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yourmomxx · 11 months

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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐕𝐈𝐈: 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 (𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮)

warnings: none

word count: 3.1k

When Oliver asked out Gina Tuscadero, he was young, naïve, smitten, and maybe a little bit too glowing. Now, a week later, he did not feel any of these things, rather anxious and unsure than anything else.

To tell the truth, Oliver really liked Gina Tuscadero. She was from his ballet class, and she was good. So they shared interests. That had to get him points, right?

But the thing about Gina Tuscadero was that she was also a very strong-minded girl with very strong opinions – about herself as well as others. Which was, in no way, a turn-off for Oliver, considering he was raised by exactly a woman like that.

Rather, it's what made her hotter.

But also it was what made her feel more unreachable to Oliver the more he thought about going out with her.

He needed to land a good impression or otherwise, everything would be washed down the hill!

"You're making yourself too crazy with this, ese," Cooper had said, when Oliver had told him about his worries.

"Have you never gone out of your way to impress a girl you liked?" At Oliver's question, Cooper had just shrugged and shook his head. Oliver had decided then that Cooper Bradford would not be his delegate for anything regarding Gina.

"No." "You don't even know what I was going to-" "It's you. So no." Kendra didn't even look up from her textbook when she shut him down. Scoffing, Oliver leaned back in his chair.

Now he had only one option left.

"I like a girl," Oliver confessed.

"Congratulations!"

Spencer threw his hands in the air in excitement at Oliver's words. His bleached-white teeth shone brightly as a contrast to his tan skin. They were sitting on the porch behind his house, sunglasses on and faces turned to the sun, and Oliver had just blurted it out without any context.

Spencer leaned closer to him. "How old is she?"

Oliver looked at him with a frown. "Around my age," he answered slowly, "Maybe a few months older?"

Spencer weighed his head. "Ah. Don't worry, kid, you'll learn." He patted Oliver's knee and laid back in his chair again.

Pushing out a heavy sigh, Oliver shifted in his chair to turn his body to Spencer. He removed his sunglasses and fiddled with them in his hands.

"The thing is," he started, "I think I need your help."

That seemed to catch Spencer's attention. His head snapped around to Oliver, as fast as it could for a man his age without damaging anything.

"Really?" Spencer properly sat up now. "Well, spill it. Who is this girl, and what do you need good ole Spencer Blitz to teach you, son?"

So, Oliver told him. He told him her name – Gina Tuscadero – and about her dark brown hair that he would like to see silky fall down her back instead of put up in a ballet girl bun.

He told him about the time he'd showed Cooper a picture of her and how he'd said she looked a bit like Kendra, and how Oliver then refused to talk to him the rest of the night.

He told Spencer about the way she did her turns, how she seemed to float only the littlest bit above the ground when she danced, like something magical, unreachable, and beautiful.

He told him about her soft skin under Oliver's calloused fingertips, and peach-colored, velvet lips.

Oliver also told Spencer about that strange feeling that rose under his skin everytime he thought about the date he'd coming up with her, like nothing he could possibly do just quite reached his own expectations, and how should they meet Gina's, then?

How it was all too much to consider, and he was totally freaking out in a way he only used to when he looked up current inflations.

"Hm," Spencer hummed when Oliver finished.

"It seems to me, my boy, that you feel a bit ... insecure about this date with this girl."

"Insecure?" Oliver repeated. "You're wrong. I haven't been insecure for one day in my entire life. And I'm a teenager. I've been embarrassed, sure, maybe a bit humbled. But never insecure. I don't even know what that feels li- Oooh."

Yeah, that made sense.

He pinned Spencer with his eyes. "We will not tell anyone about this."

The old man lifted his hands. "Wouldn't think about it. But don't worry, Ollie boy, I know just the right thing to help you power through this feeling. You need a Blitzin' glowup!"

Oh, boy.

Turns out, the Blitzin' Glowup was exactly what it sounded like: Really freaking expensive, and really freaking over the top. But Oliver knew that Spencer had game, he'd seen it literally firsthand, so he had absolutely no reason to distrust him.

Right?

Nah, it's fine.

"You got a girl you wanna impress tonight?" Dimitri, the "tan artist", that Spencer had pulled out of his arm sleeve like a magician at a children's show, asked Oliver, while he set up something that looked like the love child of a tent and a portable toilet.

Oliver eyed the construction suspiciously. "Uh, yeah," he responded, "How'd you guess?"

Dimitri shrugged. "It's not every day that Spencer Blitz calls and orders a do-over for a thirteen year-old. So it was either that or he'd started child trafficking."

Oliver's eyebrows shot up to his hairline.

"I'm really glad it's the first one," Dimitri hushed. Oliver nodded, mouth still agape. "Me too."

Dimitri stepped back from the black tent-toilet, paused for a few second to check if it staid standing, and then, with a self-satisfied nod, turned to fire up the tanning gun.

"You know, Spencer is right," Dimitri said, fiddling with the gun. Oliver frowned again.

"In saying I should find myself an older woman I can nurture of until I have enough money to divorce her without making losses?"

"No, not that," Dimitri contradicted, "Never that. You would get very many women jailtime. No, what I meant was –" He twisted the nozzle, "- about money attracting women. I've only been working for him for a short time, but boy, I can tell you it has helped me climb up the food chain! Also, I don't need to shop for my clothes and my food at the same store anymore."

Oliver looked at him unconvinced. "Saying you work for an ex-criminal attracts women?"

"No, but withholding information and saying you work for someone with more money than bloodcells does!" Dimitri smiled and gestured towards the black construction.

"Now strip and let's go, we've got no time to waste!"

Oliver obeyed.

In hindsight, relying on a convicted criminal that had scored all of his dates by flashing a stack of dollar bills, had not been Oliver's best idea. In his defense, not his first, either, but well. Now he was just trying to defend himself.

And if the look that Gina had given him when he'd arrived at her house, in the back of a limousine, painted like a freshly oiled table hadn't been enough to prove that, then the awkward, ever more stretching silence between them surely did.

Oliver's heartrate hadn't calmed down the slightest bit since they'd entered through the doors, and he was forced to tug on his collar every other second, because he had a hard time getting air. Also, the material of the suit was itchy on his freshly edited skin.

Oliver threw a wobbly smile at Gina over the edge of his menu. "Maybe we should order?" He suggested.

Gina tightened her lips and closed her own folder. "Oliver, this entire night has been one weird disaster," she blurted out.

Oliver felt taken aback. "Which part?"

"All of it," Gina said. "The white stretch limo, this weird-ass restaurant, your spray tan?"

Oliver opened his mouth to defend himself.

"Look," Gina continued. "When you asked me out, I was actually kind of excited. But – all of this?" She gestured his body up and down.

Great.

She meant all of him.

With a sigh, Gina shook her head and grabbed her purse. "Look, I'm just gonna go home. I'll go to my parent's restaurant, I'm supposed to work there later, anyway."

Oliver stepped in front of her. "At least let the driver take you home," he argued. But Gina waved him off. "It's fine, Oliver. Good night."

She passed him, and left the restaurant through a dingling door. The scent of her perfume drifted around Oliver. And, for the first time that night, without all the thoughts of anxiety, and perfection, and insecurity clouding his mind, as Gina Tuscadero walked away from him, he let himself truly appreciate how beautiful she looked tonight, and how he did, in fact, like it when her hair fell over her shoulders.

Oliver sunk back into his chair.

The sound of the vintage, black Ford Mustang driving up reminded Oliver of his own personal death march. But when he'd held the phone in his hand a few minutes earlier and pressed the call button, he'd thought, what was one more bad decision tonight?

Heavy-limbed, he dragged himself to the door and slipped into the backseat. Kendra watched him from the side with a somewhat sympatric look in her eyes.

Oliver slumped into his car seat and watched the streets of Westport drift by outside, while Kendra leaned forward and gave the driver, Samuel, his address.

"Hope I didn't interrupt you doing anything," Oliver mumbled, gaze still focused out the window.

He noticed Kendra shrugging from his peripheral. "It's fine," She reassured him. "I was only rewatching the Lion King anyway."

She focused on him again. "Do you want to talk about it?" She asked softly.

Oliver took a deep breath.

"Sorry I called you so late at night," He told her. "I'm sure you would've expected your night to go differently."

Kendra tilted her head. "Like I said, I didn't. Still, what I'm wondering –" Oliver raised his head slightly to look at her. "- Why did you call me? Not – I don't know, Cooper. "

Oliver scoffed. "Cooper probably wouldn't have understood. And I didn't want to spend the entire time defending my choices to him." He hated to talk about his best friend like that, but he'd had a terrible night and really wasn't in the mood.

"And Spencer?" Kendra asked.

"No, Spencer helped me enough today."

"Is that the reason you look like a freshly grilled chicken?"

Oliver ground his teeth. Kendra raised her hands in defense.

"Alright, alright, I'm sorry. Bad timing."

Oliver agreed silently. They were both quiet again.

"Look, if this is about that girl-"

"I don't want to talk about it! Yes, I had a date, yes it went terrible, and I don't want anyone else to know about it, okay?"

"Look, maybe I can help yo-"

"No." And more quiet, he added, "I messed up everything today already."

Kendra sighed deeply, and mimicked his movements by looking out her own side of the window.

The drive to his house took forever and yet wasn't long enough. Samuel parked the car with a slight jerk right in front of the Otto's gateway.

Oliver cleared his throat. He paused when he reached for the door handle, and half turned to Kendra one last time. "Thanks again," He said. Kendra nodded, that strange look of sympathy still lingering on her face.

"No problem."

Oliver got out of the car, waved Samuel a curt Goodbye and made his way to his house.

"Out of the way. Mom, I need to use your makeup remover." Oliver pushed past his parents into the bathroom, starting to excessively scrub his skin.

His parents exchanged a glance.

"Oliver, honey," Katie started. "How was the date?"

Oliver scoffed and threw them a look through the mirror. "Amazing. That's why I'm home after an hour and look like Donald Trump at a press conference!"

His dad's eyebrows shot up. "What happened?"

Oliver sighed. "I screwed up. I overdid it and now she wants nothing to do with me." Katie looked at the makeup wipe in her hand, unconvinced. "This isn't gonna cut it." She said to Greg.

Oliver turned away.

"Look buddy, there has to be something you can do?" Oliver shook his head.

"No, there isn't. I ruined it."

Katie hummed. "Hm. Maybe not." She turned to a husband with a mischievous grin on her lips. "I think Gina needs a big, romantic gesture. If only we knew an expert in those."

Greg's face lit up when he understood. And then, a switch was flipped.

"Alright, Oliver, what do you know about this girl?"

Oliver shrugged, doing his best to hold still as his Mom worked on his face. "I just know that she likes the movie 'Tangled'. We didn't really talk more than that."

"Tangled," Greg mumbled to himself. "I can work with that. Katie, you stay here."

With that, he left the bathroom.

Katie let out a heavy sigh and looked at Oliver's face.

"Better get ready. We're gonna have to use a lot more of this if we want you to look like Edward Cullen again."

Oliver rolled his eyes, but braced himself nevertheless.

After all, it only took them a whole of seventeen minutes to completely remove his fake tan from his skin – the visible parts, at least. He just had to power through the rest, his Mom told him.

Oliver had paired the name Dimitri with multiple colorful curse words at least twenty-one times in those seventeen minutes.

He was eyeing himself in the mirror.

"Don't worry, the redness goes away after a while," Katie assured him, peeking over his shoulder, with a look at his cheeks.

"I think I'll bruise," Oliver whined. Katie smacked her lips. "Don't be dramatic. Now go, put on something that doesn't scream 'money-obsessed jerk' and come downstairs."

Oliver listened without further complaint. He kept cursing out Dimitri in his mind, though.

Oliver came down the stairs in clothes that let him freely move for the first time in hours, and didn't have a suffocating collar that reached up to his chin.

His mom was already waiting for him at the door as he went to grab his jacket.

"Hello, handsome!" Katie scanned him up and down.

"Come on, now! The others are already in the car."

"The others?" Oliver asked, confused.

"Yep," Katie said, "Helping you is a family matter."

Oliver pursed his lips and followed her through the door outside. At the sight of them, Greg made his way over with a huge smile on his face.

"I have just the right thing," He cheered, and held up a bag of thin fabric. Oliver raised his eyebrows.

"You know the scene in 'Tangled' when they're on the boat?" No response.

"They sing?"

For Oliver, it clicked. "Ooh, right!" He said. "So that means, that is ..."

Greg nodded excitedly. "Lanterns. Just like in the movie!" He pointed to the car. "And I have a lot more!"

Katie gaped at her husband. "Where did you find so many of these lanterns so fast, Greg?" She asked, slowly.

The corners of Greg's mouth tilted upward. "I had someone who was more than willing to help."

A figure stepped up next to him. "Hey," Kendra said.

Oliver had to keep his mouth from falling open. Kendra Nolan was standing on his lawn, hands sheepishly tucked into the pockets of her vintage jacket, and a bashful smile on her face. His parents left them alone.

"Wow," Oliver remarked. "Driving me home and helping me win over the girl I like? You're riding a wave of compassion today, aren't you?"

Kendra rolled her eyes playfully. "You just looked ... so sad, when we were in the car. And I mean, what else could I do, than provide-" She looked around, "- two dozen lanterns for your Dad when he asked for them?"

Oliver chuckled softly. Kendra added, "Also, I powered through the sneaker-crisis, I do not need another phase of whiney Oliver."

Oliver shook his head. "Aren't you just the sweetest?"

She tilted her head and smiled innocently at him. "Right?"

"Oliver, let's go!" Anna-Kat screeched at him from the car. "This is about your girlfriend, not mine!"

"You have someone to drive you home, right?"

Kendra rolled her eyes at his concern. "Yes, don't worry about it!" She spoke.

"Now go and get laid!" Oliver gave her a look. "I have no idea what it means either, but I think it's something encouraging. Oliver, just go!"

And he did. He went.

They parked the minivan a bit away from the pizzeria and jumped out. Trip kneeled down to help Anna-Kat open the plastic package of one of the lanterns, and Taylor and Greg went searching for some sort of power outlet.

"I think we're ready," Katie told him. Oliver nodded and took a deep breath. Then, with heavy steps, he walked up to the Restaurant.

'Tuscadero's Pizza' was written in huge letters over the entrance.

A sick feeling plunged into his stomach. Was it just the nervousness? Or something else? Maybe he shouldn't do this. Maybe this was all a terrible idea, and it would end up totally embarrassing, and-

"Oliver?"

Aah, too late.

Oliver flinched and halted in his steps at the voice calling out his name. Gina Tuscadero stood in front of him, hair done up in a ponytail, wearing a red-white checkered apron and holding a notepad in her hand.

Oliver felt everything in his body freeze. It was now or never.

"Listen," he started, words coming out stronger than he felt right now, "I wanted to apologize. For everything that happened tonight."

Gina dipped her head. "Alright. I've gotta get back to work." She was about to close the door on him, when Oliver held out his hand.

"Wait! I have something I want to show you."

Slowly, like a deer stalking through high grass, Gina stepped out of the door to her family's pizzeria and settled herself next to Oliver on the sidewalk.

She looked at him expectantly.

Just in that moment, Oliver gave his parents, who had hidden behind their obnoxiously huge minivan, a thumbs-up. His Dad beamed at him and ducked behind the car again.

Breaking the silence, All About You by McFly started playing from a crusty old radio placed on the asphalt.

Oliver watched Gina closely, as Greg lit the first candle and one lantern after another started rising into the air.

Gina let out a soft gasp. "Oh my God," she breathed out. "It's like my favorite scene from 'Tangled'!"

Oliver knew that. Of course he did.

The song kept playing and more lanterns appeared from behind the car. Oliver caught his Dad's gaze. 'Thank you' he mouthed in his direction.

Greg smiled solemnly at his son.

Gina turned to look at Oliver, one half of her face illuminated by the warm gleam of the floating lanterns.

"You did this for me?" She whispered.

Oliver shrugged it off with a sheepish smile. "Thought you might like it."

The lanterns rose higher in the sky, their candles unavoidable spots of light in the dark of the night. And while passers took pictures and tapped their next one on the shoulder to share their spectacle, the only thing that Oliver could look was is the brunette girl in front of him, the lanterns reflecting like bright stars in her eyes.

Oliver sent Kendra simply one text when he got home that night.

thank you for everything tonight. I really appreciate it

She texted back not even five minutes later.

anytime.

And Oliver was sure that she meant it.

You get ready, you get all dressed up To go nowhere in particular Back to work or the coffee shop Doesn't matter 'cause it's enough To be young and in love

-Love, Lana Del Rey

tagged: @ficsnships @amorhedera7

#cooliver #cooper bradford x oliver otto #american housewife #gina tuscadero #Spotify

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