by L. L. Ash
It was then that I realized just what I’d done.
For the first time ever, Ivy had moved on.
Ivy was happy with someone else.
Oh shit…
Ivy was happy without me.
But without her, I knew that I would never be happy, ever again.
It couldn’t be too late, right?
It couldn’t…
- 48 -
Hunter
Eight Years Ago
I met a new kid.
Well, he wasn’t totally new, but he was new-ish. I hadn’t talked to him before because my hands had always been so full with Ivy, so I hadn’t had a chance.
Gauge was my age, and a total goofball. It wasn’t really my thing, but then again, what even was my thing? I hardly even knew who I was without Ivy, so now was as good a time as ever to explore what I wanted in my life.
“Who’s she?” Gauge asked, following my line of sight to Ivy at her table, sitting alone.
“No one,” I said, tearing my eyes away and focusing on my soggy tater tots.
“She’s cute,” Gauge said, squinting at Ivy.
“No she’s not,” I growled, surprising myself.
Gauge lifted an eyebrow with all his prepubescent, barely-teenage attitude.
“Cute face, but her boobs are coming in nice.”
“Dammit, Gauge,” I barked, drawing attention to myself which made me even angrier. “Leave her alone. And don’t look at her boobs.”
He smirked.
“Hunt has a crush,” he teased.
His words gritted on my heart like sandpaper.
“Ivy Bell is a two-faced bitch. I don’t want anything to do with her, and you shouldn’t either.”
He blinked.
“Really?” he asked.
“Really,” I agreed. “I wasted enough time with her. I’m more interested in Raina Rodger. Talk about boobs coming in over summer.”
Gauge was officially distracted, yammering on about Raina and her cronies who were stuffing their bras to seem older than they were.
My eyes strayed back to Ivy and I watched her blink, then wipe away tears that always seemed to be leaking out of her eyes lately.
She must have felt me staring, because she turned and looked over at me, meeting my eyes. Hers were red and puffy, and I wanted nothing more but to go to her and kiss away her pain like I always had.
Convenient.
I couldn’t be her convenience anymore. I was worth more than that.
So even if it fucking killed me, I was going to do what I needed to. I was going to find people who appreciated me, who loved me. Not people who used me.
Turning my eyes away, I gave her my back and tried to focus on Gauge while he went on about girls and boobs.
My mind was still with Ivy, but eventually I would move on.
What was it that Mom always said again?
Right, fake it ‘til you make it.
And dammit, I’d probably be faking it for the rest of my Goddamn life.
- 49 -
Hunter
It was operation Win Ivy Back time, and Gauge was on board.
When I’d sat him down and asked for help, he was instantly tossing up ideas on what I could do.
“Flowers. Chicks love flowers.”
“This isn’t a flowers kind of thing, Gauge,” I told him, chewing on my lip. “I’ve been a total cunt.”
“So has she.”
I whirled on him and stuck a finger out at him. “You’re not fucking helping!”
Gauge’s head dipped down to his phone and he started typing away while I paced my living room, still covered in streaks of engine grease from my elbows down.
“I’m just saying, if you gave her the smallest hint that you’re into her, I don’t think she’d have even gone to that dude,” Gauge went on. “I mean, no offence to the other guy, but, look at you.”
I glanced down my body to my jeans and white t-shirt with stripes of dirty motor oil on it. Yeah, I had a pretty rockin’ bod, but so did the asshole from Hawaii, except he probably got his from a gym. Mine were all natural from work and playing in the water for countless hours.
But he was a masseuse.
Dammit!
How could I compete with that?
Gauge finally put his phone down and looked up at me, settling back into the couch.
“We fucked,” I told him simply. “Twice. How more straightforward could I be that I wanted her?”
He snorted.
“Ok, so you successfully showed her you wanted her body. What about everything else? Do you want everything else? Heart and mind, and that ratchet little mouth of hers?”
“Of course I fucking do!” I practically exploded.
Fuck, I felt like everything in me was too big for my skin, and if something didn’t give, I’d blow up in a massive splat of flesh, blood, and regret.
“Even after what she said?” he asked seriously.
I chewed on my lip.
“I’ll just have to show her that I’m not a convenience. She needs me like I need her. She has to.”
I felt her, every single day I felt her, burrowing inside me like a parasite until she was wrapped so hard around my heart that being without her felt like a little piece of death. How could I feel like that and she just felt...nothing?
Was that even possible?
She had to feel something toward me.
Gauge puttered toward the kitchen and fussed around for a few minutes until there was a knock on the door.
I was going to ignore it, but he hurried past me and opened it.
In stepped Ivy’s girlfriend Hillary with a frown on her face.
“You didn’t tell me he was here,” she said, motioning toward me.
Wait, Gauge and Hillary?
“You called her?” I snapped at Gauge, but nobody was listening to me.
“I was serious, we’re on a mission,” Gauge told her, snapping the door closed behind her. “Hunter’s going to win Ivy back.”
Hillary would have snorted in derision if she were more like Ivy, but instead she just huffed and scoffed at the idea.
“There’s no way in hell he’s going to win her back. Especially from Jamie.”
“Jamie hasn’t known her for most of her life,” Gauge offered.
“No, but he accepts her for everything that she is, and likes her anyway. That’s more than the baboon asshole over there ever did. A cunt? Really? You don’t understand women at all, do you?”
Gauge looked up at me surprised.
“You said that to her?”
“I was angry,” I admitted.
And our fuckfest had been interrupted before it could even start.
“You’re an idiot,” Gauge agreed with Hillary, plopping to his ass on his old, flannel couch.
“I tried to apologize, but she left in a huff and now she won’t talk to me,” I defended myself. “I’m trying!”
“Ivory has given you more than enough chances, Hunter. She doesn’t need a fuckbuddy, she needs a partner. A boyfriend, not a frenemy.”
“She needs me,” I assured her.
“No, Hunter. Ivory has found someone who really cares for her, who wants her to be happy—”
“Cares for her?” I demanded. “I fucking love her!”
The room went quiet with those words hanging over all of us.
Yeah, I hadn't admitted those words out loud since I was a little kid. It was the first time Gauge heard them from my lips, and it seemed to have left Hillary speechless.
“I knew it,” Gauge finally said, looking satisfied.
“You love her?” Hillary practically gasped.
“I’ve loved her since we were kids,” I admitted, feeling an odd sort of cathartic flush through me for finally letting those words out loud.
I loved her.
“I love her,” I spoke the words again, a whisper this time as I pinched the bridge of my nose.
“Then why did you turn your back on her?” Hillary
questioned now, moving a step closer to me. “You broke her heart, Hunter.”
“I broke her heart?” It was my turn to snort. “She’s the one who stabbed me with a fucking knife right between my shoulder blades.”
She looked confused.
“Just tell her,” Gauge prompted, which got Hillary’s interest piqued instantly.
“Tell me what?”
“I heard her. I was in eighth and she was in seventh. She told the North girls that I was a convenience, and nothing more. That she didn’t even like me, and I was just nice to have around.”
If I’d thought Hillary looked surprised before, she looked really fucking shocked now. Her eyes got round and her lips parted.
“No way. Ivory would never say that,” she told me. “Hunter, she’s loved you since she was ten.”
What?
Gauge suddenly burst into laughter.
“Are you kidding me? All this time, and it was just a misunderstanding?” he barked, tears of mirth leaking out of his eyes.
“You better explain yourself right fucking now,” I growled in a deathly low voice.
Hillary just blinked away her shock.
“Hunter, Ivory has been in love with you since fifth grade. Since before you suddenly freaked out and left. She told me everything. You broke her heart when you suddenly stopped caring about her.”
I had never stopped caring about her. I just cared silently, desperately, agonizingly...
“Where is she?” I breathed.
I had to know if it was true. I fucking had to. I couldn’t even take my next breath until I knew.
“With Jamie.” She winced.
“I don’t care if she’s with the fucking Pope. Where is she, Hillary?”
She typed into her phone and mine suddenly vibrated.
Wait, when did she get my number?
Who the fuck cared? I had what I needed.
I didn’t stop for anything, just slamming down the stairs and to the parking lot so I could jump on my bike, greasy arms and everything.
Ivy loved me?
Hope blasted through my chest for the first time in a long, long time. I should have been careful with it, but it felt too good, like crack cocaine to a starving druggie.
The only thing I took a moment to do was to set up the navigation on my phone and slip in my bluetooth earbuds before pulling on my helmet. With that, I was heading out and on my way to her.
To Ivy.
It took probably twenty minutes to get through that motherfucking gate.
A gated community? Really? Was this guy rich up the ass or something?
Didn’t matter, because I was finally through.
I wasn’t rich, but I had something far more valuable than money. I had my fucked up little heart, and I was about to lay it at her feet. I was so scared she was going to stomp on it, but after everything I did, I kinda deserved it.
The house wasn’t the biggest in the neighborhood, but it was way too huge for one guy.
I turned off my bike and ripped the helmet over my head before jogging up to the steps.
Oh God...here it goes.
I knocked and rang the doorbell until someone finally answered.
Stupid fucking Jamie.
“Uh, what are you doing here?” Jamie asked, lifting an eyebrow.
Ivy’s car was out front, so I knew she was there. She didn’t go anywhere without Baby.
“Ivy!” I screamed around his shoulder, trying to bust through the wall of muscle.
Hah!
I was a wall of muscle too, and I had fucking love fueling my veins.
I managed to stumble around him just as Ivy was coming down the stairs in a robe and wet hair.
My guts wanted to splatter all over the floor at the insinuation of her showering in his home. Probably in his bathroom, too. But she needed to know how I felt. That was more important than my animalistic possessiveness.
Storming up to her, I invaded the hell out of her space and smashed my mouth to hers, breathing in the crisp apple and sweet strawberry of her shampoo and body wash.
Ivy staggered, obviously shocked.
As much as I wanted to devour her, I dragged my lips away from her and looked her in the eyes, her beautiful, deep blue ones that were wide and sparkling back at me.
“I love you,” I breathed. “I fucking love you. I’ve loved you since we were little, and I loved you even more when I kissed you for the first time, and you kissed me back.”
Ivy wasn’t breathing.
She staggered again, then hiccupped, which was a weird-ass reaction to surprise, but it was cute and odd, just like her.
“W-what?” she finally stammered.
“I love you,” I repeated, hands on her cheeks and nose to nose as I whispered those words as adamantly as I could, so she would know I meant them.
Moisture started building up in her eyes, and I kissed each cheek where they'd spilled into streaks of salt. Words just started tumbling and falling from my mouth, like word vomit I couldn’t hold in.
“Hillary told me. She told me about that day in school. After I kissed you, that Monday I heard you talking to the North girls. I heard you say that you didn’t like me. That I was convenient.”
Pain registered on her face, mixed with sickly shame.
“I don’t fucking care anymore, Ivy. I just need to know. Was it all a mistake? Do you love me?”
She was quiet for a long moment, and each tick of the clock turned my stomach until I was a ball of nauseous nerves.
Maybe I’d actually vomit for reals, and not just in the word variety.
“No,” she finally whispered.
I just blinked.
It didn’t register.
“What?” I asked.
Surely I had heard her wrong.
“No,” she said again, stronger and louder.
“No what?”
“No, Hunter. I don’t love you...anymore.”
I snatched my hands away from her like I’d been burned, feeling my insides fire up and incinerate to ash while she stared at me with tears in her eyes.
No.
She didn’t love me.
Not anymore.
Rage tore through me, but not at her.
It was my fault.
She didn’t love me because I had been unlovable for too long. I’d pushed her too far.
“Ivy—”
“You need to leave now,” she said, voice wobbly as she pulled her robe tighter around herself.
A big hand wrapped around my arm.
Jamie.
I pulled away from him and showed myself out, although I wasn’t sure how I was even moving when I was nothing but a pile of brittle ruins, crumbling apart with each step.
For the first time since I’d cried tears of joy and relief when Dad was wheeled away in the back of that police car, tears fell down my cheeks.
Pain like I’d never imagined could be real tore through my chest and ripped my heart right from between my ribs. It stayed there, on the hot cement outside some other man’s home as I got on my bike and drove away.
The hope that had given me such a high earlier was dashed now, cinders snuffing out with each blow the words gave me as I played them on repeat in my head.
No.
Not anymore.
- 50 -
Ivory
“Are you ok?” Jamie asked, moving toward me after the door was closed and locked.
My tears came in full force as the ramifications of what I’d just said slammed into me.
I had lied.
Right through my teeth, I’d lied.
I still loved him, more than anything. But he was not good for me. Hunter was like a poison inside my heart, and eventually it would kill me. Maybe not my body, but it would devour and destroy my soul.
Jamie tried to put his arms around me, but I pushed him away.
“I need a minute,” I rasped, suddenly moving and fleeing up the stairs.
There wasn’t anywhere to go sin
ce it was Jamie’s house, but I hoped he would give me space like I’d asked.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, I sank my head into my hands and tried to level my breathing out, but all that did was make me feel like I was suffocating again, just like that day in Hawaii.
The image of his face when I opened my eyes after puking up half the ocean from my stomach was one I’d never forget. It was half shocked horror, and half desperate relief as drops of water trailed down his cheeks. Not tears, but they might as well have been.
He saved my fucking life.
He loved me.
A squeak on the plush, carpeted floor made me look up. Jamie stood by the door with his hands in his pockets, watching me.
“You ok?” he asked quietly.
He knew enough to know some of what I was feeling. Honestly, I just clenched my jaw so I wouldn’t break out in a wracking sob as I shook my head.
I wasn’t fucking ok.
Jamie approached and sat next to me, pulling me to his chest and those stupid tears finally broke loose.
“I know what you told him,” he whispered into my ear, holding me so tight, “but do you? Do you love him?”
Snorting up all my snot, I shook my head.
“I don’t want to, Jay,” I whispered back. “He’s bad for me. I don’t want to love him anymore.”
He gave me another squeeze, then loosened his arms.
“We don’t get to choose the people we love,” he said, meeting my eyes. “But we do get to choose the people that we are with. If he’s that bad for you, then you don’t have to be with him, no matter what your heart tells you.”
Except it wasn’t just my heart. It was my brain, and my soul, and my every fucking molocule that sang and called for him.
“Has he hurt you? Hit you?” he asked, brows drawing together as he searched for the truth in my face.
I shook my head.
“No, he would never do that. For all his bark, he doesn’t have a bite. Not with me.”
“Good. Despite the muscles, I’m no good in a fight.”
