by Cindi Madsen
My two constants were about to marry each other and form two halves of one whole or whatever, and I told myself that I’d be okay. I was a grown up. I had years and years of experience in basically being on my own.
But I was afraid the past several years with my makeshift family might’ve made me soft.
Before we could get a decent conversation going, Velma called over Savannah and Linc, insisting they pose for more pictures.
Jackson stepped up next to me. “You okay?”
I exhaled a shallow breath and glanced at him. “Of course.” He raised an eyebrow as if he wanted to challenge me on that, and I raised one right back. “You’re not going to mess up our truce already, are you? The hour’s not even done yet.”
He held up his hands as if he were surrendering, a little too much amusement for my liking curving his lips.
A flicker of hope sparked—maybe we could go back to how it was before. We’d never really agreed on much of anything, but our exchanges used to be more like good-natured verbal sparring matches that sometimes ventured into fiery passion, each of us waving our red flags, taunting the other to charge like a bull.
These days, if and when our paths crossed, there was only arguing with barbed words meant to slice. Muttered insults like “succubus”—him about me, and “jackass”—me about him. I racked my brain for a neutral subject, but I wasn’t very good at small talk, and he and I could manage to get into a fight over the weather.
I needed to say something, though. While our brains and mouths were always at war, our bodies were perfectly in tune, and if I continued eye-humping him and thinking of all the innuendos I’d like to make, I’d get carried away and undo our tiny bit of progress.
I opened my mouth and said, “I was thinking—” as he said, “Well, I’d better—”
He gestured to me. “Sorry, you go.”
“No, you go.”
For a couple of seconds, we both simply stared at each other, but then he obviously decided I’d win a stubborn-off any day—and he wasn’t wrong—and said, “I was going to say I’d better go see where my date is.”
My smile tried to fall, and I quickly propped it up. I couldn’t do much about the similar drop in my gut, but at least it wasn’t visible. And seriously, what the hell, body? So what if he brought a date? That meant less time for him to spend bothering and judging me.
“That’s why I didn’t get more grief from Velma about my single status. Naturally she and my ma are already thinking Caroline’s the woman who could finally complete me and get rid of the lopsided thing you mentioned—”
“Ha!” I thought we’d determined he looked sexy as hell, something I bet his date also agreed with. Man, I hated the thought of him with another woman, even though I knew I didn’t have the right to feel that way. We’d only been getting along for twenty or so minutes. Tomorrow we’d go back to glaring and snide remarks.
My stomach dropped even farther. Damn engagement party turning me into an emotional wreck!
“It’s still really new, though.”
“Still new” meant something more than a friend who’d tagged along for the sake of keeping the heat off him with his family and their obsession for everyone to be coupled and in love. Possibly even something that could turn into a permanent thing.
Despite Savannah’s and the rest of her family’s worrying over him and his constant single status, I always knew Jackson was the settling down type. Since I wasn’t, I’d done the right thing by pulling away when things between us started to go deeper.
“I’ll let you go then.” My hand drifted up to his arm without my permission, as if it needed one last feel before our goodwill soured and returned to whatever black hole it’d camped out in the past four months. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I didn’t have a completely horrible time talking to you.”
“Wow, Ivy Clarke. With compliments like that, you’re going to find your other half in no time.”
“Oh, I’m complete all by myself.”
“I know,” he said, so quietly that I thought I might’ve imagined it. He took a step toward the table and his most likely perfect date but then abruptly spun around. “By the way, that dress? It’s…”
I waited for the insult and got ready to dispatch one of my own.
“…dangerous.”
With that added emphasis on the word, I wondered if he considered me dangerous, too.
And so I wouldn’t go thinking too hard about that and all things Jackson Gamble, I decided it was well past time for me to make my excuse and leave.
Preferably before people ended up remembering me as the girl who’d cried through her best friend’s engagement party.
Chapter Two
After shoving my pesky and rather inconvenient emotions down as deep as I could, I’d made sure to say good-bye to Savannah and Linc. On my way to wait for the cab I’d called, I spotted Jackson and his date. Blocking my escape route, too.
Thanks for that, Karma.
She was a cute slip of a girl with brunette, shampoo-commercial hair, and I could just tell she was the bubbly type. She even had that debutante look, like she could throw a barbecue in the backyard and then run over and be in a beauty pageant, all without getting her string of pearls dirty.
No wonder his family is already in love with her.
The two of them looked cozy but not on the level of familiarity that implied they were in the comfortable phase of the relationship. With my defenses already crumbling—and okay, maybe I experienced a tinge of jealousy—I didn’t want to have to force a smile through introductions.
Jackson glanced up, and I quickly spun on my heel and detoured, willingly heading toward Velma.
You know you’re in a dire situation when you choose a prim, meddlesome woman over eye contact with a hot guy.
“Ivy, have you met the Halfords’ son? He’s a therapist.”
“Yikes.” That was supposed to stay in my head. I wasn’t sure if Velma was trying to make a love match or if she thought I was a good candidate for therapy, but I wasn’t ready to travel down either of those roads. I’m sure he’d be equally horrified to go on a date with someone who had my issues—if he could find the time to remove his eyes from my cleavage, that is. “I’ve, uh, got to go.”
Velma’s glare pinned me in place, her pursed-lip expression making it clear she wasn’t impressed with my manners. I swear there was a hint of benevolence in the mix, too, like I was her charity project and should be kissing her feet for introducing me to someone so clearly out of my league.
Hell, eye contact with Jackson couldn’t have been this uncomfortable.
With a thrown out “Good-night,” I made my escape. Since luck was so not on my side tonight, my away-from-Jackson route was now blocked off.
As I passed back by the drink table, I grabbed a glass and downed it, like the classy broad I was. It was much stronger this round, leading me to believe they’d recently added more liquor and hadn’t mixed it very well.
Be invisible, be invisible…
My gaze accidentally drifted and locked onto the green eyes I’d been trying to hide from. The emotional turmoil that churned through me made me want to crawl out of my own skin. Concern creased his forehead, and he looked like he might step my way, so I waved good-bye, hoping he understood that meant Just stay with your cute-pie date, because this hot mess is so out of here.
Control, control. I need control.
Apparently, the karma gods thought I’d suffered enough, because my cab was pulling up to the curb right as I reached it. I climbed into the back and rattled off my address. We were ITP—or in the perimeter of the 285—but just barely, right on the north edge of Brookhaven, which left me with too much quiet time to think.
I spent my entire childhood, all the way up until the age of eighteen, with very little constant in my life, except that my mom and I would be constantly moving. I couldn’t control where we moved or how long her relationships would last with her various boyfriends
or temporary husbands or how many times she’d get her heart broken. You’d think after so many failed relationships, there wouldn’t be any pieces left to break, but she kept on putting them out there.
That was why I didn’t just crave control. I needed it like Kanye West needs attention.
Nowadays, I decided where I lived and where I worked, and I was keeping all the pieces of my heart. Except for that piece I foolishly gave out in college, when I thought a guy might be able to give me the steadiness I longed for.
I’d settled into a boring, predictable pattern, though, and I needed something more. Something to give my life a shakeup, yet not so much of one that I felt unsteady and lost the stability I craved. The right balance was hard to find, unfortunately.
“Wait.” I shot forward in my seat, and my seat belt yanked me back. Surely, I hadn’t seen what I thought I had. “Pull over.”
“But the address you gave me is—”
“I know. I need you to pull over here for a minute.” I thrust a handful of bills at the driver and then climbed out of the cab.
“You need me to wait?”
I shook my head as an overwhelming sense of desperation hit me. I hadn’t imagined it. There on the front lawn was a for sale sign. My heels clacked out a staccato beat against the sidewalk as I walked toward the Victorian house.
Apparently, everything constant in my life was going away, all at the same time.
I walked up the porch and stared at the lockbox on the front door. For a moment, I wondered if the window on the second floor still had the broken lock and missing screen—sneaking in and out of there was a breeze. Anyway, it was when I was a teenager and not in a dress and heels and still experiencing a bit of a buzz from my last few drinks.
I peeked through the window, but with the curtains drawn, I couldn’t see anything. From the looks of the outside, the property had been neglected. I’d vaguely noticed whenever I passed by, and I kept wondering what Dixie was planning on doing with it, but I never thought she’d sell her house.
Of all the places I’d lived growing up, this was the only one that ever felt like home. During the times Mom wanted to fully enjoy her honeymoon phase with her new fella—shudder—I was shipped here. When she was between men and mourning her breakup by spending weeks in her pajamas and crying, this was where we settled.
Dixie was Mom’s best friend all growing up, and they were as close as sisters.
Until Dixie dared to fall in love with one of Mom’s many exes. Dixie tried to reconcile, but Mom never could get over it. Luckily, by that time, I was seventeen and grown enough that I’d only had to endure another year before fleeing to college. That last year was a rough one, where we’d moved to a tiny town in Alabama with her flavor of the year.
I never told Mom that the summer before Dixie got married to Rhett and I started at Georgia State University, I lived with Dixie instead of at the dorms. I even helped her plan and put on her wedding. I was terrified Mom would find out and disown me, but I’d needed an escape. Even when I actually did move into the dorms, I came and visited often, up until Dixie and Rhett moved to Charleston.
I’d always hoped they’d come back and Mom would find it in her heart to forgive and forget.
If Dixie sold this place, that would probably never happen.
I knew it was late and past the polite time to call, but right now it felt like the world was spinning too fast, and I needed some type of closure before I simply let go of my last constant.
But when Dixie answered, her voice filling my ear as I stood on the porch, I knew what I really wanted was to not have to let go.
Chapter Three
When I’d set this appointment, I hadn’t factored in my hangover. Honestly, I was embarrassed I even had one with how tame the punch was—all except that very last one—but I think the emotional hangover was making it ten times worse.
I slid my sunglasses up on my head and approached the balding real estate agent. “Thanks for meeting me on such short notice.”
“Well, Dixie insisted.”
Last night I’d asked her to let me have one final look at the place. She’d told me that she would appreciate that, as she needed to know how much work it would take to clear out after it sold. She’d mailed the keys to the real estate agent and hired a cleaning crew to come in and give it a good scrubbing, but everything that hadn’t moved across state lines with her was still inside and needed to be put into storage.
Apparently, she’d barely put it on the market yesterday, and she’d been planning to call and let me know, but she didn’t know that Mr. Eager Beaver Real Estate Agent had already put up a sign.
The instant I stepped inside, memories slammed into me from all sides. Of dancing in the living room, blasting music while we cleaned. The scent of habitually burned food that had us throwing open the windows, even when it was winter and freezing, which meant we sometimes ate our dinner while bundled up like Eskimos. Sitting on the floral couch for girlie movies. The Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, and Moulin Rouge, and all the cheesy romances that made my mom decide she needed to keep seeking that kind of love, while driving home my theory that true love only existed in fiction.
With every one of Mom’s failed attempts, she unintentionally convinced me to never fall in love.
Of course, I’d slipped that one time, but I figured first loves deserved a pass. The important thing was I’d learned from mine.
After I stripped away the memories that made me love every inch of the place, from the popcorn ceiling with gold flecks on the top to the dilapidated floorboards on the bottom, it was a bit rough. The days of bold, overly floral wallpaper were past, especially if said wallpaper was peeling and faded. The carpet had seen better days—like in the seventies. It’d always been older and well worn, but now there were several threadbare spots.
“It’s definitely a fixer-upper,” Mr. Real Estate Agent said—I really should’ve paid better attention to his name. “But the location is prime, and the bones are good.”
Does he think I’m looking at the place because I might buy it? I certainly couldn’t afford a house in this neighborhood, regardless of the state it was in, and even if I decided to pour my savings into it and forgo luxuries like groceries, what would I do with three bedrooms and a study that moonlighted as a craft room?
The phrases “prime location” and “good bones” bounced around my head. Thanks to fixing up my condo and my side hobby of repurposing old or beat-up furniture, I’d watched a ton of HGTV. While I was good at finding antiques and turning them into beautiful pieces, my condo was forever a work in progress. Mostly because I always got halfway through painting my living room before deciding I hated the color. It started out beige and had taken turns at being an annoyingly chipper shade of yellow, a shade of blue that served as a tribute to 80s-era eyeshadow, and a misguided maroon that left a splattered smear on the wall when the paint tray fell off the ladder, making it look like I’d brutally murdered someone and decided to forgo hiding the evidence.
Savannah wouldn’t stop giving me crap about how my commitment issues even applied to picking a shade of paint, but it was more than that. It was a place that was all mine, and I wanted it to be perfect and to reflect me. I wanted that permanent home feel. To finally experience the sense of being settled instead of constantly trying to reassure myself I was.
A house like this wouldn’t hold that same pressure. I could fix it up with my knowledge on what worked in the market.
My HGTV training kicked in, my mind spinning over what I’d do if I were fixing up this place to sell. Solid paint colors that would emphasize the Victorian-era style yet with a modern edge. Trim done in white. Hardwood floors…
An idea began to take shape, one that might be crazy. But it also felt like exactly the kind of shakeup I needed in my life.
After all, I’d sanded and refinished every piece of furniture in my condo, along with a handful of pieces I’d sold on Craigslist. I knew how to wield a hammer, power sander
, and a giant staple gun, and thanks to my ever-changing living room wall, I had too much experience with a paintbrush. Most of the changes this place needed were the types of things I could do myself.
The more I thought about flipping this house, the more I liked it. I had the marketing know-how. I wasn’t scared of hard work. I had a good sense of design, one that came naturally. A huge DIY project like this would be a commitment, but only like a month-long one.
There was something so fulfilling about taking something old and broken and turning it into something amazing.
This would be like my furniture renovations on a much bigger scale. Like refurbishing on crack.
Maybe this was my calling—the excitement coursing through me seemed to think so, and if this went well, I could make a career of it. Sprinkle in some inspiration from Joanna Gaines and the chick from Flip or Flop and boom, I’d have my own show. Flopper-Upper.
Okay, so the name needed to be workshopped, but it had potential.
I was getting way ahead of myself, but the more I thought about it, the more right it felt.
“I’m going to go look upstairs.” I put my hand on the wooden banister, and when Mr. Real Estate Agent started up behind me, I added, “Can you give me a few minutes alone?”
He looked like he wanted to argue, as if I might go upstairs and wreck something. It’s not like I had a sledgehammer in my purse, and honestly, with the state of this place, I couldn’t do much more damage than time had done.
The light fixture over the stairs dangled on a wire, one too-hard step away from crashing down. That’s an easy fix. I’ve always wanted a reason to shop for that kind of thing.
Once I was clear of the concussion-inducing light fixture, I charged upstairs and turned down the hall, into the bedroom that had occasionally belonged to me. Dixie had told me I could paint it and make it mine, but we always moved on before I settled on a color and style.
Funny enough, while trying to decide what to do in my condo, I’d known exactly what to do with this room, because that was how projects and procrastination worked.
