Page 56 of When Ivy Met Mr. Holiday
Like an idiot, and someone who hadn’t spent the last twenty minutes telling herself she was absolutely not spending another night in Jack’s arms, I found myself crawling into the bottom bunk, curling up with Jack’s pillow and breathing in his musky scent.
I shut my eyes and pressed my face deeper into the pillow, telling myself I could stop this anytime I wanted to. I didn’t have a problem. Jack and I would be fine, just fine. Our friendship was safe.
Yes. Yes. Yes. I had to believe that.
I almost had myself convinced until Jack returned.
I rolled over to find him kneeling by the bed.
He looked as shaken as I felt.
“Is everything all right?” Did he know the thoughts I was having? Please no.
He immediately flipped a switch and grinned while holding up a paper bag from the specialty grocery store, The Market, in town.
“Period care package special delivery for Ivy.”
Oh, that was it. We weren’t safe. At. All.
I bit my lip. “How did you know my period started?”
Jack didn’t even blink. “Because I know you.”
Tears pricked my eyes, threatening to unleash and spillover.
Jack dropped the bag, making a loudthunkon the hardwood floor. His warm hand rested on my cheek.
“Ivy, what’s wrong?”
So much. But I couldn’t tell him the truth. I couldn’t tell him he might be right about men and women not being able to be friends, especially since he’d already said I was right and that they could be friends. Thatwecould be friends. A friend was all he would ever see me as.
I swallowed down the truth. “I just don’t feel good. You know, period stuff,” I lied.
Again.
His thumb brushed my cheek. “Just give me a second and I’ll make it all better.”
Oh. I had a feeling he was going to make it much, much worse.
Chapter Eighteen
“Men are from Earth, women are from Earth. Deal with it.”
George Carlin
Jack
“Ican’tbelieveyouremembered that I love the homemade peanut butter ice cream from The Market. I mentioned it once like a million years ago.” Ivy dipped an OREO into the ice cream carton. Her smile had finally returned as we sat close together against the wall in what I now considered ourbed.
It helped calm my nerves and kept me from revealing that I’d had a run-in with Sienna at the grocery store. More than a run-in. I didn’t want to think about it.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
I needed to tell Ivy what happened, but she was happy now, and that was all that mattered to me at the moment. I didn’t want to stress her out about anything else. I knew how hard these past several days had been on her. And there was no way in hell I wanted to give her any reason to leave my side.
Would she leave my side if she knew Sienna had kissed me? If she had to deal with the firestorm that would cause if anyone had seen?
I didn’t think anyone had. And if they did, they would have also seen the revulsion on my face when she kissed me, and that I didn’t kiss her back.
