Page 130 of Puck Yes

I park my hands on my hips. “How do you know?” I’ll pick a fight over anything evidently.

Setting the weight down, Hayes stares at me like he’s the cool, in control older brother. “Because I’ve been here before. I’ve been traded.”

“She’s not being traded,” I bite out. “She has a choice.”

“And I did too. I could have turned down an offer and, oh, gee, not had a career.” He frowns. “This is huge for her, man. Don’t you get it? This is something she has to think about. By herself.Without us.”

I burn inside. No, I seethe. I’m not mad at Ivy though. I’m mad at Birdie. I’m mad at myself. I’m mad at the world. “You know she doesn’t have to work. We could support her,” I say, grasping at straws.

Hayes laughs in my face and rolls his eyes then turns dead serious. “Dude, listen to yourself. She’s an independent woman.”

“But we could.” I’m desperate to keep her nearby. I can’t stand the thought of her going to Los Angeles.

Hayes stabs his sternum. “You think I don’t want to keep her? You think I want to watch her move to another fucking city?”

“I don’t know,” I say, scrubbing the back of my neck with my hand. “We need to do something. Can’t you think of anything?”

He grabs my shoulders. “The thing we have to do is support her. That’s what she needs.”

“How? How can we do that?”

“It’s LA. It’s not that far. We can do this,” he says, patting my shoulders, trying to reassure me.

How the hell he can be the calm one, I don’t know. But I’m glad he is because I’m a wreck. “How?” I ask again.

He lets go, breathes out hard, then paces for a minute. Then he stops, turns, and says, “I’ve got an idea.”

He does.

And it’s brilliant.

* * *

The next day, Ivy asks us to meet her at The Great Dane before work. I reserve a table, and Hayes and I bring the gift we have ready to show her we support her.

She gets to the restaurant ahead of us, and when the hostess shows us to the table, it looks like Ivy has had the same idea.

54

ALL THE WAYS

Ivy

Aubrey curls a chunk of my hair into a loose wave.

“Beach waves,” she says with pride. “You look so good like this.”

“Thank you,” I say, more calm than I’d expected to feel, given what I’ve planned for tonight.

“There’s nothing quite like getting a blowout before you pour your heart out,” she says.

“Good hair really sets the stage for everything, doesn’t it?”

“I’ve been saying that for ages. Finally, someone’s listening.”

I look into the salon mirror. I feel ready. Certain. And most of all,changed.

Nearly three months ago, when I grabbed Jackson’s binoculars and checked out a naked man on the roof of my building, I had no idea that it would upend my life. I had no idea that it would lead to me marching into a job I’d thought I loved and flipping all the tables. That it would send me into the arms of not one amazing man, but two.

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