Page 27 of When Ivy Met Mr. Holiday
I cleared my throat and killed the butterflies. “Phyllis, this is Jack, if you hadn’t already guessed. Jack, this is Phyllis.”
Phyllis held out her hand like a Renaissance maiden, chin high, expectant—as if Jack knew exactly what to do..
Jack ate that right up and obliged her, kissing her hand.
Oh, jeez, even my adopted grandma wasn’t immune to his charm.
“It’s so lovely to meet you,” Phyllis purred. You heard that right—she purred like a kitten.
Jack gently released her hand. “The pleasure is all mine. Ivy’s told me so much about you.”
“Same, darling. I’m happy to see you finally realized what a catch our Ivy is.”
Jack didn’t miss a beat.
“I’ve always known.”
I wanted to elbow him.Tone it down, Romeo.He needed to be more subtle, not play this part like he was up for an Oscar. This was only going to make it worse when we broke up. I was going to have to act super devastated. Maybe even betrayed. At this rate, we might have to avoid each other for a while after the breakup to really sell it. I didn’t want that.
I just wanted to go back to the way things were. Back to being his best friend in the background, cheering him on. Not worrying about OREO crumbs on my face. Or how many Instagram feeds I was about to end up in, wearing matching Christmas sweaters with Mr. Holiday himself.
“I like you.” Phyllis winked.
“I watched some of your films. You’re an incredible actress.The Velvet Affairparticularly impressed me. Scandalous for its day. But you played the role of Vivian the misunderstood heiress perfectly.”
I whipped my head around to face Jack. “You watched her movies?”
“Of course.” Jack’s tone implied it was obvious that he would watch them. “You said you loved them, and you knew the star. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Wow, Jack.”
I was absolutely flabbergasted and at a loss for words. He really was the best friend ever. If truth be told, I wished the guys I dated were more like him. Just not famous—or my best friend.
“I told you, I want to love the things you love. This one was easy.” He tappedmy nose.
Oh. Oh. Oh no.I had this weird urge to kiss him. So much so that I had to press my lips together before I did something foolish and irreversible. While Jack was touchy-feely, he would probably consider kissing me to be like kissing a sister. But dang it if he didn’t look so sweet and sexy, pretending to stare at me like I was his world. Plus, he seemed to be sincere about wanting to love the things I loved, and that made him even more kissable.
“This man is a keeper, Ivy,” Phyllis commented.
Why did everyone keep saying that? But really, I knew why. He was so freaking charming. But he wasn’t mine to keep. At least, not in the way everyone thought. But I did want to keep him in my life, and the only sure way to do that was to stay friends.
Besides, after seven years of proving him wrong about men and women, I couldn’t give up now. That was crazy talk.
Chapter Eight
“A friendship between a man and a woman was what you called it when one had been pursuing the other for a long time and never gotten anywhere.”
Joe Abercrombie
Jack
“Ivy,”Iwhisperedafterthe tenth squeak of the bed in a matter of seconds. “Will you stop being so stubborn and just sleep down here with me? At this rate, your dad’s going to be banging on the door any minute now.”
Anothersqueak.
Several seconds later, Ivy’s gorgeous, infuriating head appeared, dangling upside down from the top bunk. The bed groaned louder, as if to prove a point. My point—that we should just share the bottom bunk. Of course, I would be a gentleman about it. Especially after she kept telling me to lay off acting like her boyfriend so well. But I could see in her eyes that she liked it. Honestly, I could have sworn at the retirement community that she was going to kiss me. Or maybe that was wishful thinking.
“I’m sorry; I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about all the stupid things I said in front of my family today. And let’s not forget about the new batch of photos circulating online, or Sienna’s not-so-subtle dig directed toward me on her social media accounts.”
