Page 2 of Finding Gwen

Not thinking, I stepped out of the front seat, grabbing the bat. Without hesitation, I swung the bat and made contact with one of his taillights. As I stood there, staring at the red plastic scattered at my feet, all the adrenaline left my body and the severity of my situation finally hit me. I was unemployed and homeless. Fuck.

“That fucking asshole.” Ivy handed me a glass of wine and a bag of peas. Sitting cross-legged on my best friend’s couch, I stared at the glass in my hand as I put the peas against my warm cheek. While driving to her apartment, I had let the floodgates open, showing up to her front door with puffy eyes and a dripping nose. She had immediately wrapped me up in her arms, giving me the biggest hug, before leading me to her couch. I had seen anger in her eyes as she glanced at my cheek, knowing full well it was probably bright red, before she went to the kitchen.

Ivy and I had met in college. To be honest, I couldn’t tell you the when or where. It felt as if we had known each other our entire lives. All I knew was that after graduation, when I moved in with Matt, she insisted on staying close by, so I would always have a friend. “You never know,” was what she always said. Right now, words could never express how grateful I was for my friend’s crazy intuition.

Ivy laid a blanket on my lap before sitting on the edge of the couch with her own glass of wine. This was one of the biggest reasons I loved Ivy: she never pressured me to say or do anything. When I was upset, she simply let me sit in my feelings and held space with me.

“You ready to talk about what happened, sweet pea?” she finally asked.

“I quit my job,” I blurted. “The mom came home and started tearing into me yet again. I decided enough was enough and walked out. When I got home, I found Matt balls deep with another woman in our bed.” I took a drink of my wine, hoping it would help.

“Did he do that?” Ivy gestured to my cheek with her wine glass.

“Yeah, he did,” I muttered. “When he chased after me, begging me to listen to his stupid excuses, I lost it. He pinned me against the wall, and when I screamed at him to let me go, he snapped.” I didn’t stop the tears from falling. Dropping the peas into my lap, I chugged the rest of the wine. When Matt had hit me the first time, I had called Ivy. She wanted me to leave him right then and there, but I couldn’t. “I’m trying to convince myself this isn’t my fault, but what if it is?”

“Gwendalyn Brookes…” Ivy meant business when she used my full name. My fingers flexed around the empty glass in my hand, trying to hide the tremors. Ivy took it from me, placing both our glasses on her coffee table, then sat herself cross-legged directly in front of me.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do, Ivy.” I buried my face in my hands, avoiding her gaze. When Matt had proposed after three years of us living together, he did it in front of his family. My parents had passed unexpectedly in a car accident when I was in college, so the promise of a new family, even Matt’s, pushed me to say yes. Our relationship wasn’t perfect, but the scariness of the unknown had me staying where I was comfortable. The endless cycle of calm before the storm had even stopped once we started planning our wedding. Well, until today, when I came home to a cheating fiancé and everything started making sense.

Ivy’s hand on my knee pulled me back to the present as she cleared her throat before speaking.

“Gwen, listen. First of all, none of this is your fault. Matt is an asshole. He doesn’t deserve you.” I wiped my face with my hands before looking up at her. “Second of all, I know what you’re going to do. You’re going to take some time to clear your head and figure out what you want. We’ll make a game plan tomorrow. You’re not alone in this. It should go without saying, but you can crash on my couch as long as you need.”

“But Ivy—” I started, but was quickly cut off.

“Nope, not gonna hear it. Plus, now that we found out he’s a cheater, we get to go Carrie Underwood on his stupid Jeep. Should we start with keying the sides or slashing tires?” Ivy asked. I knew she would help me hide a body if I asked.

“I may have already taken my baseball bat to a taillight…” Ivy burst out laughing, and after a beat, I couldn’t help but join in.

“That’s my girl.” Standing up, Ivy walked to the kitchen and came back with the opened bottle of wine. After pouring a hefty amount into both of our glasses, she set the now nearly empty bottle on the table before handing me a glass. Plopping down beside me on the couch again, she pulled some of the blanket off my lap and put it on hers, even though she had a dozen blankets she could have grabbed. Palming the TV remote, she gave me a knowing look. “So, Dexter?”

“Absolutely.”

“To morally gray men!” Ivy held up her cup, and I clinked mine against it, chuckling in the process.

“To morally gray men,” I replied.

Chapter Two

Gwen

Several loud knocks on the front door had me rolling over on the couch. Pulling the blanket up under my chin, I let my body sink back into the couch, hoping whoever was at the door would leave if I just ignored them.

Just as I could feel sleep tugging me back under, another succession of knocks had me sitting up and outwardly groaning.

As I was about to stand up, Ivy’s bedroom door opened, and she walked out. Tying her robe around her waist, she pointed at me. “You better lay back down, sweet pea. I got this.” Chuckling, I wrapped my blanket back around my shoulders and curled up on the couch. Ivy’s slippers padded on the kitchen tile as the stranger at the front door started knocking again. The back of the couch faced the front door, so I wasn’t able to see who it was when she opened up.

“What do you want?” Ivy was not using her customer service voice, so it was someone she knew. Curiosity was about to get the better of me when a voice I recognized spoke.

“Ivy, I know she’s here. She doesn’t have anywhere else to go. Let me talk to her.” Matt…

“You have some nerve showing up here, demanding to talk to my best friend after everything you did.” Ivy was the kind of person who was calm and collected, even when she was mad. Her emotions didn’t always show, but right now, I could hear the fight in her next words. “I suggest you wait until Gwen is ready to listen to your bullshit.”

“This is ridiculous! Let me talk to my fiancé.” Fuck, the ring. Looking down at my hand, annoyance washed over me at the sight of my engagement ring still prominently sitting on my finger.

The sounds of struggles grabbed my attention, and I jumped off the couch to face the door. Matt was trying to push it open while keeping a foot between it and the frame so Ivy couldn’t close it. She may look tiny, but Ivy was surprisingly strong, and I’ve seen her take down men twice her size in her self-defense classes.

“God damn it, just let me in!” Matt yelled, and I flinched, even though I was across the room with a door and my best friend in between us.

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