Page 67 of Undeniable

“You should probably slow down, honey.”

The little girl shrugged and took another long sip. “But it’ssogood!”

The mom handed me five little red tickets and ushered her daughter toward the ring toss booth. The little girl reminded me of Ivy at her age—stubborn, independent, willing to try anything. I smiled, remembering the number of times Forrest or I tried to dissuade her from doing something with us by saying it was only for the boys. It never stopped her and only made her try harder at whatever it was we didn’t want her to participate in in the first place.

We’d eventually learned that argument didn’t work. And we almost always had more fun when she was around anyway.

Forrest was assisting Brendon at the ring toss booth and caught me looking their way. He jerked his chin in my direction and quickly smiled before turning back to continue replacing the broken bottles. My refreshments booth was directly across from theirs. And it was from that spot I witnessed some middle school-aged punk take a ball he’d won at another booth and chunk it straight at the bottles.

Several of them clattered to the ground, shattering on impact. Brendon had looked ready to kick the kid out, but he ran off the second the first bottle shattered.

Everyone had stopped and gathered to see what the commotion was. No one else had jumped in, though, when I’d helped Brendon clean up as much of the glass as I could before a line formed for ICEEs.

He’d stopped by my booth a few times for a drink refill, and I’d stopped by his booth to drop off a few extra rings Ivy’s mom had asked me to give to him.

But every single time I saw him, all I could think about was Ivy telling him no.

It had been those thoughts initially that had driven me to the bar last night to drink way more than I should’ve, especially with no way to get back to Ivy’s house. But now those thoughts reminded me of the hushed conversation we’d had after she picked me up.

I wasn’t surprised she’d picked me up without hesitation because that was just the person she was. But I was surprised that she’d confessed so much afterward. I wasn’t too drunk to remember her quiet revelations, and I was still hanging on every single word.

She hadn’t been in love with him. Ivy’s quiet voice had been on a loop in my mind all day. Her soft words played over and over again, as did the conviction behind her confession and the truth that she was scared to let it happen again.

I still hadn’t spoken to her. That was the first thing I wanted to do that morning, but I’d rolled out of bed to find hers empty. My back was killing me from the little trundle, but I knew it was worlds better than the floor.

I’d gotten dressed and followed the smell of pancakes and bacon out into the kitchen. Ms. Sharpe was pouring orange juice into all the empty glasses while Mr. Sharpe, Forrest, and my parents were already gathered around the kitchen.

Ivy leaned over the stovetop, flipping pancakes and chatting along with them. Her mom smiled and motioned to the table, silently offering me a seat. I pulled out a chair, only to be stopped by Ivy’s expression. She’d turned from the stove, a hot skillet piled with bacon in her hand, and halted when she caught sight of me.

She nearly dropped the skillet as her eyes narrowed. She was livid about all of it, and honestly, I couldn’t blame her. I would’ve also been angry if I had to pick my drunk ass up from a bar in the middle of the night. I knew it was going to be the same story as the day before—we were going to do our best to keep away from each other as much as possible.

And we had. Except her face painting booth was diagonal from my own and I’d watched her all fucking day. I watched every child that left leave with a larger smile than when they’d arrived. She smiled and laughed with each of them and painted anything and everything they wanted.

And all I wanted was for her to turn that smile on me. Or for it to at least not disappear completely when I was around. But I couldn’t get my shit together long enough to give myself a real chance at making that happen.

I’d commandeered one of the dishrags for myself and dabbed at the sweat collecting on my forehead and upper lip. The sun had finally begun to set, but I didn’t expect much of a reprieve from the warm day.

We still had a few hours to go, but more and more people had begun gathering around the stage we’d built just on the other side of Ivy’s booth. The stage and the dance floor we’d broken our backs to put together were covered with the largest party tent I’d ever seen. And inside the tent, around the top, we’d hung hundreds of string lights that were set to turn on not long after the sun began to set.

A local band that apparently did killer covers of anything you could think of had volunteered to play the festival for free. They were already getting set up for their set when Forrest approached my booth.

“Hey, man.”

“Get all the bottles replaced?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, he broke nearly half of them.” He handed me his cup to refill with lemonade.

“Wish I recognized the kid, honestly.”

“I’m not surprised you didn’t,” he murmured when I handed him back his full drink. He gave me a look like he hadn’t actually meant to say it out loud and hesitantly took the cup from my hands.

He cleared his throat, shaking his head, and rubbed a hand through his red hair. “I didn’t mean—”

“Yeah, you did. And it’s okay. You’re right,” I sighed. I might have recognized that kid or known who his parents were if I’d come back to Willowwood more often. “I’m making it a priority, though, to come back more often.”

“Because of my sister.” His response was automatic, and there was no question in his voice. The hesitance I’d heard a second before was nonexistent.

My jaw clenched as I attempted to keep the frustration out of my voice. “For my mom.”

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