by A. Zavarelli
“I’ll just have a water,” I croak.
Conor shakes his head. “You need to eat. Either you pick out a flavor, or I’ll sort one out meself.”
Archer giggles. “Why don’t you have Oreo too, mama?”
He likes the idea of us together. The three of us unified in our ice cream flavors. And I shouldn’t be giving him any more encouragement, but I can’t let him down. Not when he’s looking at me that way.
“Oreo is good.”
Conor turns to the cashier. “You heard the lady. Three Oreos in a cup.”
Ten minutes later, we’ve finished our ice cream, and Conor and Archer are playing a game of Tic Tac Toe on a napkin while I watch. As much fun as Archer’s having, I’m afraid that Conor will want to leave after this. He’s under no obligation to stay, and he’s already taken the better part of his day just to drive me up here. But I’m not ready to go yet. Not when I haven’t been able to spend any real time with Archer.
When Conor looks up at me, I can’t tell if he recognizes that, or it’s just my imagination. “What else is there to do in this town?”
Archer contemplates the question for a minute before he decides. “Bowling?”
“Bowling, huh?” Conor scratches his chin. “I suppose we could give that a try. What do you think, mama?”
“Sure.” I give Archer a smile and try my best to avoid Conor’s gaze. Every second we spend together feels like I’m dodging landmines, and I can’t make sense of my feelings.
Conor drives us to the bowling alley, and over the next two hours, he teaches Archer how to play using bumpers and a ramp. I try to make conversation with Archer like we usually do when we’re together, but he seems more interested in replicating Conor’s every move, and by the time we drop him at Lacey’s, I don’t feel like we’ve visited at all.
I’m irritated and frustrated when I say goodbye, but I try to force it down. Archer asks when we’re coming back and Conor ruffles his hair and promises soon. I give him a hug and a kiss, and then we get back on the highway. I’m still quiet and tense, a ticking time bomb, and Conor senses it.
“Will ye just tell me what the bleeding hell the problem is already?” he barks.
I glare at him.
“You’ve been huffin and puffin all day, and I can’t figure you out. Did ye not have a good time today? Because Archer and I had a grand time.”
“You aren’t his father,” I snap.
The muscle in Conor’s jaw ticks, and I know I’ve offended him, but I don’t care. I’m too far past the point of reason. I’m wounded that Archer wants to spend more time with him than his own mother, and I want Conor to feel the way I do. It’s childish and silly, but I’m too emotional to think straight. Between his hot and cold personality and my life being in shambles for so long, logic abandoned me a long time ago.
“I’m your husband.” Conor’s grip tightens on the steering wheel. “So, in fact, that would make me his step-father. And I wasn’t aware you’d get so uptight about me being nice to the kid.”
“It’s not about the fact that you were nice to him,” I bite out. “It’s about the fact that he spent all his time with you today, and I barely got to—”
My voice chokes up, and I can’t get the rest out. Adding to my embarrassment, real tears have started to fall down my cheeks. Conor pulls the car off onto a gravel side road, driving us into a thicket of trees away from the highway. I feel ridiculous and humiliated, and when Conor reaches out to touch me, it’s exactly what I want but everything I don’t need.
“It’s only because I’m new and exciting,” he assures me. “You will always be his number one, Ivy. Ye have no need to worry about that. A boy needs his mother and he always will.”
“Stop it,” I sniffle. “Quit being nice to me.”
He blinks, and then his gaze turns dark. I try to shove him away, but he reaches for my chin and squeezes it between his fingers. “You’re my wife. If I want to touch ye, or be nice to ye, or do anything else to ye, I will.”
“That isn’t what you said this morning.”
Conor glares at me, and then his eyes drift to my lips. The car feels too hot, and his fingers are too strong for me to fight, but deep down, I know I don’t want to. That’s the problem. He’s worming his way into every aspect of my life, and I don’t like it.
I don’t like that my eyes are on his lips too, or that every time I move, I can still feel him inside of me last night. Everything is happening too fast, and the alarm bells are going off, alerting me that this man is dangerous. He’s the worst possible threat to me, because I know deep down that I could really fall in love with him. And right now, in such close proximity, I can’t think straight. So, I reach for the door handle and yank it open, clamoring out of the car into the fresh air.
“Chrissakes,” Conor growls.
He’s right behind me, chasing me around the car. I don’t know where this dirt road goes, but I intend to follow it. At least until he catches me around the waist from behind and drags me back to the car. I fight him the entire way, elbowing him, cursing him, trying to kick at his shins. My emotional state has taken a nose dive off the deep end.
Conor pins me down against the car with his body weight and grabs a fistful of my hair. “Calm down, ye maniac.”
“No,” I snarl. But I can’t move even an inch with his frame pressed against mine.
“Look at me,” he demands.
I don’t want to, but a weaker part of me caves in and submits to his request. My eyes meet the blazing green in his, and my heart thumps harder. Louder.
“You belong to me now,” he rumbles. “Get that through your thick head before ye try something like that again.”
He drives his point home by smashing his lips against mine in a kiss that is both brutal and possessive. At some point, I stop fighting him and melt beneath his touch like a traitor. His hands are all over me then. Clawing at my clothes. Reaching up to cup my breasts and yanking down my jeans. I hear his zipper, and then feel the searing heat of his hard flesh.
When he squeezes himself into me from behind, a feral sound claws its way out of my throat. He’s breathing hard, kissing my face and my lips and tugging on my hair while he pounds into my flesh, using me like I’m driving him insane too. I want to believe it. I want it desperately. But I can’t give in. I can’t allow myself to fall for him.
It doesn’t stop me from coming for him though. It doesn’t stop me from pleading for him and kissing him back. And it doesn’t make me come to my senses and ask him to pull out. When his cock finally unleashes, flooding me with warmth, there’s a sick satisfaction in me that proves I’m all sorts of fucked up. Because I needed this from him. I wanted it. And I think the worst part is that Conor knows it.
He kisses me again while his dick softens inside of me, but this time it’s sweeter. Deeper. All consuming. He has no reason to kiss me now except that he wants to. And that’s what scares me the most.
“I thought you said—”
“I know what I said.” He pulls out and tucks himself back into his pants. “Now get your arse in the car and put yourself back together. If we’re going to do this, we’re not going to phone it in.”
19
CONOR
“WHAT ARE WE DOING?” Ivy shifts in the passenger seat and stares out the window as I park in front of her friend’s house.
I turn off the ignition and twirl the keys around my finger. “Go inside and pack your son’s bags. I’ll wait here.”
“What do you mean?” Her head swivels in my direction, eyes wide.
“He’s coming home with us. Tonight.”
“Conor, that’s not a good idea—”
“It’s not up for debate,” I tell her. “Your son should be where you are. And I won’t have ye moping around the house all day wishing ye could be here instead. It makes no sense.”
“This isn’t a decision we can make in a few seconds,” she argues. “There is a lot more involved with having a kid. We need to decide
what’s in his best interest and being in a house where—”
“He will never be any safer than he is when he’s with me,” I say. “And I’m not a bleeding idiot. I know what goes into having a kid. But I also know that if you don’t get your arse in that house to pick him up, then I will. So, what’s it going to be?”
Her attention drifts back to the house, equal parts longing and uncertainty in her eyes. I know how much she’s missed him. I also know she’s scared I’m going to let her down or go back on my word or fuck this up somehow. It would be a wasted breath to tell her otherwise. Ivy needs to figure out on her own that she can trust me, the sooner the better.
“How do you think this is going to go down?” she asks. “Who will take care of him while I’m at work?”
“You will take care of him. Ye’re done at the club, I told ye that already.”
“Yes, but I’ll need another job,” she reasons. “Kids cost money and I need to make sure Archer has everything he needs.”
“You’ll have a card linked to my account by the end of the week,” I assure her. “You don’t need to worry about money. Whatever he needs, whatever you need, it’s yours.”
She doesn’t answer because she’s too busy thinking of all the ways this could go wrong, and I don’t have all day. I reach for the door handle, and she turns her wild eyes to me.
“C’mon,” I tell her. “We’ll do it together.”
“I think we wore him out today,” Ivy says.
My eyes move to the rearview mirror. After all the excitement of coming with us, the kid passed out before we made it ten miles from the house. Ivy is quiet again, but it’s a nervous quiet, judging by the incessant fidgeting she’s doing beside me. She lasts for all of two minutes before I feel her eyes on me.
“You’re good with kids.”
I crane my neck to the side, hoping to release some of the tension there. “Like I said, I had some experience.”
“Your little brother?”
I jerk my chin.
“What’s his name?”
A hot flush crawls up my throat, and I don’t want to answer, but it comes out anyway. “Brady.”
“Will we meet him too?”
She’s treading carefully, aware this conversation is breaching dangerous territory, and yet she’s asking anyway. The irrational part of me wants to question her motivations and lash out at her but the logical part of me understands it’s innocent.
She told me her story, and I meant it when I said I didn’t want to phone this in. When I saw her break down today, it occurred to me how much Ivy needs me. She needs someone to be strong for her when she can’t. Someone to do the hard things and take her worries away. And for the first time in my life, I want to be that for someone.
I want to make my wife happy and give her a life she deserves. Not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because every time I look at her, I don’t want to stop. Right now, the uncertainty of our situation is written in her eyes. But one day, if we make it through this, it might be something else reflected back at me. All of that’s going to take time, but we’ll never get there if we don’t build a foundation of honesty. Maybe it’s a mistake on my part, but I decide to give her the same honesty she offered me.
“You can’t meet Brady because he’s passed on.”
“Oh.” She bows her head and folds her hands together. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize.”
There’s a beat of silence that I’m grateful for until she speaks again.
“Can I ask what happened to him?”
“He got tangled up with the wrong crowd,” I answer. “The kid was young, still looking for his place in the world. Thought he could find it with a bunch of piss ass fuckers who like to call themselves gangsters. But things went south, and they killed him.”
Ivy swallows hard and I wonder if Brady’s story leaves a bitter taste in her mouth, considering her own. “That’s really awful.”
“Aye, it was.”
“I’ve heard that it helps,” she says in a gentle tone. “If you talk about them.”
That’s the most ridiculous shite I’ve ever heard. But when I see the genuine curiosity in her eyes, something shifts inside of me, breaking apart the fortress I’ve kept around Brady’s memory these last few years. I can hardly understand what’s happening myself when the words start coming out of my mouth.
“He was a good lad. A little shy, a lot goofy. He didn’t have a lot of friends. Didn’t know how to put himself out there, I guess. But I didn’t think it bothered him too much. His nose was always stuck in a book. I couldn’t understand it myself, but the kid loved to read. And when he wasn’t doing that, he was helping out the neighbors. Not for money, but just because he thought it was the right thing to do. He’d help them with their groceries, trim their lawns, whatever needed doing, he would get after it.”
“He sounds like a good kid.” Ivy smiles. “How old was he?”
“Only sixteen when he died. I suppose he was at that age where he was trying to figure things out for himself and decided he wanted to prove something. My Pop drilled it into Brady’s head he was too soft. It didn’t make a difference how much I told him otherwise, there was no getting rid of that notion.”
“It sounds like you two were close,” she observes.
“Aye, we were. I took care of him. Practically reared the lad meself. We didn’t have much in this world, but we had each other. My Pop took his last breath in prison, and Ma made a quick exit with a needle in her arm.”
“I’m sorry,” she murmurs. “That had to be difficult for you.”
I don’t answer, but Ivy has the good sense to recognize I’ve said about all I want to on that subject.
“Is that why you were so sure I was on drugs?” she hedges. “Because of your mom?”
I don’t see the point in omitting anything else at this point. It’s a sore subject for me, but not for the reasons she thinks. “My ex was a junkie too. It’s just not something I have the patience to tolerate anymore. She would have sold her soul for her last fix, and in the end, she did.”
There’s a quiet understanding between us when she lets that statement rest without pushing it further.
“I’m not close with my family.” She lays her head back against the headrest. “They are very conservative. When they found out I was pregnant out of wedlock, they wanted nothing to do with me or Archer.”
Without giving it too much thought, I reach over and squeeze her knee. “It’s their loss.”
A dry laugh wheezes from her throat. “They’d have a coronary if they saw what my life was like now.”
“You mean married to the likes of me?”
Her eyes soften when she looks at me. “Just everything. The last couple years have been an epic failure on my part. They would be so ashamed of me.”
“It wasn’t your fault. You can’t control what other people do to you.”
Her head dips, and her voice is polluted with the unknown. “Do you think they’ll still try to come after me once they know I’m with you?”
“They won’t ever come after ye again, Twigs. I’ll make sure of it, even if it’s the last thing I do.”
20
IVY
OVER THE NEXT TWO WEEKS, our lives fall into a comfortable pattern. Conor gets up long before the day begins and goes to work, leaving Archer and I to eat breakfast alone. After his morning preschool, we spend our afternoons together, playing and reading and treasuring every moment we’ve been given.
It’s everything I ever wanted, and the relief I feel at having him home with me can’t be put into words. But I can’t deny there’s still a part of me that feels empty too. There are still so many uncertainties ahead of us.
From the moment Conor dropped us off at the house, he made it clear that we had rules to live by. We aren’t to leave unless he or one of the other guys is around to take us. He said it was to keep us safe, but I also wondered if he was afraid that we were going to leave him.
&nbs
p; He hasn't touched me since that day that we picked up Archer in New Hampshire. He left shortly after and has only been home for a few hours each night to sleep on the sofa. He insisted that I sleep in his bed and Archer has his own room set up down the hall. We have everything we need. A roof over our heads, food in our bellies, and we’re together again. But Conor’s absence is felt every day.
He warned me that his job keeps him busy, but I feel like this is something else. I feel like his absence is intentional, and I don't know what to make of the cold front. I spend far too much time trying to make sense of him. I shouldn’t care what he’s doing or where he’s at, but the thought has crossed my mind that he’s at Sláinte entertaining himself with someone else. Perhaps that's why he hasn't touched me.
It doesn't help matters that Archer asks about him several times throughout the day, wondering when he’s coming home. I specifically expressed my fears to Conor regarding my son, and a part of me hates him for that. If he never intended to be a presence in Archer’s life, then he should have never acted like he was.
Realistically, I know it’s not smart to let myself feel this way. Getting upset or trying to figure him out should be the last thing on my mind. What matters is my exit strategy. Since Conor forced me to quit the only job I had, I have no source of income other than what he offers me. He gave me a debit card as promised and insisted that I use it as much as I need.
I never had any intentions of being a kept woman. Regardless of what Conor says, I can’t bank on his promises or this marriage working out. So, even though I hate myself for it, I’ve been withdrawing small amounts of cash every time I go to the store to stash away for an emergency.
But for now, all I can do is sit on the sofa and stuff my face with ice cream until I figure out a better plan. Which is exactly what I’m doing when Conor walks in the door. When our eyes meet, I can tell right away that something isn’t right. He looks beat down and exhausted, but even worse is the blood on his shirt. The sight of it compels me to go to him without any further thought. It isn't until I reach him, and my hands are on his body checking him for injury that I realize how silly it is.
