Best Friend's Second Chance (Wilder Brothers Book 2)

by Lisa Levine

  I can’t undo what I have done. God, how I wish I could. I would never do it again, Ivy. If I could go back and have a second chance to make a different and better decision, I would. But since I can’t, all I can do is tell you how sorry I am and beg you for your forgiveness and ask you to please, please give me a second chance.

  Please, Ivy. I need my friend and my lover back. I miss you so much that I feel like I am dying.

  Please give me a second chance to make things right and show you how much I love you.

  Easton

  I folded the note back up into a small square and held it against my chest as I cried. I pinched my eyelids closed and tried to stop the horrible, painful feelings that wouldn’t go away. I felt a pair of arms slide around me and heard Bridget’s soft voice.

  “It’s okay, honey. It’ll be okay.”

  19

  Chapter Twelve (Easton)

  I was beside myself without Ivy. I couldn’t just let this be. I had called her a million times and texted her even more times than that. I had gone through more whiskey in the past few days than I had during my entire time at college. I couldn’t stand pacing my apartment anymore, so I had resorted to walking aimlessly through the city until I would find myself ending up somewhere where I had no idea where I was and had to hail a cab back to my apartment.

  I had tried talking to Bridget at the bookstore, but she refused to let me see Ivy. She said that Ivy needed time on her own and that when she was ready, if she were ready, she would come to me. I knew she was right, but I hated it. I even sat and talked with Ben, who agreed that I should just give Ivy time and leave her alone. But neither of them understood how I felt. Neither of them could feel the way that I was dying inside without her. I couldn’t just sit around and do nothing.

  I tried showing up at her apartment and knocking loud enough every time that Ivy would hear me and that she would maybe come to the door just so that I could see her. I knew that if I could only just hold her for a moment, that I could fix this. I could fix everything that had happened. But she never came to the door, and Bridget held fast to not letting me inside. I appreciated what a good friend Bridget was being to Ivy. I would have done the same thing, to be honest. But I was Ivy’s best friend, and I was the one who was supposed to be there for her. How could I be there for her if I couldn’t even get through the front door? I waited for Ivy to show back up to work, and I asked Ben how long she would be out for. But he didn’t know, and even though I went to the bookstore every day, Ivy never came in.

  I had laid an exuberant amount of work on Janet since I had been absent from the office so much recently. I gave her a raise and a promotion, and she actually rose to the task and was keeping things at work running smoothly during the midst of this existential crisis that I was continuing to have. When Janet started to pick up a bit on what was going on with me, she made a suggestion.

  “If you’re trying to win back a girl with a broken heart,” she said as she came in to set a stack of papers down on my desk. “You should try making a few gestures of affection.”

  “Like what?” I asked. “And how did you even know?”

  Janet chuckled. “It’s not hard to see when a guy is struggling because of a girl. And I don’t know, but I’m sure you can figure out a few cute things to do; you’re a billionaire, so you have everything at your disposal literally.”

  She was right; I did.

  The next day I tried to do a bunch of billionaire-style, over-the-top things to get Ivy’s attention. I sent gifts to her apartment and even flooded the bookstore with flowers just in case she decided to go back to work. I got everything that I could think of and wrote a love note with each thing that I sent. It would have been impossible for her not to take notice.

  Finally, later in the evening, as I was resuming my whiskey and pacing, which had become somewhat of a nightly ritual now, Ivy texted.

  “Let’s talk,” her text said.

  I was thrilled and relieved that Janet’s suggestion had worked, and I texted Ivy back immediately and asked her if she could come over now to talk with me.

  “I think you should come here instead,” she said.

  The tone of her text didn’t sound encouraging, and it made me worry that maybe things weren’t made any better by all of the things I had sent to her. But at least I was going to be able to see her.

  “On my way now,” I typed back as I grabbed my jacket and got into my car.

  When I got to her apartment, Bridget opened the door, and this time she let me all the way inside. I walked in and saw Ivy sitting on the couch in her pajamas with a giant wad of blankets wrapped around her. Her long brown hair was tied up into a messy bun on the top of her head, and her eyes were swollen as if she had been crying for days.

  “I’ll let you two have some privacy,” Bridget said as she excused herself to her bedroom.

  “Ivy,” I said as I sat down beside her and reached for her hands.

  She quickly tucked them back underneath the blanket before I could touch her, and I felt a pang of sadness run through me. I looked around the room briefly, and I didn’t see any of the things that I had sent to her. I only saw the note that I had written, sitting on the coffee table with worn-looking edges as if it had been folded and unfolded several times.

  “I think that we should go back to being just friends,” she said. She let out a big exhale as if she had been holding in her breath until she was able to say the words.

  “What? No! Ivy, please, let’s talk about this,” I pleaded.

  “Easton, I am never going to fit in with your wealthy and fast-paced lifestyle. I’m never going to be enough for you. There will always be prettier and more experienced women to tempt you, and I will always just be the same me. I can’t bear the thought of losing my best friend, too; I am so lost without you that I can’t even function. I think we’re probably just better off staying as best friends.”

  I looked at her as she spoke, and I listened carefully to each word that she said, and I could tell that it was crushing her to say them. “No,” I said. “There will never be any women who are prettier than you, and I am not tempted by any woman other than you, Ivy. Not anymore. It’s killing me, too, this separation between us, and I can’t bear the thought of losing my best friend, either. But I also can’t bear the thought of losing you as my lover.”

  Ivy laughed, but it was a pitiful sounding laugh. “We aren’t lovers, Easton. We haven’t ever even made love to each other.”

  I reached for my note on the table and unfolded it and laid it in her lap as I pointed at it. “Didn’t you read this?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she said as tears welled in her eyes. “I read it.”

  “I love you, Ivy. That makes us lovers. And I will make love to you many more times than you will be able to count. I don’t want you to fit in with my lifestyle; I want us to create our own together. I can’t let go of you, not as my best friend or as the woman I love and want to be with in every way. I won’t.”

  “But—”

  I don’t give her the chance to argue with me. “I am still the same guy from high school, the same guy who has been your closest friend for all these years. I am still the same guy you can trust with everything. I know I blew it, but I swear to you that I won’t ever blow it again. You can trust me, Ivy, even with your heart. I was a fool not to be with you all those years ago. Please give me a second chance. I promise I won’t screw it up.”

  I watched as her face contorted and she tried not to cry. I hated that I had caused her this much pain and anguish. I just wanted to make it all go away. I reached forward and wrapped my arms around her shoulders, and she let me. She leaned her head against my chest, and I held her just like I always did whenever she was upset. Except for this time, it was me that she was upset about.

  “I promise, Ivy,” I whispered to her again as I rested my chin against the top of her head. “I promise that I won’t let you down again.”

  I looked up and saw Bridget stand
ing in the doorway of her bedroom. She had tears rolling down her cheeks, too. I think she knew how hard this was for both of us, and I think she wanted it to work, too. She ducked back into her room when Ivy lifted her head to look at me.

  “I can’t go through this again,” she said. “You can’t ever do this to me again.”

  “I won’t,” I said softly as I leaned forward to kiss her. “I promise.”

  Our lips touched, and I could taste the saltiness from her tears as they ran into our open mouths. I kissed her gently and patiently and waited for her tongue to come to me. As soon as it did, I sucked my breath in and kissed her with a passion and longing that would put the classic love stories to shame. I held her face in my hands and kissed her as our tears ran together along our pressing jaws. We kissed until we had to stop to catch our breath, and I held her face while we looked at each other and wiped her wet cheekbone with my thumb.

  “I will never let you go,” I said to her.

  “I don’t ever want to let you go, either,” she said.

  “Then don’t.”

  We sat together on the couch for a while as I held her wrapped in my arms. She leaned up against my chest, and we watched Bridget’s terrier running around, playing with its ball. When Bridget came back out of her room, she glanced at us, curled up together on the couch and watching her dog play, and smiled.

  “You know what,” she said as she scooped up Peacock in her arms to go outside for a walk. “We should all go on a double date.”

  I looked at Ivy with a bit of anxiety at the mention of a double date again.

  “Ben and Bridget are dating now,” she said as she smiled and clued me in on what I had missed. “And yes, I think that would be a good idea. A double date with you guys sounds fun.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I nodded in agreement.

  “Can you call that fancy nightclub and get the four of us in?” Bridget asked. “Ever since I picked up Ivy there, I’ve been dying to see what it looks like on the inside.”

  “Is that okay with you?” I asked Ivy, thinking that she probably never wanted to set foot in that place again.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I think it would be nice to make a good memory in that club to replace the old one. Besides, the bartender was really nice, and I owe him another thanks.”

  “Okay then,” I said. “I’ll make it happen. Tomorrow night sound good?”

  Bridget nodded as she walked out the door with Peacock.

  “You know, I owe that bartender another thanks, too,” I said.

  “You do? Why?”

  “Because not only was he looking out for you that night, but he told me something pretty significant right before I left the club as well. Something that I should have listened to more closely.”

  “What was it?”

  “He told me that he could tell that you and I loved each other.”

  “Really? Wow, that is pretty in-tune for a bartender to pick up on,” she said. “Easton?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t ever want to talk about Layla again, okay? I don’t want to see her again, and I don’t want to talk about her. I just want to forget about the whole thing and move on.”

  “Of course,” I said. “We won’t see her again. I made it very clear that I was done, and I doubt that she’ll even come to the bookstore again now.

  I felt Ivy snuggle deeper into my arms, and she wove her fingers between mine. This was the feeling that I had been missing all week—the feeling of being with her, tightly and comfortably together, as more than friends. I wasn’t going to let anything get between us ever again.

  “Okay,” she said. “That’s good.”

  I held onto her as Bridget got back and dropped the dog down onto the floor with its little paws already hitting the ground, running to play. Bridget walked back to take a shower before dinner, and I wrapped my arms tighter around Ivy. She was everything to me.

  20

  Chapter Thirteen (Ivy)

  I was looking forward to the double date with Ben and Bridget. They were so much fun to be around, and even though we were going back to that dreadful nightclub, this time it would be different. It wasn’t the club itself that was the problem; it had just been the events of that night. This time, Easton and I would be going together as a couple, and we would be going with mutual friends who weren’t there to get wasted and get sexed-up. We were all just going to enjoy a couple of drinks and people-watch the dancers at the night club. Plus, this time, I wanted to dance with Easton. The memory of how hot his body looked as he moved to the music had been a reoccurring image in many of my dreams, and I wanted desperately to be the one he was dancing with. Tonight I would finally get to be.

  Ben came over to meet us at our apartment, and then Easton showed up shortly afterward to drive us to the club. The bouncer knew him so well that they even recognized his car as it pulled in and immediately took the keys to valet it and opened the rope to let us inside. When we walked in, Bridget and Ben were both awestruck by how cool and wildly decadent the nightclub was. The three of us went to sit down at a high-top table beneath some hip, dangling overhead lights that shined a violet glow of mood lighting, while Easton went to order us drinks. The cocktail menu was extensive, and he promised to bring back something delightful for all of us. I could see that it was still the same bartender working tonight, and I watched as he and Easton shared a friendly handshake at the bar.

  I watched Easton as he leaned against the bar in his black jeans and T-shirt, and I wondered how in the world I had gotten so lucky as to have such a stunningly gorgeous man want to be with me. When he turned and started to walk back toward the table, balancing four drinks in his hands, he smiled, and I felt like I was melting.

  “Oh, these are so cool!” Bridget said as she picked up her drink. “I’ve never tasted a drink that glows before.”

  I laughed as she and Ben both took satisfying sips of the delicious concoctions. It was cool. The whole place was, and I was glad that the four of us were here together. Easton sat beside me with his hand in my lap while the four of us talked and laughed and watched the interesting crowd all around us. It was fun and was exactly what we had needed in order to bridge the gap between what had happened and moving on.

  “Easton!” a woman’s shrill voice called from behind us.

  “Fuck,” Easton said under his breath.

  Layla and a small pack of predatory-looking beautiful people that surrounded her walked up to where we were sitting. “How surprising to see you here with these other people.” Her jab at the working class like us didn’t go unnoticed.

  “This isn’t your club, Layla,” Easton said. “I can bring whoever I want to bring. And the place is large enough for us not to get in each other’s way.”

  “Aww, come one, Easton,” she said as she put a fake pout on her mouth. “Just because you said we weren’t going to hang out and talk anymore doesn’t mean that we can’t still be friendly at the club, does it?”

  “Yes, Layla. It does.”

  “Don’t worry about him, Foxy,” the man next to her said as he put his arm around her shoulder. “He’s just distracted by the smutty riffraff that he’s slumming it with now.”

  “What did you say?” Easton growled.

  I felt his hand in my lap, clench up into a fist. “Easton, no,” I whispered to him as I tried to hold onto his arm. “It’s not worth it, just ignore them.”

  The man next to Layla laughed. “Yeah, we’re definitely not worth it,” he sneered at Eason. “Listen to your cheap whore and let the rich kids play.”

  Before I could do anything to stop him, Easton jumped up from the table and punched the guy in the face. Bridget, Ben, and I looked on in horror as Easton beat the shit out of the guy while Layla and her friends stood there screaming. Within a matter of moments, the bartender had jumped over the bar and was in front of us, pulling Easton off of the other man.

  The guy stood up and glared at Easton as the blood from his broken nose ran down
his face. “You’re going to regret laying a hand on me, prick,” he taunted as he turned and walked away with a still-screaming Layla.

  Easton was still shaking from anger as I tried to put my hand on his back. The bartender still had a hold of his arm.

  “You good now, man?” the bartender asked. “Can I let you go, or are you going to fly off half-cocked again?”

  “I’m fine,” Easton snarled in a low voice.

  “I’m going to have to escort you out for the night,” the bartender said. “It’s either the bouncer or me, and I’d suggest me.”

  Easton nodded. “I understand. I’m sorry about the mess I caused.”

  “Don’t be,” the bartender smiled back at him. “That guy is an asshole, and he had it coming to him. I would have done the same thing. Tonight you were the one to protect your girl, nothing to apologize for with that.”

  “Thanks, man,” Easton said as he went to shake his hands. He flinched when the bartender grabbed his hand to shake, and I looked down at his bloodied and quickly swelling hands.

  “Let’s go home,” I said as the three of us all started to walk out beside him. “You need to get some ice on your hands.”

  Easton apologized to everyone on the ride back, but honestly, none of us were upset. Bridget and Ben thought the whole thing was cool, and I was just glad that Easton had the upper hand and hadn’t gotten hurt. I had no idea that he was so good at fighting. I wondered where he had learned that skill because it certainly wasn’t part of the college finance program or his career dealing with investments. We got to the apartment, and Bridget and Ben got out of the car to go inside. I looked over at his bleeding hands and purplish knuckles that were too swollen to even grip the steering wheel properly.