You Looked Down on Me Once Now You Look Up (Patricia and Oliver) novel Chapter 793

“It’s raining so hard. Driving home now would be risky.” Maggie shot a look at Patricia. “What do you think, Pattie?”

Patricia knew exactly what Maggie was up to. She was clearly hoping Oliver would stay over. But the apartment was tiny. There wasn’t a spare room.

“There’s nowhere for him to sleep,” Patricia said, keeping her tone neutral.

Maggie frowned, thinking it over. “Yeah, that’s a problem.”

“Mr. McKee lives upstairs,” Patricia said, glancing at Oliver. Everyone could hear the suggestion in her voice. He could go crash there instead.

Oliver picked up on it right away. He wasn’t about to let this chance slip away, not when fate seemed to be on his side.

“Hector’s out of town for work.”

“But you have the code to his place, right?”

“I do, but he’s gone for the whole week. It’d be weird for me to just show up.”

If Hector were home, it’d be no big deal. But he was gone for days, and showing up uninvited would be pushing it.

Maggie watched the two of them, one obviously trying to push him out, the other finding every reason to stay. She let out a little sigh and decided to play peacemaker. “Well then, Oliver can stay here. He can take the couch.”

Patricia just stared for a moment.

“Okay,” Oliver said right away.

Maggie rummaged through a drawer and handed him a pair of Atticus’s pajamas. Marian quietly disappeared into the study to sleep on the little sofa, and Maggie headed to her own room. Clearly, neither of them planned to come out again tonight.

After cleaning up in the guest bathroom, Oliver sat on the sofa with his phone and sent Hector a message. “Starting today, if anyone asks, you’re on a business trip for a week.”

Hector replied almost instantly. “What???”

Oliver quickly summed up the situation.

…

In the bedroom, Patricia unlocked her phone and pulled up Chelsea’s chat. “Can you ask Hector if he’s on a business trip? Try to be subtle.”

Chelsea replied, “What happened?”

Patricia filled her in about Oliver staying over.

Chelsea shook her head, half-amused by the whole thing, and tapped open her chat with Hector. She sent a wave emoji, then followed up with a “Hey, are you around?” message.

Hector responded fast. “What’s up?”

“Want to go play basketball?”

Hector had just started typing out “Sure” when he paused. Wait a second. This had to be Patricia’s idea.