Billionaires and Brilliance

Chapter Nine- Is Olivia Smart Or A Jerk? That's For You To Decide!

 Olivia came home to yet another potted plant in her room, this time some kind of green, bushy thing on her dresser. She sighed and looked it over. Ever since Ryan had been kicked out of NYU, she had been stressed and distracted. She had begun gardening, which turned out to be a great distraction for her, surprisingly. Olivia didn't think Ryan would have a green thumb, but soon her room was covered in pots and boxes and leaves.

Things only got worse when her girlfriend, Alex, dumped because of the whole blackmail situation. Soon, nearly the whole penthouse was covered in plants, and it was a big penthouse. Once Ryan ran out of room in her room and most of the other shared spaces, she started bringing 'gifts' to the other girls to liven up their room with the promise that she'd care for them so they didn't have to. No one wanted to tell Ryan that there were way too many plants in their room because it seemed to be the only thing keeping her mind off the expulsion and the breakup. Olivia didn't know how much more she could take, though. There were only so many places to put plants, and Ryan was not going to start putting them in her bed. 

The cleaning staff also did not like the new live additions. They already were changing two lion litter boxes, now they had to sweep and vacuum around an entire jungle. Tony had to give them a raise so they wouldn't quit. Tony didn't mind the plants very much, but then again, Ryan hadn't started putting them in his room yet. Once Ryan overran Olivia's room, she'd move to Cassidy's. Cassidy was already stressed about the inevitable forest that would be in her room. 

Ryan came in and saw Olivia inspecting the new addition to the garden. "It's Sprenger's asparagus. It's native to South Africa and it is also called foxtail fern, which is an acceptable name too. But it's not actually a fern, or even related to them."

Olivia nodded sympathetically and set the pot back down. "Ry, aren't you running out of pots? And plants? And seeds? And... whatever else you use to garden?"

"There's a new shipment coming in today."

"What's in it?"

"A lot of philodendra, various figs, ivies, a few ferns, like 20 small trees, about ten pots of bamboo, begonias... uh, flowers, too. About fifty of them." Ryan listed.

Olivia blinked. She didn't know what to say. By tonight, her whole room would be a greenhouse. "That's... great. Hey, can we talk about-"

"No. I'm fine." Ryan interrupted. She preened some leaves on one of the plants sitting on Olivia's chair. "I think I'm going to try aquaponics." She left without another word.

Olivia groaned. She didn't know what aquaponics was, but she was pretty sure she didn't want Ryan stuffing her room with it. She left her room and went to Jessica's which was... full of growth, you could say. Any empty drawers were bursting with flowers, vines completely covered her left wall, trees were on the sides of the bed except for a small gap to crawl through when you wanted to get in. Ferns and their huge leaves were draped over everything. It seemed that once Ryan ran out of floor space, she started mounting hanging plants from the ceiling.

Olivia gasped. "Oh my god, Jess."

Jessica's head poked out from between palm leaves. "Hi, Olivia."

"Why didn't you tell her that the room was full? That was the only way Anthia survived. Oh my god, there's so many plants." Horror crept through Olivia's body. She had no idea Jessica's room was this bad and feared for her own.

"It helps her de-stress. If she needs my room, that's fine with me, as long as she feels okay." Jessica said.

Olivia pushed a plant aside so she could sit down. "Okay, we need to call a family meeting. Except for Ryan."