn’t hated him for the time we’d been dating, but after the fact was a whole different story.

“Well Oliver likes my music,” I replied. Shawn was into more rap and hip hop, and he’d always mocked my taste in alternative bands.

Tawny put her hands back on her hips. “So you guys are friends, then?”

I shrugged. “I guess.”

“So why are you all over his Instagram all of a sudden?” I was beginning to want to smack her.

I sighed in exasperation as I shuffled the stack of Eminem CD’s I’d been reorganizing. “I don’t know, Tawny. We have fun hanging out, so I guess he wanted to commemorate the times. Can we drop it now?”

“You have fun hanging out with him?” She contorted her face as if the sound of such an event disgusted her.

I just narrowed my eyes at her. “What’re you trying to say?” It was her favorite singer.

“It’s weird—and not that he’s famous and you’re friends with him, but the fact that you enjoy being friends with him.”

“People change,” I mumbled as I walked back to the cashwrap. “Maybe I’ve changed.” I hadn’t, but she didn’t need to know that.

“Oh okay, so you might actually want to go to a party Friday night, then?” She peered at me as if she already knew the answer.

I hated parties, but I’d already made my bed. “Sure. Just text me the address and time.”


I sat across from Oliver at the Starbucks on West 21st Street. He was peering at me quizzically, being that the only thing I’d said to him in the past five minutes was, I have a dilemma, and hadn’t elaborated on it.

“Well go on,” he finally pressed.

I took a deep breath and swallowed a sip of my hot chocolate. “My old roommate came into Sam Goody today.”

“The one that likes my band?” He smirked at me, as if he knew that Tawny had come in to harass me about his Instagram.

I nodded. “She invited me to a party Friday night.”

“And she wants me to come?” I would’ve been irritated had I been in his position, but it seemed more like he’d been expecting it.

“Not exactly.”

He furrowed his eyebrows at me in confusion.

“I mean, I’m sure she does, but...I want you to come.”

That seemed to baffle him further. “Why is that a dilemma?”

I pursed my lips. “I suppose that’s not the dilemma. I just hate parties, and I have nobody else that I could take.”

He smirked. “Am I the only person you talk to, Violet?”

I groaned and rolled my eyes like a child, but the truth was embarrassing. “Of course you’re the only person I talk to! Why else would I be able to hang out with you every night on your every whim?”

His smirk turned into a full blown grin. “So what happened that made you hate humanity, then? I at least have an excuse for having no one else—I don’t live here.”

“Yeah, but you’ve been here for the past month and only made me as your friend. That’s sad on your part.” I was a terrible friend.

He laughed at that. “I quite think you’re a proper mate.” My face involuntarily scrunched up at the word, so he quickly corrected himself. “Er, I mean friend.”

I couldn’t help but smile at his compliment, though. I’d never had someone tell me I was a good friend before—which was how I’d interpreted his slang to be saying—but in everyone else’s defense, I wasn’t a very good friend anyway. For whatever reason, I was particularly better to Oliver than I’d been to anyone else.

“So how mental is your roommate gonna go when we walk in together?” He seemed to find the whole idea comical, but upon thinking of how it was actually going to pan out, I was almost willing to swallow my pride and just decline Tawny’s invitation.

“I don’t know, but she thinks you’re special,” I grumbled, burying my face in my hands out of exasperation.

He smirked at that. “I suppose it’ll be ace, then.”


Friday rolled around much sooner than I’d wanted it to, but the time had gone by much faster since I’d spent everyday at Oliver’s side. It was weird to have a friend that didn’t irritate me at all, let alone spend so much time with him. I didn’t even see Shawn everyday, but I couldn’t deny that Oliver’s pretty face was a nice difference from the four coffee-colored walls of my tiny loft.

We pulled up to the Hilton Hotel on West 42nd Street in his Porsche around eight o’clock, where the party that belonged to Tawny’s friend was being held up in the penthouse. I was surprised at how few people were outside, but once we’d arrived at the top floor, the lack of bodies downstairs was made up for at least a million times. I almost couldn’t believe how many people were cramped into the large area—it was astounding, really.

Upon stepping out of the elevator, the first reaction we got was a girl with bright pink hair that dropped her drink and her jaw. He smiled at her uncomfortably and raised his hand in a greeting, the tattoo on his palm screaming, High five!

“You—you’re Oli Sykes,” she stammered, hurriedly scrambling to grab her spilled Solo cup.

“I am,” he replied; “and this is my friend, Violet.” He placed his hand on the small of my back to push me forward a little.

I awkwardly waved to her.

We skirted past her after a long moment of the world’s worst silence and stepped into the lounging area, where numerous large bottles of liquor were scattered around the kitchenette, as well as empty boxes of beer strewn across the floor. I studied the different kinds of liquor that were all about before finally groaning in exasperation. Drinking probably wasn’t even a good idea anyway.

I turned around to get out of the kitchen area but rammed right into Oliver.

He placed his hands on my shoulders and smirked at me. “Are you having anxiety?”

“Shut up,” I muttered. “I don’t like people. This was a stupid idea.”

“No, no, no.” He shook his head and spun me around while keeping one arm around my shoulders. He pulled me to the corner of the kitchentte before taking his arm back to himself and pulled two red Solo cups from a stack that had been haphazardly wiped out. Without another word, he grabbed a bottle of Cîroc, José Cuervo, and Captain Morgan, followed by a twenty-ounce Hawaiian punch, and made a concoction in each cup silently, handing me one with a smile on his lips.

I hesitantly took a small sip before deciding I didn’t entirely hate it. In fact, it was actually pretty tasty.

I eyed him curiously as I took another larger sip. “Are you just trying to get me drunk so we can sleep together?”

He chuckled and sipped from his own cup. “I’d just ask, love.”

If he’d asked, I’d probably say yes, so that was fair enough. Getting me entirely intoxicated was an unnecessary step.

Tawny suddenly peeped up from behind him with a large grin on her face. “You’re Oli Sykes,” she chirped.

He almost spilled his drunk from the way she’d startled him. All I could do was smack my palm against my forehead and swallow a large gulp of my drink in order to not yell at her for embarrassing me. He probably thought I hung out with a bunch of crazy people.

He smiled at her after regaining his composure. “Hello. Yes, I’m Oliver.” He held his hand out to me. “This is Violet.”

I knew he was trying to share some of the attention with me, but I was perfectly fine with him taking it all, so all I did was mumble, “Tawny’s my old roommate.”

“I’m Tawny.” She held her hand out to him, completely ignoring me.

He respectfully obliged, shaking it, and smiled back at her. “You were roommates with Violet?”

She nodded and grabbed a Heineken bottle from the fridge. “We lived together for two years. What’re you doing here in New York City?”

The smile on his face faltered, but he quickly plastered it back on. “Just taking some time off. Anything crazy I should know about Violet?”

I glowered at him, but he merely grinned back.

Tawny pursed her lips. There was plenty to share with him, but I was hoping she wouldn’t do it.

“She doesn’t like TV, so I probably wouldn’t watch it in front of her,” she offered cheerily. “It just gets awkward because she sits there, just glaring at it the whole time.” They both exchanged laughs at this, but I didn’t find it that funny.

At the very least, though, I was grateful that my dislike for television was the worst thing she’d shared.

“That’s good to know,” he mused, swallowing more of his drink with a smirk; and with that, I took down more of my own because I had a feeling it was going to be a long night.


By the time midnight rolled around, I was drunk enough to be dizzy and depressed. Oliver had gone off sometime before with Tawny and her friend that had the pink hair, and I couldn’t deny that I felt utterly alone as I nursed a cup of rum and Coke and smoked a cigarette by myself out on the balcony. I hadn’t known Oliver for very long, but I’d gotten used to his company. He kept me distracted from my dissatisfaction in life—twenty-two years old, single and bitter, managing an out-of-date CD store, and miserable at best.

I groaned as I finished off the last bit of my rum and Coke and tossed the cup over the railing of the balcony. How had I ever gotten here?

The glass door of the penthouse slid open and quickly closed, and I peered over just in time for Oliver to sit down next to me.

“All right?” He gave me a small smile, and from the look in his eyes, I could tell he was much more sober than me.

“Sure,” I practically scoffed. I was pretty sure I’d been on the verge of tears, so I actually wanted to ask, Does it look like I’m alright? but I bit my tongue.

“I mean how are you.”

I sighed, almost rolling my eyes at how it felt like he was speaking a different language half the time. “I’m fine.”

He pursed his lips before lighting a cigarette of his own in silence.

“Tawny tells me there was a bloke in your life,” he began as he exhaled. “You never told me about him.”

“Because I didn’t want to,” I answered honestly, the bitterness in my tone more evident than I’d wanted to let on.

“Why not?” He sounded almost hurt.

“Because your life is so put together. Yeah, you’ve been hurt, and your bitch of a wife is breaking your naïve, little heart—but you have stuff that makes up for it. You have money; you have fame; you have good looks; you have a career that you love. You don’t wanna hear about my life, Oliver. I got my heart broken, and I have nothing but bittersweet memories.”

He was quiet for a long time before he laced an arm around my shoulders and replied. “You actually are quite fit, Violet; and you have a lot to offer. You’re a sweet bird, and you’re proper fun—plus you’re quite intelligent, so you do have things to make up for it.”

I huddled into his side and inhaled a deep breath of his scent. He smelled of Abercrombie & Fitch’s Fierce, and while the scent was usually overbearing in Abercrombie stores by itself, I was rather fond of it on him.

“We’re friends, love,” he went on. “I know we haven’t known each other long, but I feel like we get on well. We’ve talked about this before—I need a true friend, and that means I want to know all about you, as well as you know about me.”

“You had a ketamine problem, Oliver. I had a heroin problem. It fucked up everything.” Oliver and I were actually in the exact same boat, except I hadn’t relapsed. Shawn had just gotten tired of my “busy life.”

Oliver gently squeezed me further into his side. “Well your experience explains why you’ve taken such a liking to me.” I glanced up at his face to see him smirking.

“Shawn didn’t leave because I relapsed—he used with me. He left because I got clean, and he said that I no longer had room for him in my life.” At that, Oliver’s face grew very solemn.

“That sounds like an excuse, yeah?” He peered down at me and studied my face.

I just shrugged. “It was, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.”

“Do you ever think you want him back?”

“Of course,” I muttered. “I loved him. Those feelings don’t just go away.”

He nodded in understanding. “How is he doing now? Is he clean?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Tawny will text me sometimes saying he’s asked about me, but I never respond to her.”

“I think he’ll come back, at least if he has any sense.” He offered me a tight-lipped smile when I peered at him quizzically.

Just as I was about to respond, his phone started vibrating in his pocket. He quickly pulled it out and went to silence it completely, but the picture on his home screen was enough to even break my heart. The notification was from Instagram, saying, @hannahpixiesykez uploaded a new photo! and right below it was a picture of a dark-haired girl lip-locking with an olive-toned guy that had a thick, black beard around his jaw.

“Well that sucks,” I tried mumbling lightheartedly after Oliver just stayed frozen in place.

“Yeah,” he murmured back.

I couldn’t help but study his face, and his eyes were welling up like he was about to cry. I’d never seen such angst before, not even in myself—and I wasn’t a fan of it, especially not on him. He was way too beautiful to be wearing such an ugly expression.

“Um—” He cleared his throat before shoving his phone back into the front pocket of his dark, blue jeans. “It’s his loss, love.” He offered me the worst, most forced smile I’d ever seen in my life.

I just grimaced back at him. “Well it’s her loss, too.”

He nodded but said nothing.

“She obviously doesn’t know what she’s missing out on,” I added, trying to cheer him up. I suddenly didn’t care so much about my own misery anymore.

Maybe that made me a better friend than I thought I could be.

“Sure, right.”

He didn’t seem to be buying it, though, so I started rambling. “As soon as you start dating someone else, she’s gonna come crawling back—I guarantee it. She’d be stupid not to; and you’re not stupid, so I can’t imagine you marrying someone stupid, so she can’t be stupid.”

He was absolutely motionless, not even blinking.

“Just start dating someone else, I promise it’ll work. Start dating me if you have to!” I exclaimed the last part without thinking, but I was just so desperate to get him to respond in some way. I’d never seen someone so still before, someone so stunned. It was weird. I couldn’t even tell if he was still breathing or not.

At my last sentence, though, his head snapped in my direction. “What?”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” I quickly corrected. “I just meant that—well actually, I don’t really know what I meant, but I didn’t mean it like that.”

“You mean start dating someone now?”

“Well, yeah. She’ll see it all over your Instagram—but you can’t post anything up like now now because that makes it obvious. You’d have to wait a few weeks for it to be believable.”

“I can’t ask any of the birds I already know, though,” he argued. “It’d be odd. They all work for me, and the ones that don’t, I only know because they’re with my mates.”

“Ask someone here,” I suggested. “There are plenty of girls that would die for the opportunity to go out with you.”

“I don’t want to share my plight with someone I don’t know,” he mumbled, sounding discouraged. “I don’t know what to do, Violet. What would you do?”

“I’d ask one of my friends to pretend to date me, in all honesty; but I’m pretty drunk, so I’m probably not in the right state of mind to give any advice worth while.” It sounded like a good idea to me, but I just wanted to give a disclaimer in case my suggestion happened to sound terrible to him.

“You’d ask someone to pretend to date you?”

“Well, sure.” I shrugged again. “I wouldn’t wanna ask someone out and risk him actually liking me. I’d make sure he knew the deal right off the bat.”

He pursed his lips. “So you would be honest with whoever you’d ask—explain that you’re just trying to make your ex jealous?”

I nodded.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Violet?” He grinned at me suddenly, like his entire world had changed for the better.

“Probably not,” I mumbled. I was thinking about how badly I had to pee and how warm the parts of my torso were that his arm was in contact with. I was also thinking about how beautiful his chiseled face was.

“Violet, it’s perfect!” he exclaimed. “You and I can pretend to date. My wife doesn’t know you, and she’d be absolutely green-eyed because—let’s face it—you’re proper fit; and Shawn would hear about you seeing me, too, and he would just have to go mental.”

I shook my head to try and get rid of some of the confusion in my brain because I was sure I hadn’t heard him right. “You’re saying you wanna pretend to date me to make your wife jealous?”

He nodded excitedly, and the grin on his face was almost enough to distract me from how absurd the idea was. It hadn’t sounded so crazy when I’d suggested it at first because I was expecting him to just ask me for some introductions to new girls, but once I became the person he was looking at to help fix everything, it sounded a lot dumber. Even in my drunken state, it still sounded terrible with me playing the part—and just about everything sounded good to me when I was drunk.

“She’d never be jealous of me,” I argued.

I would never tell him, but I’d secretly Googled his wife—a twenty-two-year-old tattoo artist originally from London—and she was gorgeous. She and I had the same body frame—thin and standing at just past his shoulders—and even though I clearly had a bigger bra size than her, there was no doubt in my mind that she had a better face.

Oliver’s wife had these thick, pouty lips, a perfectly sculpted nose that was perfectly proportioned to her square face, and these beautiful, brown doe eyes. Meanwhile, I had a nose way too small for my own heart-shaped face; my eyes were so big that they looked half alien; and while my own lips were also thick, they were almost too big, and they didn’t hide my even bigger teeth very well when I laughed or smiled.

She and I were both pale in complexion, but she kept her black hair straightened at shoulder-length with a full fringe across her forehead, and I kept my own reddish brown locks trimmed to dangle just past my chest. The ebony color on her looked much better than the dark auburn on me. Plus, she was British, and that was kind of a deal-breaker—along with the fact that, like Oliver, she was covered in tattoos, and I had absolutely none.

Being British was so much more exotic than being American, and it meant that she had a much better wardrobe than me. While all her pictures showed her in stylishly oversized sweaters and chiffon tank tops, it was a fancy day for me if my jeans didn’t have rips in the knees.

Plain and simple: there was no way in hell that Hannah Snowdon-Sykes would ever be jealous of me, Violet Halloway. She even had a better name than me.

Oliver shook his head vehemently at that. “You’re perfect, Violet. She’d be mental over me dating you. You’re rate fit, love. You’re everything she’d never want me to have.” He seemed desperate to make me believe him, but with every word he spoke, I just became more convinced that he was drunker than I’d originally thought and was simply better at hiding it.

I placed the back of my knuckles against his forehead as if to check for a fever. “Are you feeling alright?”

He swatted my hand away and frowned. “Why not, Violet? Do you not wanna do it?”

“It’s not that,” I answered honestly. “I just don’t think it’s gonna work. Hannah’s gorgeous, Oliver, and she’s successful. She has her own tattoo shop in fucking England—and what do I do? I manage a defunct CD store in New York City that nobody cares about anymore since iPhones and Spotify took over the world.” I was pathetic, really.

His frown deepened into a grimace. “She only opened that shop because I paid for it; and people still care about CD’s. I care about CD’s. You don’t give yourself enough credit, Violet.” He cupped my jaw in his one hand and turned my face so that he could look straight into my eyes. “You’re beautiful.” I felt my body go cold at his gaze because he really was breathtaking.

Before then, I’d thought his eyes were just brown, but upon staring into them under the nighttime city lights, I realized there was so much more to them. The edges of his irises were a dark brown; different shades of gold and flakes of light greens pooled around the insides; and a rim of bright yellow wrapped around his pupils. I felt like he was swallowing me, like he was taking the breath from my lungs; and I realized that I couldn’t say no to him, even if I’d wanted to.

“Well we can’t post any pictures as a couple for at least two weeks or else it’ll be obvious,” I finally mumbled; and with that, his face lit up like the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center.