by Ren Benton
And she still had to get back to town and visit a drugstore before picking up the kids, but she’d gladly go hungry if he had any more festering wounds to drain.
The dissimilarities between her and the woman who had used him as a plaything were superficial. Ivy had met Griff’s brother and his wife, and he had met her friends, but their relationship was still a secret from her parents after nearly two months. Even worse, he offered to marry her after his devastating first attempt, and she told him no on the grounds that he hadn’t thought it through.
He’d seemed so excited when he asked, despite how difficult it must have been for him. The only significant difference between her and that icy bitch, as far as Ivy could tell, was that she hadn’t laughed while rejecting him.
She was lucky he hadn’t left her in the rain to drown. She wasn’t about to complain that he didn’t whip up a four-course meal on the spot. “This is a perfect lunch.” She took a sandwich and spun the plate so the other one was on his side of the island.
“So, what are you going to do about work?” He grabbed the other sandwich and took a bite.
“If I don’t get fired after the way I walked out” — that would be rich, Sabrina’s first official act as manager being to fire the loser who didn’t get the job — “I’ll have to stay until I find something else.” He already knew the reasons she couldn’t afford to flounce away in haughty protest. “I’ll update my résumé tonight and have applications out by Monday.”
She didn’t know how to spin the fact that she’d gotten nowhere in her present career in five years so she didn’t look like a lazy slob, but it would be fine. She was qualified for any number of jobs with crappy pay and no benefits. The opportunities awaiting her made her dizzy with excitement... or maybe that was brain-scrambling fear.
“How did you and your disdain for weddings end up working in a bridal salon in the first place?”
She took the job for the usual reason. “The pay was better than my previous job, and my disdain wasn’t fully developed until almost two years in, though it had been gestating before I even started, I suppose.”
“How did cynicism knock you up?” At the reminder of their birth-control lapse, he looked down and took a sudden intense interest in a dark spot in the granite.
She threw a grape at him. “Lighten up. Next thing I know, you’ll be sitting on a bench in the rain like some kind of nut.”
He caught the grape when it bounced off his bare chest and popped it in his mouth. “Maybe a Good Samaritan would take me home and lift my spirits.”
“I don’t have the upper body strength to lift your anything else.”
He grinned, finally. “You have a pretty good arm. You know, for a girl.”
She’d pitched enough things at him today for him to make an educated assessment. “Varsity softball. I needed an athletic activity to appear as well rounded on my college applications as I did in my yearbook photos. Slow runner, but I pitch and bat like I have latent aggression to express.”
“Go figure.” He went to the fridge and came back with two glasses of ice water. “So are brides like radiation, only so much exposure you can withstand before reaching toxic levels?”
“Romantic relationships in general.” Her mom made tragically poor decisions before Byron. Holly never made a good choice about a man. She had aunts, friends, the internet. “People treat each other horribly, but they stay with the person who’s treating them horribly, and they invariably say it’s because they’re in love. So I got the impression love means staying no matter how miserable you are, but that didn’t make any sense to me in my infinite childish wisdom. Once a sensible person experiences that fire is hot, they don’t hold their hand in it.”
“Or take it out and put it back in.”
Griff had learned that lesson after having his heart broken once — sparks can be fun, but stay away from the flame.
Ivy, meanwhile, settled for hot water bottles.
“At some point, I noticed that people would move on from a horrible person they loved and never look back as long as there was someone else to go to, and my infinite childish wisdom figured out that love means not wanting to be alone.” She rolled a grape around on the plate. “If you want to overcome that notion, you should not be in close contact with the newly affianced.”
“I figured they’d be bursting with optimism and hope for the future.”
“Rarely when shopping for the accoutrements for the opening ceremony. Every day, I meet at least one bride whose reason for getting married is ‘he does everything for me,’ suggesting a mercenary benefit versus solitude. Every day, I meet at least one bride whose reason for getting married is ‘I’ve reached a certain age,’ suggesting a reluctance to die in solitude.”
“How many brides do you meet in a day?”
“Usually four.” He could do the cynic’s mathematics as well as she could. “And then there are the repeat customers who upgrade their marriages as often as their car leases.”
Given current statistics, nearly half the brides she dressed would be divorcées eventually. Who knew how many of the half that stuck it out did so through the use of supplemental affairs to supply what the marriage lacked? “It’s a discouraging vantage from which to view the institution.”
“My parents will be married thirty-nine years next month. It’s incredible to think they’ve chosen to be together longer than I’ve been alive.”
“The Raffertys have held it together twice as long as I’ve been alive. The exceptions to what I think of as the rule just make it sadder that so many people are in bad relationships just to avoid being alone. A few lonely nights are a small price to pay to be free for someone who will make the rest of your life better just by being in it.”
His piercing gaze made her feel like a naive little girl gushing over things she knew nothing about, not the hardened old spinster she was. Time to get off the subject of weddings. “Did Rafferty sign your contract?”
His intensity toned down to its normal level. “We’re negotiating details.”
“Oh. Good.”
A scowl developed slowly as he digested those words. “Don’t hold off hitting him up for a job on my account.”
“I don’t want it to seem like I’m exploiting the connection.”
He raised his eyebrows deliberately.
Her shoulders curled forward. “That’s doormat talk, isn’t it?”
“He gave you his card and said he’d look into changing corporate hiring policy for you,” he reminded her. “He wants you working for him so badly, your name is probably already on the door of an office down there.”
Shortage of nerve would prevent her from strolling into headquarters Monday morning and demanding to be shown to her office. She didn’t even have the guts to name drop in her cover letter, but desperation more than made up for lack of courage.
She would be foolish to believe a career change would be that effortless, though. Rafferty had been affable toward future in-laws he clearly didn’t care for much. Perhaps his interest in her was merely polite, as well. “Let’s not make me vice president just yet.”
“I wasn’t thinking that small.” He ducked another grape aimed at his head and came up grinning. “You may find something even better. You have a network. Use it. You have media contacts—”
She barked with laughter. “What am I going to do with media contacts?”
“You never know when it will come in handy to know a guy. Don’t be squeamish about asking those guys to do what they do best. The worst that can happen is they’ll say no. You’re resourceful. You’ll find another way.”
She had felt like an incompetent idiot since her meeting with Rita, as if she had no skills, no resources, nothing of any value to offer. Griff made her sound invincible. “You have a lot of confidence in me.”
“If someone had told me two months ago that I’d be worried about childproofing my house, botching a marriage proposal, and having semi-pleasant interactions with my brother, I’d h
ave referred them to a guy I know for a mental health evaluation. My life is not the same since you came into it, so I believe you can do anything.”
She swallowed hard to dislodge the lump in her throat. It moved down to settle in her chest. She leaned over the island and kissed him on the lips. “Thank you. I needed that.”
Because she didn’t want to dissolve in tears again, at least not in front of him, she changed the subject to one less emotionally charged. “Can I see Mom’s cabinets?”
“No.”
Her brows took a turn at maximum elevation.
“They’re at an awkward stage.” One that made him fidgety. “In the beginning, it’s impressive that I’m making something out of nothing. When I’m ready to call it finished, it’s impressive because it’s as close to perfect as I can make it. Right now, an amateur might call it good enough and leave it as is, but it wouldn’t be impressive. I don’t want you to think you’re getting less than my best.”
She pushed the plate and glasses aside so she could climb across the counter and put her arms around his neck. “A good imagination comes in handy in my line of work. I would believe you if you told me they’ll be perfect when you’re done, but I can wait until you’re ready.”
A little tune drifted from the laundry room as the dryer stopped.
She swayed against him. “They’re playing our song.”
He pulled her tighter against his chest. “I hate that song.”
“Because it’s the same riff that’s in every Taylor Swift song?”
He lifted her from the counter and set her on her feet, hands brushing her thighs beneath the hem of his shirt. “Because it means Pantsless Ivy is going away.”
“Pantsless Ivy is always with us.” She drifted toward the laundry room. “You just have to know where to look.”
Griff drove her to one of Rafferty’s drugstores and paid for her purchase. He was quiet on the return trip to his office, where her van was parked, letting her read the enclosed safety pamphlet in peace.
He held her hand while she washed down her morning-after pill with half a bottle of Diet Pepsi. The gesture was both sweet and blown entirely out of proportion, but she wasn’t about to object to having her knuckles rubbed after being told in fine print that there was a remote but plausible chance of her imminent demise — if not from the drug, from the multitude of other consequences of unprotected sex.
“It is done,” she solemnly intoned as she dropped the soda bottle into a cup holder. She squeezed his hand. “For a worldly guy, you’re awfully freaked out about this.”
“It’s been ten years since I skipped a rubber, and she had an IUD, so this is a first for me.”
“Really? I do it all the time.”
“I could tell by the way you didn’t know what aisle it was in or what it was called and cringed when the clerk asked if she could help you find anything.”
“I didn’t cringe.” Her hopes of getting through self-checkout without a stranger knowing way more about her sex life than she was comfortable disclosing had perished without that much fanfare. “Out of respect and sensitivity toward you, I was suppressing my urge to announce, ‘I just rode this stallion bareback and need my morning-after candy!’”
He raised her hand and kissed the inside of her wrist. “You make everything better, Ivy.”
His subdued, distant tone suggested otherwise. “What’s wrong? Rumor has it I’m resourceful. I’ll figure it out.”
He smiled, faintly, against her skin before returning her hand to her lap and wrapping his fingers around the steering wheel. He watched the rain track down the windshield. “I love you.”
She shied against the door. The words would have been welcome if their delivery had been less grim and foreboding.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to propose again. You have valid objections that I can’t remedy at this time, except to let you know that I do love you.” He didn’t look at her. “I convinced myself this morning it would be okay to go on as we have been, an hour or two whenever I can get it. If that’s all I can have, it’s better than nothing.”
Ivy’s throat clogged. Another similarity with the woman who had broken his heart.
“I was wrong. I don’t want to be the last resort when your world falls apart and you don’t know where else to go. I need you to come to me every day. I need to be in your life, not waiting at the fringe of it for an invitation. I can’t be what you need in an emergency without being recharged by you when things are calm. If you’re going to cherry pick the parts of you that I’m allowed to see and shut me out when those aren’t on display, I can’t do this anymore.”
Gravity multiplied, dragging at her. “Are you breaking up with me?”
“I’m negotiating terms. This one’s a deal breaker.” He turned toward her, eyes stark as the weather. “If you can’t make room for me to be there for you, we’re both walking away empty-handed.”
She said she had to pick up the kids. He said he understood. She said she couldn’t discuss it now because she had to be somewhere else. He said he understood. She said it was a low blow to throw a walk-away ultimatum at her at a time when she had no choice but to walk away. He said he understood.
That’s where they left them — Ivy walked away, and Griff understood.
The kids were worn out so soon after being sick, so Ivy suspended the Friday-night homework policy and let them watch a movie after dinner. All four of them were asleep before Disney killed the parents, creating an empty-house quiet conducive to all the thinking Ivy would rather postpone.
She entered the relationship with Griff understanding that he could exit at any time. So wasn’t it funny how, with the exception of his freakout over the wedding dress incident, she’d done all the leaving?
She had always yearned for a man who wanted her enough to pursue her, but when she got one, she kept running — afraid once he caught her, he would see she wasn’t at all what she’d appeared from a distance. She had never inspired passion in men who had her in their grasp. She couldn’t face Griff’s disappointment if he got close enough to examine what he’d been chasing.
He’d seen her at her worst today, physically and emotionally naked, and the sweet, stupid man said, I love you. She had been a screeching hag and he knew he was leading up to their breaking point, but in between all the ugliness, he made sure he told her that. I love you.
Damn him.
No matter how much she wanted him, she wasn’t prepared. Her freezer was full of dinners meant to feed five. She had five places to sit in her living room. She had only four grownup dining chairs.
She supposed Griff could make another one of those.
But where would she find time to shave her legs for an every-day man? And this was an old house with tiny closets, so he’d have a hard time keeping even a shirt here.
Make room for me.
She should have studied physics instead of marketing.
The illusion of her competence depended on a strict routine. Of course she looked graceful when she’d performed the steps thousands of times before. Unexpected events were the ones she handled poorly, and then the truth came out that she was a clumsy idiot in whom no one should place any confidence.
Her cell phone rang. She checked the display, hoping and not hoping it was Griff. She had no idea what to say to him, but she didn’t think she would ever figure it out without his help.
She needn’t have worried. It was the detective, calling in his report. “Hi, Wes.”
“I found Holly. She’s in jail.”
“Oh, thank god.” Under the circumstances, that sounded cold. “I mean—”
“I get it. She’s not dead. Savor that relief while it lasts.”
That sounded ominous.
“She’s been there since the weekend she went missing.”
“But the police checked the jail.”
“Yeah. Funny story. They have a five-month backlog on running prints, so they’re basically booking criminals on the honor system,
taking their word for it that they are who they say they are. Your sister had a fake ID on her at intake, so scanning the sheets for Miller-comma-Holly was never going to pop. I tripped over her when I scrolled past that point and noticed Miller-comma-Ivy.”
She caught her breath.
“We got visual confirmation from an officer on site that it’s your sister. The identity confusion is being addressed through official channels, so don’t worry about having a criminal record. You will, however, want to straighten out your credit report before you apply for a loan or your car insurance renews because your sister is a tremendous asshole.”
He was positively verbose when he had information to convey. “Thank you, Wes.”
“For calling your sister an asshole? My pleasure. You should repeat after me and then cut her loose. I’ve seen a thousand Hollys. She is past the turning point. This isn’t a phase she’s going to grow out of. All of this — walking out on her kids, running up eighty grand of debt in your name—”
Eighty thousand dollars? On what? There had been no food for her children!
Thanks to her internal screaming, she missed the other examples Wes rattled off. “All of that requires lots of steps, hundreds of individual decisions to proceed toward a set objective, every one of them an opportunity to stop, and she rejected them all. This is who she wants to be. If you keep trying to save her, she will drain you of every financial and emotional resource before she moves on to another host, as parasites do, and I will be more pissed at you than you can imagine, young lady.”
A scalding lecture from a faceless stranger absolved her of guilt for thinking the same things about her sister. No amount of goodness would prevail in this situation. It was time to admit defeat and save what she had left for people who deserved it, like the kids.
Like Griff.
“I’m sorry, hon,” Wes said, trying to soften the blows he’d dealt. “People are shit.”
