just dive in [reed bishop spin-off] ✔️

eight

— e i g h t —

OLIVER WAS SUPPOSED to have been at Juniper's half an hour ago but Lexie was clinging to his leg and he couldn't peel her off for long enough to get out of the front door.

"Please, Oli!" she wailed, planting herself firmly down on his shoe so he'd have to quite literally shake her off if he wanted to be freed. His little sister felt as pesky and inconvenient as a fly, especially right now, but he had to draw the line at shaking her off like one. He didn't think his parents would be pleased. "Please let me come! Pleaaaaaaase!"

"No," Oliver said firmly, for what had to be the millionth time. "I've already told you, Lexie, no."

Lexie only clung to him tighter. "Pretty please, with a cherry on top, and lots of icing, and sprinkles – "

Oliver gritted his teeth and picked her up in one swift motion, considering she was about as heavy as a bag of feathers. Lexie smiled, thinking this was concession, but Oliver just wanted her to see his face properly so she would know he wasn't about to budge. "I'm meeting my friends," Oliver told her. "All my friends who are bigger and older than you. They don't want you there."

A little twist of the truth, considering it was Oliver who didn't want his annoying sister getting in the way, but he was sure they'd all be in agreement that a six-year-old the last thing anyone wanted to deal with.

Lexie pulled a face at him. "But I want to be there."

"Well, tough. If you go play with your dolls, I promise I'll bring you a cupcake back. Just like the one you had last time."

Lexie looked conflicted between continuing to kick up a fuss and getting a cupcake (Oliver had tried to explain a few more times that it had been a muffin before giving up and letting his sister have her way, as usual) for listening to him, before settling on the former. She squirmed and squealed and Oliver knew the waterworks were coming soon, not that he'd be swayed by that. He might have sounded heartless but Lexie used her tears to get anything she wanted and he'd grown immune to their effect when he saw them pretty much every day. He set her back down and pulled his jacket on, ignoring her when she dove forward to hug his legs again with loud wailing. Lexie was too old to be throwing tantrums like this, in his opinion, but it didn't matter if he let her scream them out. His parents were still too soft and coddling on her.

Right on cue, his mum appeared at the top of the stairs to investigate what all the racket was about. "What on earth is going on here?"

"Oli won't let me play with him and his friends!" Lexie exclaimed.

His mum frowned at him. "Oliver?"

"Seriously, mum? I'm not taking her with me when I'm going to hang out with my friends," Oliver sighed, plucking Lexie off him once again and setting her off to one side. He pressed his index finger against her forehead in a surprisingly effective technique to keep her from barrelling right back at him and found some entertainment in watching her struggle to get around it. "That's just weird and I'm not on babysitting duty, anyway. She has no reason to come."

"Nonsense. Reed always loved Lexie."

"Yeah, when she was a baby who couldn't speak," Oliver said. "Not when she's dipping her sticky fingers in his drink."

"My fingers are not sticky," Lexie retorted, with a surprising amount of indignation for such a small body. "They are perfectly clean and washed." She stretched her arms up, as if to shove them in his face, as if she even cleared his waist in height. "See?"