Page 66 of Windlass

“That people make assumptions about you.”

“People make assumptions about everyone. For example, I assumed you were very gay when I first met you. That handshake. Phew.” She fanned herself.

“You deflect really well. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“No one has called me out on it, no. Rude of you.” She glanced at Ivy, who waited and grinned.

“Yeah, since you seem to want to psychoanalyze me, I guess it does bother me,” she admitted. “People think I’m this peppy vanilla ball of sunshine and bad jokes.”

“Which part of that is wrong?”

“My jokes are awesome obviously.” She paused. She didn’t have to answer. Yet it was flattering to be asked. To be noticed. Her friends loved her and knew her, but perhaps because they loved and knew her, they also did not question the person she was with them. “It’s all wrong.”

“Now I’m intrigued. Also, the kid has really good form. Too bad she started late.”

“She’s, like, nine.”

“Fourteen.”

“Whatever.”

“What’s beneath the sunshine?” Ivy asked.

“My secret goth.”

“Really?”

“No.” She’d never fit easily into any category as a kid, and as an adult one of things she most enjoyed was no longer feeling like she needed to.

“Does Angie take you seriously?”

“Holden comes out of left field with a tackleanda machete,” said Stevie, reeling only partially in jest.

“It’s a fair question.”

“Is it?” Stevie glowered at the grass.

“How about the vanilla part?”

When Stevie glanced sideways at Ivy she saw the definite edge of a smirk around her mouth.

“She definitely doesn’t think that anymore,” she said, the truth slipping out.Shit. So much for that rule. Not that she had come out and explicitly saidI tied her up in the barn and got her off, then fisted her on the living room floor.

“Thatta girl.” Ivy used a phrase Stevie would not have thought to hear out of Ivy’s cultured mouth. It reminded her of some of the things she’d said to Angie, and a jolt of desire startled her.

“What about you? What assumptions bother you most?” Stevie asked, hoping to turn the tables.

“When I feel shitty, I hate that people still think I look healthy, and when I feel fine, I hate that people remember I have MS.”

“Fair enough. Lil doesn’t think that, though, and neither do the rest of us.”

“Thanks.”

“She’s going to understand what you’re trying to do with the proposal.”

Ivy shrugged and in a darker tone said, “Maybe. Relationships are the one place where the person most likely to understand doesn’t because they’re too emotionally invested.”

“A horrifying thing to say, Holden. Keep your hard truths to yourself and let the rest of us live in blissful ignorance.”

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