just dive in [reed bishop spin-off] ✔️

twenty-five

— t w e n t y - f i v e —

OLIVER STOOD OUTSIDE REED'S house, even more nervous than he had been outside Adam's house and wondering how his day had turned into a tour of their town surprising his friends with impromptu visits. Having a car certainly made a tour of town and impromptu visits a lot easier. Although that made it sound like he was a fun, spontaneous person. Oliver was anything but fun or spontaneous. This was more of an ambushing people who had been ignoring him until they agreed to stop ignoring him. It had worked pretty effectively for Adam. After the questionable resolution to their argument (which Oliver thought had raised more concerns than resolved them), they'd hung out for a bit playing video games until Adam had kicked him out to finish his work.

Oliver had never been more grateful to not be headboy when he saw all the numbers for venues and caterers he had to call for the year eleven party. He was pretty sure Adam hadn't even wanted to be headboy, in the same he probably didn't want to go to Cambridge. Just more expectations from his parents.

Oliver looked up at Reed's house for what had to be the millionth time. He was stalling and he was well aware of it. He had been round to Reed's house plenty of times when they were kids, but never since he had returned from London. Reed had never invited him. He would always come round to Oliver's house if they wanted to hang out and Oliver had never pushed him for reasons or explanations. Maybe he was more self-conscious about it now that they were older. Maybe Oliver still had to earn that trust and comfort back from when they were kids. Whatever the reason, it only made it worse that he was turning up without an invite after Reed had been ignoring him for so long.

Still stalling, Oliver reminded himself, and forced himself to walk up the path to the front door before he lost his nerve completely. He didn't let himself dwell on his wandering thoughts once once he reached the door and rung the doorbell immediately.

It was Elsie who answered the door. "Oliver, hey," she said, her smile wavering towards tired, although she made a valiant effort of it. "Are you looking for Reed?"

"Yeah. Is he..." Oliver bit his tongue on asking is he alright, because it didn't feel like a conversation he should be having with Reed's sister. Not when she had been dealing with as much as him these past few days. "Is he home?"

"No, sorry. He hasn't been home much since getting back from your holiday. I assumed he was with you," Elsie said, with an almost knowing and slightly confused look.

Oliver frowned. "I haven't seen him since coming back. I've barely spoken to him, actually."

"What?" Elsie looked very confused now. "That's strange. He'd been spending so much time with you recently, I thought that with everything that happened..." She rubbed her eyes, suddenly seeming exhausted. "God. I'm sorry, I'm not the best for company right now. Everything's a bit of a mess."

"I can imagine," Oliver said, with a sympathetic pang. "I'm sorry about your mum. And to drop in like this. I just wanted to make sure Reed is okay."

Elsie's mouth tugged down at the corners. "Honestly, I don't know. He's not really talking to me much, but I can tell he's taking it harder than usual. I think he blames himself for not having been here when it happened. Dad and I only really noticed she was getting worse just after Reed left, and we didn't want to say anything to worry him unless we had to. And then...well, it got worse," she said, with a small, weary smile. "Reed's usually the best at talking to mum when she's having a hard time, so he's annoyed at us for not telling him sooner. I just didn't want to ruin his holiday." Here she looked at Oliver with hopeful blue eyes so similar to Reed's it made his stomach twist. "I'd hoped he would at least be talking to you about it."