by Misti Murphy
“I love you too, baby.” She grips his jaw with her small hands and kisses him. “I think we all need a little levity in our lives right now, don’t you?”
“Okay, but not like that. He knows better.” He glares at me. “Got it?”
“Got it,” I say. I’d probably be just as ballistic if I were in his position and someone behaved like that with Uma. “Hey, have you got any handcuffs?”
My brother frowns.
“Not sexy ones,” I say. “I have plenty of those. But you’ve been arrested a bunch of times. Any chance one of those cops let you keep a set?”
“Um, actually, I think I do have a pair upstairs.” His face narrows with thought. “Even have a key. What do you want them for?”
“You don’t believe Uma Cookie is real. I’m going to prove it to you.”
“By what…cuffing her to you?”
“If that’s what it takes.” If she won’t come to me, I have no choice but to go after her. It’s time Uma Cookie realizes she can’t just run away from me. I’m tenacious and charming and I know where she lives. Well, I know where her friend Adira works and that’s practically the same thing. I climb to my feet. “I’m going to need those cuffs. I have a woman to lock down.”
Summer’s eyes widen. “Did you hear what you just said?”
“Sure did.” I’m obsessed with Uma Cookie. I want more. I want to know who she is and what she looks like. I…want to date her.
“I’ll get those cuffs,” Summer says.
“They’re in the chest,” Rebel calls to her as she pads across the deck.
“I know,” she retorts.
“You keep them in your sex chest, don’t you?” I grin.
“Where else would I keep them?” He rubs his hands together between his thighs, his knees bouncing. “If you don’t find Uma—”
I know what he’s going to say. Because I’ve thought about it these past few weeks more times than I’d care to admit to. He’s worried that I really am imagining Uma Cookie. Hallucinating her. And not just because I was shot. But because our mother has mental health issues that left us to fend for ourselves when we were kids. He bore the brunt of the responsibility, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t affect me too.
“She’s real,” I insist. “I know she is. This isn’t me losing the plot.”
“Okay.” He exhales a labored breath. “Okay. If you’re sure.”
“I’m going to prove that she’s real,” I repeat. I have to. The alternative is not something I want to contemplate.
Chapter Fourteen
Ivy
Dr. Keller smiles as she holds the door open. “I’ll see you in two weeks, Ivy.”
“See you then,” I say as I leave her office after our hour long session. She thinks I’m making progress.
Ben Duffy gets to his feet and clasps his hands to the back of his head while he stretches. A tan sliver of skin shows where his blue polo shirt rides up at his hip, before he shoves his hands in his pockets and walks toward me. “All done?”
“Yeah.” I’m making progress. It’s been two weeks since I uttered my first word to Ben, and now I can communicate in whole sentences. “Thanks for driving me. Jaffa can be temperamental.”
“Anytime.” He syncs his steps with mine as we walk through the facility where Dr. Keller’s office is located. “So is everything okay? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Um, no, I don’t mind.” The hallways are wide and give a panoramic view of the grounds where inpatients are partaking in activities in the fresh air. Sun filters in through the glass walls, giving the place a light and airy vibe. There are plants everywhere. Potted dwarf lemon trees and white bird of paradise fill big round tubs, creating great hiding spots. “I’m not, erm, crazy, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
He glances at me out of the corner of his eye. “I didn’t think—”
“My own brother thinks I am.” I shrug. I try really hard not to care what he thinks though. We haven’t seen eye to eye on anything for a long time, but lately the divide between us has become more and more pronounced. Being around him makes me uncomfortable. “He thinks I’m too sensitive. He doesn’t understand why I can’t be…normal.”
Only, my brother is the same guy who pulled me out of a tub of icy water and called an ambulance when I was at my lowest. And that has to mean something. Even if he only helped me because we’re family, and family looks after each other. That’s what my dad believed. It’s why he made me promise to keep the peace with my mom. It’s why I’m still trying. And it’s why I feel guilty.
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Ben places his hand on the small of my back.
It makes me think of Rogue and how he didn’t stop touching me that night we spent in each other’s company. I miss the feeling of him. His cologne. The warmth of his shadow on me. Is that even a thing? It’s like my awareness of him is a heavy blanket. Both warm and soothing.
I told Dr. Keller all about that evening, though I didn’t mention him by name. It felt too personal. Magical.
It feels like a lifetime ago. He’s probably dating someone by now. Someone new and exciting and beautiful and confident. Someone who doesn’t hide behind costumes and makeup. Someone who has never spent six months in a place like this… I wrap my arms around my waist. Someone he recognizes when he spills coffee all over her.
“And I think your brother is wrong,” Ben says. “You’re fun to be around.”
“Oh?”
He snorts softly under his breath and smiles at me like he’s telling me a secret that he already thought I was savvy to. “I like talking to you, Ivy. I like sitting with you in class, and meeting up for coffee.”
“I like you too, Ben.” We walk toward a potted lemon tree with a twisty trunk and my brain backpedals twelve months.
I’d been at Sunny Health Resort for a month. My body had healed from how I’d mistreated it. My emotions and mind were still a mess. Inside I was a block of ice. Cold. Numb.
I’d hugged myself tightly as I’d walked down this hallway toward Dr. Keller’s office for my session that day. The sun through the glass walls had been so warm and I’d stopped to feel it on my face, right by that gnarled lemon tree. I’d rubbed the shiny dark tips of the leaves between my fingertips as I’d watched some of the other guests do yoga on the lawn outside. It was the first time since my dad died that I actually felt like things could eventually be alright.
And then I’d seen him. Rogue Maddox.
My gaze had glued itself to the man with the dark hair and dreamy blue eyes. He was sitting on one of the benches only a few yards away. Beside him was a small and fragile looking woman in baggy sweats. By the similarities in their features it was obvious they were related.
His body language drew me in as he talked to her, though she didn’t seem to notice at all. He didn’t let it faze him though. He smiled and laughed and carried on a one-sided conversation his entire visit.
I hid behind the lemon tree the whole time. Watched him with the woman I learned later was his mom. I couldn’t tear my gaze away. Which is why, when he left her, I saw how much of a toll it took on him to be strong. Tears stung the corners of my eyes.
And then he looked up and our gazes collided through the glass.
My heart stopped beating. My breath caught. Butterflies filled my belly. He’d caught me watching him from my hiding place. Knew I’d been, not eavesdropping, but spying on him.
Only he hadn’t seen me at all, I figured out when he walked past me without acknowledging me. The sun and a good tint job must have made the glass reflective instead. I was safe.
So safe I can be right in front of him and he will barely notice, apparently. I watched him with his mom many times over the months that I spent here. He literally bought me a cup of coffee and couldn’t remember we’d met at Adira’s shop. If I need a reason to stop thinking about him that should be enough. But it’s not.
I wish it were.
Ben moves his hand to my elbow and sl
ows me to a stop so he can stare down at me. He has a nice smile. Friendly and warm. His chest puffs out a bit. “You like me?”
“Of course.” He’s a nice guy. He’s actually the kind of guy I should like. Easy and uncomplicated and sweet.
“As a friend or…” He lets the open question hang between us for a moment before he picks up my hand and holds it. He rubs both thumbs over the back of my knuckles. “I want to take you out, Ivy. On a date. I want to be more than your friend.”
I open my mouth, but I’m not sure what to say. We’ve been hanging out for two weeks, and I guess I had an inkling that he was interested. I’d caught him staring a few times. And he’s cute. Like really cute. A sweetheart. And he totally saw me even when we hadn’t talked. But he’s not Rogue.
“Before you say anything,” he adds, “I don’t want you to feel like I won’t be your friend if you say no. I still want to be your friend.”
“I…” still don’t know what to say. He should want to run away after bringing me to see my therapist. Never mind the fact that I have feelings for a man who doesn’t know I exist. Plus there’s all the drama with my family. Plus school and my part-time jobs. It’s a lot. He’d probably want to run a million miles away if he knew. Anyone would. Rogue Maddox totally would.
“It’s okay, Ivy.” He squeezes my hand. “You don’t have to decide now.”
“Thanks, Ben.” I smile up at him. Those words are the most perfect words I’ll ever hear. I only wish they came from Nicole sometimes too.
“No problem.” He shrugs as we start walking again.
We’re almost at the sign in desk when dark hair and eyes as blue as the day is long catch my attention.
The look on Rogue’s face is anything but promising. There’s a squall in those steel blues today. A hardness to his jaw that makes me do a double take, because maybe it isn’t him. Maybe it’s his twin, Rebel? But I know those tattoos on his arm by heart. I recognize that piercing in his brow. And Rebel Maddox never once visited his mother the entire time I was here. The other brother did, but not Rebel.
What has Rogue so worked up? Is his mom not well today?
My heart reaches out to him. I want to soothe the trouble from his brow. I want to stare into his eyes until they soften for me. I want to get down on my knees and release some of the tension that has every part of his body rigid and not just the part that should be hard.
Just like that, I know I can’t date Ben. It wouldn’t be fair when all it takes to make me want Rogue is to see him across a room.
“Ivy?” Ben holds the door for me.
I should just go. I know I’m supposed to walk out this door with Ben and go about my life like that night with Rogue never happened. But I can’t walk away when he looks like this. I balk a couple of feet from the threshold. “I… need to stay. There’s someone I need to see.”
“Okay.” He starts to close the door. “I’ll wait.”
“T-that’s not necessary. You’ve already done me enough favors today.”
“I don’t mind. It’s really not a big deal.”
I glance over my shoulder as Rogue lowers himself into a chair in the lounge. He stretches his long legs out in front of him and tugs on his lower lip. “It’s kind of personal.”
“Well, how will you get home?”
“I’ll call Adira.” I tuck my hair behind my ear. “He’ll come get me.”
“Okay.” He sighs. “Did I scare you off?”
“No. Not at all.” I touch his arm before I pull my hand back. I want to reassure him, but I don’t want to give him false hope. Although right this moment is probably not the time to tell him that either, because then it really will seem like he did scare me away which is so far from the truth.
Although the truth isn’t any better either. I’m obsessed with Rogue Maddox, Hollywood’s scoundrel. So obsessed I’m ditching my friend to make sure a guy who doesn’t know I’m alive is okay.
“Sure?”
“Sure.” I smile at him.
“Okay,” he finally agrees. “If you get stuck, let me know.”
“I will.”
He walks out and I take a deep breath as I turn around and head toward Rogue. He doesn’t look up from his phone when I sit down opposite him. His scowl seems to be semi-permanent. God, he looks handsome though. Even with whatever is on his mind.
I don’t know how long I sit there admiring the view before he looks up. When he does, his eyes widen and then narrow as he tips his head to the side. “You look…Do I know you?”
“W-we met,” I say. So many times. In the six months I spent at the resort I must have crossed his path a half dozen times. And Adira’s shop. The dressing room at Mojito. And the club. But the one he’s alluding to is the coffee shop, if I had to hazard a guess.
He points a finger at me. “The coffee shop near Cal State, right? You wore your coffee. I bought you a fresh one. Sorry, I don’t remember your name.”
I am making progress. Sure, I’m sitting here imagining I’m dressed as Ariel from The Little Mermaid; shiny, green fish tail and all. But my words come easier. Dr. Keller thinks the idea of being incognito gives me an element of control I don’t otherwise feel.
After my dad died it felt like I lost everything. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t breathe. He was the one who supported me. He was the bridge between me and Nicole.
Without him I didn’t know how to cope.
Nicole and my brother didn’t understand. They still think that I’m acting out and it’s only a matter of time before I fall in line. Dressing up, being someone I’m not lets me explore who I could be without fully putting myself out there. Dr. Keller is probably right. There’s a safety net in being invisible, and imagining I’m in costume instead of actually wearing one made out of material and makeup is a step toward removing the net underneath this tightrope I walk between doing what my family wants and finding myself.
I toss out my thoughts like dirty sheets. I didn’t spend an hour with Dr. Keller to sit here and drive myself stupid with my own thoughts. “I-I’m Ivy.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Ivy.” He smiles.
And even though it’s a frigid kind of smile, my heart scampers with joy. I’ve waited so long for the day when he would recognize me and call me by name. To be honest I was quite convinced it was never going to happen. And part of me wants to curl up inside my chest and just die. But not in the way that had me booking into Sunny Health Resort a year ago. “Are you okay? You seem like you’re having a bad day.”
“You think I belong in here?” He raises an eyebrow. Hardens his jaw as he sits up straighter. “You think I belong here. No, that’s not…I’m visiting someone.”
I know that. But I don’t tell him that I do, because I don’t want to come off as a stalker. I don’t want to seem like the mentally unstable girl who fixates over the guy she can’t have like she belongs in a psycho thriller. “Okay.”
“I’m not crazy,” he says like that’s the only kind of person who could be in here.
I wince.
“That’s not what I meant,” he mutters. Regret washes across his features. “I don’t think that about the people who are here. I’m just…” He grabs the back of his neck and seems to shake himself out of his garbled thoughts. His shoulders deflate. “Hell, maybe I am. There’s a possibility I’ve been seeing things. Hallucinating.”
“Oh.” It sounds horrifying. Even at my worst I can’t say that I ever had to deal with seeing things that aren’t there. It was grief I couldn’t deal with. Loss. All the ways I lacked strength. Being the figurative version of a human leaf in a world where the wind is my mother. “Have you seen a doctor?”
“A doctor?” He glances at me with fresh horror in his eyes.
“Y-yes.” I pluck at the wide cuff on my denim shorts. “Maybe you should speak to someone if you’re worried.”
“I’m not.” He jerks to his feet. “I should go. I was just visiting my mom.”
“Okay.” I b
link up at him. He’s so out of sorts, and I don’t know what to do because I am not Uma Cookie today. She would know exactly what to say or do to calm him down. She would know how to help him. But Ivy Love doesn’t have a clue.
“Don’t tell anyone,” he all but snaps at me.
“I won’t.” I pantomime zipping my mouth and throwing away the key. “Promise.”
“Shit. What am I doing talking like this with a perfect stranger?”
“I’m not.”
That stops him in his tracks. He searches me with his gaze and his brows pulled so tight I almost worry he’ll pop that piercing right out. “You’re not?”
My pulse races and my mouth goes dry. I can barely swallow as I stand as well. I’m Uma Cookie too. “W-we’ve met a couple of times now.”
“We’ve met twice. That hardly makes us friends.” He throws his glare my way as he shoves his phone in one pocket and pulls his keys out of another. “And don’t get any ideas that I’m flirting with you because we’ve run into each other a couple of times. If I had a dime for every girl who thinks meeting me is kismet—”
“I don’t.” I do. I totally do. But while I’d love to believe that fate put me in his path because we’re supposed to be together, I’m aware that is just my silly little heart wishing for something impossible. He’s charismatic and sexy and walks around like he owns the world. I’m just shy little Ivy Love and I have enough on my plate with trying to manage my own life.
“I don’t flirt with underage girls,” he bites out like I’m trying to ensnare him or something.
“I’m twenty.” I don’t follow his logic. I’m not that young and he’s not flirting with me. If he were there are worse things than my age that could get in the way, not that he knows that. I frown. If anything, he’s being a jerk.
“I just don’t want you to get any ideas,” he says.
“I’m sorry.” I need to call Adira and get him to come pick me up. Or find a bus. Either way. There is no point in correcting him. “If you thought…I didn’t mean to infer—”
“No. I’m sorry. I’m being an ass. It’s been a long week.” He flashes a for the cameras type smile at me as his chest hollows out. I can tell the difference between the real deal and when he’s giving his fans what they want. This is his happy go lucky smirk. His real smile is a little denser with emotion. It brightens those beautiful orbs. “I hope you don’t let my mood ruin your day.”
