Olivia’s car appeared at the end of the drive. Spencer watched its progression, his blue eyes intent on the forthcoming interaction. Strange to see her friend twisted up over Olivia. When Chase had engaged in her matchmaking, she’d expected a little flirting, but those two had jumped into that puddle with both feet, not even thinking about how they’d get muddy. And now Conrad had arrived with fists full of mud.

Politics and Square One made strange bedfellows, it seemed.

“I’m going inside to start gathering my things,” she said, rising as Olivia parked behind a red sports car she assumed to be Conrad’s and killed the engine. Conrad said he’d left the script on her bed, and she wanted some time to read through it, getting a feel for the part she’d be reading for. Plus, she had a load of delicates in the dryer that needed folding. Yep, still adulting.

Later that evening, Chase opened the door to Olivia’s room and set Marley’s sketchbook on the neatly made bed. She’d been packing her things and had rediscovered the art tablet under her completed recovery workbooks. She’d intended to give it to Olivia a week ago when she’d found it but had forgotten about it when Zeke had arrived that night to make s’mores.

Zeke had distracted her that day just as he distracted her now.

She clutched her chest as if she could stop the pain and looked around at the room, noting Olivia’s toiletries set out with serial killer precision. The room was bare of anything personal, sort of like the way Chase had kept her own room back in rehab, as if she refused to be claimed by a place. Olivia was the queen of erecting barriers, it seemed.

Earlier as they’d prepared supper for the odd assembly under the roof—an Oscar-nominated director, a washed-up actress, the Hammer, a therapist, and an out-of-work hair stylist—she’d felt like Olivia teetered on the same cliff on which she herself was standing. Olivia had been forced in her conversation, mostly quiet as she listened to Neve’s rambling and Conrad’s tales designed to regale them with his privileged explorations of the world that seemed to lie at his feet. Spencer had been oddly quiet, his gaze weighing and measuring Olivia as she fake smiled through the overfamiliar touches of the handsome director. One could cut the tension with a hacksaw. Screw that. More like a chain saw.

“What are you doing?” Olivia asked from the doorway, looking perturbed that Chase had invaded her personal space.

Chase tapped the sketchbook. “I found this over a week ago when I was putting sheets on the bunk beds. It was hidden in the liner of the mattress, oddly enough. I meant to give it to you earlier, but it got buried under some of my stuff and I forgot.”