Page 15 of Fire

Pale.

“Thank you.” She won’t meet my eyes. “I’m so embarrassed—” She chokes on a sob and swallows hard, shaking her head like she can free herself from whatever’s going on in there.

“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Not between us.” Questions hide in my words. What happened between us, Ives? Why don’t you want me around?

Ivy huffs, closing her eyes and shaking her head. “You’re something else, you know that?”

It doesn’t sound like a compliment, and I sigh deeply. “I may have heard that once or twice in my life.” But never from her. Never like this. “What’s going on? What happened?”

Those simple questions encapsulate so much. Why are you sad? Why do you look at me like an enemy when I see you as the girl who will always be for me? Why are you having a panic attack in a parking lot, driving a beat-up car, and living in a house that isn’t big enough for the three of you?

“I just got a call from the school. Nell fell on the playground.”

“Nell.” I try the name on, rolling it around in my mouth, coming to terms with my Ives as a mother to another man’s child. I rock back on my heels and stand.

Nell…

“My daughter.” Ivy’s eyes meet mine with a lift of her chin. She’s defiant now. Challenging me to say anything about the little girl whose existence proves I didn’t mean as much to her as I thought I did.

I lean against the car, folding my arms over my chest. “Is she okay? She didn’t get hurt, did she?”

“She’s fine. But between the fire and—” Ivy closes her eyes, shaking her head. “It’s just been a lot. When the bags broke, I guess I kind of did too.”

“I totally understand.”

“Well, that’s mighty good of you.” Her jaw tenses and her brows furrow. Furious. Belligerent. Staring through me like she wishes she could burn a hole through my brain.

I don’t get it. Ivy is strong. Stubborn. But never antagonistic and certainly not without cause.

“Did I do something to make you mad?”

Shock paints an image of the girl I used to know over the woman in front of me. A spitfire who wouldn’t take shit from anyone, especially me. She swallows it down. “Of course not, Micah. Whatever could you have done?”

Her voice is sweet…and deadly.

I crouch again, cup her cheek, suddenly desperate to get to the heart of things. “Because it sure seems like you’re mad at me and you’ve always been…I always thought…”

The words die on my lips because what am I going to say? I always thought you’d come back to me and we’d pick up where we left off? That one day you’d be Ivy Hutton and your daughter would be our daughter and we’d live happily ever after?

Ivy’s eyes meet mine and there it is. The flash of heat that’s always existed between us. This pull. This certainty. This knowing that we were going to beat the odds because there’s something here. Something real. Her gaze darts to my mouth and it feels so much like I remember. An invitation. A wanting. We click, like pieces of a puzzle, coming together to make a whole.

I lean a little closer, ready to remember the taste of those lips.

Her hand covers mine. Leaning closer now. The heat between us builds and I don’t know which of us closes the distance, but her lips are soft against mine. Insistent. Warm and sweet and everything I remember. This is the way I imagined us coming back together. Drawn to each other because true love never dies. Her hands brush through my hair like they did when we were seventeen. Her touch is almost reverent until she freezes…

…pulls back…

…blinks away the past in favor of whatever the fuck is happening now.

“Micah…”

There’s a ring on her finger. A diamond the size of Manhattan. Pretentious. Expensive. I drop my hand from her cheek and stare.

“Oh.” The word falls into the conversation as I process the implications.

She twists the thing around her finger. It’s the kind of ring her dad would approve of, unlike the small house and decaying car.

“I left him. Or, well, I’m in the process of leaving him. I left the ring on for Nell.”

---