Page 94 of My Sweetest Obsession
I grin at her. “Well, now you have it.” Dipping my head, I drag my lips over her temple. “All the time in the fucking world…”
She pulls at the material, and I take a step back, reaching behind me to tug it off in one smooth motion. I toss it onto the floor and stand in front of her, suddenly feeling exposed in a way I never have before.
Her warm eyes move over me, across my chest to my NA medallion hanging from my neck. She reaches out and grabs it, running her fingers across it. “How come I’ve never seen this before?”
My old, familiar friend guilt tries to push its way into my head, but I fight to force it back. “I take it off while I paint so it doesn’t get anything on it.”
“What about when you’re not painting?”
She’s referring to the many times we’ve been together here, when she’s asked me to come over, when she’s needed me…
“I took it off when I came over here because it always felt like I was picking back up, like I was doing something wrong and giving into something that I knew was hurting me.”
Her gaze softens, an apology soaked in the wetness brimming around them. “I’m sorry I made you feel that way…”
“Don’t.” I press my thumb across her lips, silencing her. “Don’t apologize for something I freely gave you. I wanted to be here, Ivy. I knew what I was doing. Don’t feel guilty about anything that’s happened between us.”
It takes a few moments before she nods and returns her focus to examining me, her gaze drifting down my torso, and she dips her head to the side and grabs my hand, lifting it to examine the twining black and white snakes that swirl up my left arm. “What do these mean?”
My body starts to tremble as she examines them more closely, taking in every minute detail of the artwork I’ve worn on my skin for over a decade.
I swallow thickly, and her eyes flick up to meet mine in question. “They’re how I always saw Drew and me. I got this shortly after we graduated high school. When he went off to college, so sure of himself and his path to medical school, and I kind of…”—I shrug—“I knew I wanted to do the art thing, but I didn’t have much direction.”
Her brow furrows. “But you went to art school?”
“Eventually.” I nod. “It didn’t happen right away, though.”
She trails a finger over the dark snake, and then over the light one. “Which one is you?”
I can’t help the little laugh that slips from my lips. “Do you really have to ask that?”
Her gaze immediately flicks up to mine. “Of course I do.”
The sincerity in her words makes it hard to say what should be so obvious. “I think we both know that Drew was the light in this world, and I was the shadow.”
She shakes her head as tears well in her eyes. “That’s not true. You brought light back into my world when it was at its darkest.”
“Then I snuffed it out again…”
Ivy presses her lips together firmly like she’s trying to fight back a sob. “That light was still there. It was just hidden by all the guilt and anger and pain.” She reaches up and takes my face in her small, soft palm. “I don’t want you to ever see yourself as only one thing, Cam. Just like your paintings, you’re not all black and white. There are a thousand different shades of gray in them, and there are in you, too. And in me, and in everyone else.”
A tear slips from my eye, and she quickly swipes it away and kisses me softly before she moves her hand down to the small tattoo on my rib cage to examine it.
She pulls back with a raised brow. “That definitely isn’t what I was expecting…”
I smirk at her.
The two broken hearts with the word “crybaby” written across them have sat there for almost as long as the snakes have wound on my arm.
Her gaze flicks up from it. “You definitely need to explain this one to me.”
My lips twitch as I try to contain a smile at the flood of memories that come with that ink. “That’s what Drew used to call me.”
Wide, horrified eyes meet mine. “What?”
I chuckle. “Not in a hurtful way. I mean, it was at the beginning, but we were very young. I was always really emotional as a child, and I used to cry all the time.”
“And then things kind of switched when your dad died.”
