by Fox, Cathryn
My heart beats a little faster in my chest, as I watch my sister hand her keys over to the valet at one of the posh downtown hotels. “Do you think that her interview is in the restaurant there?”
Peyton gives me a look that suggests I might be dense. “You can’t be that naïve.”
“I just don’t want to think…” I grip the steering wheel tighter, until my knuckles turn white. “I don’t want Landon hurt.”
“I know. You love him.”
I don’t deny it. I do love him. I’ve always loved him. Hell, I tried dating. I even went out with Nathan a few times, but there was no spark, no sizzle, just friendship. I’m pretty sure one night with Landon has ruined me for any other man, and that’s just not fair.
“We need to go back,” Peyton says as she cranes her neck to keep an eye on Ivy. “Turn the car around.”
“No, I can’t do that. I don’t want to spy on her. It’s not my place. Whatever she is doing is between her and Landon. Not me.”
She reaches for the door handle. “If you don’t stop, I’m going to jump.”
“Good Lord, Peyton.” I catch the fierce look in her eyes. If there is one thing I know, it’s that I can always count on my best friend, and she’ll always have my back. She’ll even go so far as to jump from a moving vehicle to see Landon and me together. “Stop it before you hurt yourself.”
“I’m going to count to three.”
“Oh God.” I can’t take a chance that she won’t do it. I slow the car down and pull over. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to walk into that restaurant like I own the place and have a look around.”
I put one hand over my tight stomach. “What if she sees you? She knows you were going with me. She’ll know we’ve seen her.”
“Here’s the thing, Ella. She’s not going to see me, because she’s not going to be in that restaurant. She’s fucking some guy in that hotel and when I get the proof, I’m going to tell Landon, and then you two can be together, finally.”
My body begins to sweat and it has nothing to do with the glorious afternoon sun “It’s not that easy, Peyton. There’s a baby…”
“You go to the Promenade and get the pictures. I will text you to keep you up to speed and then you can pick me up when you’re done, okay?”
I stare at my friend for a moment, not knowing what to do, when Piper starts fussing in the back seat. She lets loose a cry and I make the split-second decision to let Peyton investigate, even though I don’t feel right about it. “Okay, fine.”
She jumps from the car, and casts a fast glance my way before closing the door. “I know this is hard, Ella. I know you are a mess inside, and have been for a very long time. I’ve watched you suffer in silence, but if there is one thing I know, it’s that you and Landon belong together. She was never right for him, and I don’t know what kind of game she was playing, still is, but she’s never played fair when it came to you and she’s not going to come out of this the winner. Not in the long run anyway.”
“It’s not a game, it’s life, and life isn’t always fair.” Haven’t I been telling myself that over and over for the last year? It’s pretty much been my mantra. But I can’t forget that I have so many other amazing things in my life: my family, my best friend, my job.
“I know,” she says, “And I love you.” The door clicks shut.
“I love you too,” I call out as she hurries down the sidewalk toward the hotel. With my insides shaken and stirred, I pull back into traffic as Piper’s cries grow louder. Just then my phone rings, and my heart jumps when I see that it’s from Landon. I press the button on the steering wheel and put him on speaker.
“Hey Landon,” I say and inject a bit of enthusiasm into my voice.
“Ella hi, how are you doing.?”
Piper goes quiet in the back seat when she hears her father’s voice. “Great, just taking Piper to get her Santa pictures done.” He goes silent on the other end, and my throat tightens. God, what do I do, or say, if he asks about Ivy? I have a feeling he knows nothing about this job interview—and I pray that’s what this is—and it’s not my place to tell him.
“Is Ivy with you?” he asks, some kind of noise in the background. I hear an announcement of sorts.
“No, she had some things to do.”
“What did she have to do?”
“She was meeting someone.” I stop at a red light, and tap the steering wheel as a crowd crosses the street.
“Do you know who it was?”
“No,” I say with a breath of relief. I actually don’t know, so I’m not lying to Landon.
“Not with friends then?”
Shit.
“You’ll have to ask her.”
He goes quiet, and I can hear his breathing change, come a little bit faster. “I would, but she’s not answering. How is Piper?”
“She’s great. Happy as ever. Where are you?”
“At the airport. I’m coming home early.”
My heart leaps. “I’m so glad. Ivy and Piper will be thrilled.”
“What about you, Ella?” he asks, his voice an octave lower. The whispered sound goes through my body, awakens needy parts of me. “Will you be thrilled?”
Oh, God, how do I respond to that, and why the hell is he asking? “Yeah, sure,” I answer, and he goes silent again.
“Ella.”
“Yeah?”
“We need to talk.”
22
Landon
I sent Ivy a couple texts, asking her to message me, but I’ve yet to hear from her, and she has no idea I’m coming home early. Something in my gut warned me not to tell her, because there are two things I’m not. One, I’m not an idiot, and two, I’m not a cheater. Thanks to the surprise text I received earlier, I now know that Ivy thinks I am an idiot, and she’s definitely a cheater. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I am stupid, or at least naïve, because I didn’t really see this coming. I’ve been trying to be there for her and my child as much as I could have.
I gather my things from the carousel, I snag Brady’s bag as well. As I hand it to him, he looks me over. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah. I just have a lot to deal with.” I hike my bag over my shoulder, and he puts his hand on my back.
“Anything I can do?”
“No.” Honestly, I’m not even sure what I’m going to do. All I know is I need to talk to Ella, once and for all, and clear the air with Ivy. I can’t marry her. I just can’t. There’s also a part of me that can’t blame her for cheating, since she’s not really getting what she needs from me. I’ve always done right by everyone, or at least I’ve tried to, but staying in this relationship, or whatever it is we’re doing, whether she cheated or not, is definitely not the right thing to do.
I’ve always felt it, but my talk with Brady the other night really drove it home and snapped some sense back into me. We only get one chance at this thing called life, and we have to make the right decisions if we want to make the best of it. I’ve been making wrong decisions that will only end up hurting others in the long run. How can my little girl grow up to be healthy and happy if she’s raised in an environment that’s the opposite of that?
We head outside and since we both live close to one another, we share a cab. I stay quiet on the drive back, and Brady leaves me to my own thoughts. The night is dark when the driver drops me off first. I say goodbye to Brady and promise to give him a call if I need him. This, however, is something I have to figure out on my own.
I head up the dark driveway, and pull my key from my pocket. The house is quiet when I enter. I quietly set my bag down in the front foyer, remove my coat and kick off my shoes. Moonlights slants off the walls in the living room, giving enough illumination for me to see Ella sound asleep on the sofa, a baby monitor in her hand. I take a fast trip through the house. Ivy is nowhere to be found, but at least Piper is sound asleep in her crib. I give her a kiss, pull out my phone and try Ivy again. She’s breathless when she finally answers.
“You’re calling late,” Ivy says.
I pinch the bridge of my nose, my throat tight. “You haven’t answered any of my texts today.”
“Been busy,” she responds, her voice edgy, like she’s hiding something, but she’s not hiding anything from me. I already know she’s at a hotel with some guy.
“Where are you?”
“Just out with friends.”
My heart beats a little faster in my chest. While I don’t want to do this over the phone, I need to do it more than I need my next breath. Just then I hear a man’s voice in the background, then everything goes muffled, like she’s covering the phone.
“Are you with someone, Ivy?”
“Just ran into an old friend.”
“Ivy, you and me. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be what you want me to be, and I don’t even know what that is, but I promise to take care of you and Piper. You guys can stay in the house, and I’ll find somewhere else to live.”
“You can’t be serious,” she screeches, her voice bordering on hysteria, and I clench down on my teeth. I’m worried about her mental health, and I don’t want to hurt her, but I can’t…I just can’t.
“I am serious. You know we don’t work as a couple as much as I do, so I don’t know why you’d want a future with me.” It’s something I’ve never understood.
Once again I hear a man’s voice, a little closer to the phone now. Ivy’s voice is muffled as she answers him.
“We’ll talk about this when you get home,” she responds, and I get the sense she’s not about to be an adult about all this.
“Goodbye, Ivy.”
I end the call, leaving her with whoever she’s with, as a sense of relief washes over me. She doesn’t even know I’m home, and when she does eventually come back to the house, we’ll definitely talk. But I won’t be saying anything different than I did to her on the phone. I take a long time to get my thoughts in order, and quietly head back downstairs to see Ella. One word dances in my mind as I gaze at her: breathtaking. Call it cliché, call it whatever the hell you want, but when I look at her, it’s hard to fill my lungs.
I step closer, breathe in her scent as I take in her sleeping beauty. My heart squeezes in my constricted chest as I gaze at her, consider how close we’ve grown over the year, how much we’ve been through—good and bad—and how much she’s always supported me, and her sister. Everything about her, from the top of her head to the bottom of her toes is goodness. She is selfless to the point of endangering herself, always forgoing her own needs for the needs of others.
I drop down onto the coffee table and just look at her a little longer, let myself bask in her sweetness. As if feeling my eyes on her, her lids slowly open. At first she stiffens, afraid, but the second she realizes it’s me, a wide smile splits her lips. My pulse jumps in my neck, and I can’t even begin to tell you how incredible that wide smile, her genuine happiness to see me, makes me feel. In that second, as I look at her, I see the woman I’m in love with, everything in me reaches out to her and I can no longer hold it back.
I need her.
I want her.
I can’t fucking live without her and nothing is ever going to keep me from her again.
“Hi,” I whisper softly, and drop to the floor on my knees as she sits up, and brushes her mess of dark hair from her face. She blinks dark lashes over sleepy eyes, and it’s all I can do not to lean in and claim her mouth, and kiss the living hell out of her.
“How long have you been sitting there?”
Her mouth falls open when I slowly widen her legs and push my big body in between them. I put my hands on her thighs, clamping her thighs around my body, and for one second, she blinks up at me, desire all over her face.
“Long enough for the world to right itself,” I tell her, meaning it. As I sit here, wrapped up in her body, the world as I know it is right.
She blinks again, and glances down, that blatant desire turning to confusion, and then understanding spreads across her beautiful face. She puts her hands on my shoulders and shoves me but she can’t budge me. It would take a freight train followed by a dozen eighteen wheelers, as well as the entire football team, to pull me away from her. Even then I’m not sure it could happen. I am so crazy about this woman.
“I’m not Ivy,” she says, and swallows hard.
“I know.” Sheer disappointment spreading across her face. She’s not disappointed that she’s not Ivy—that I might think she’s Ivy. She’s disappointed because she wants me to want her for who she is, and I do. “I’ve always known, Ella,” I say and take her hands from my shoulders, to press soft kisses to her palms.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’ve always known it was you. Now, and back then,” I tell her finally getting the truth out there. My shoulders relax slightly, like a load has been lifted.
Her lips quiver. “You mean…”
I put my hands on her legs, lightly brushing my thumbs over her jean-clad thighs, my cock urging me to get her out of them, but I need to take it slow with her.
“Yes, I mean back in college. You gave me your virginity that night you snuck into my room. I didn’t take that lightly, Ella. But the next day, you pretended we never happened, and I took your lead, never knowing how to broach the subject.”
She swallows, hard. “Landon…” Her voice is as shaky as her hands as her gaze searches my face for answers.
“I know what you saw that night, or what you think you saw when you came back for your phone.”
“You knew?” Her lids fly open. “You knew I’d seen you and Ivy, then?”
“I figured it out, and I wanted to talk to you. Wanted to get everything out in the open. I planned to do that during Thanksgiving. I didn’t go to the farm to be with Ivy, I went because I wanted to be with you.” I take one of her hands and press my lips to her palm.
“You did?” she asks, her voice low and strained.
“Yes, but then Ivy announced she was pregnant and everything changed.” I touch her mess of hair and tuck it behind her ears. She leans toward me, and I breathe her in, take everything she is willing to give. “I know what you saw, or what you think you saw.”
“You and Ivy,” she murmurs quietly. “In bed…that’s what I saw. You told me to go away.”
“I was telling whoever entered my room to go away, because I thought it was you tucked in beside me.” She sniffs, and I hurry on with, “The second I walked into my room that night and saw you, I swear to God I knew it was you, and I was the happiest man on the planet. I wanted to be with you, Ella. I think I fell for you that first time I set eyes on you by the football field, when you called yourself a nerd.”
“I am a nerd.”
I laugh. “That’s what I love about you, and the fact that you showed up at the party to apologize. That takes balls. The second you walked into the party, I was a goner.”
She blinks, and I swipe at the tears that falls from her eyes, “But Ivy…”
I exhale. “Ivy.” I shake my head. “I thought she was you. It was late, I was tired, yet something deep inside me knew it wasn’t. I didn’t invite her to my bed, and yes, I slept with her, but you have to believe me, I thought I was sleeping with you.”
“Did you not use protection?”
“We did, but the condom broke. She told me everything was okay, so I assumed she was on the pill.”
“She was, as far as I know.” She glances down for a second, and I give her a quiet moment to process.
“I pretended the next day. I didn’t know how to act, or feel, so I just convinced myself you thought I was Ivy all along.” The sadness in her voice tears me apart inside. “I should have said something.”
“I should have too.” I can hear the panic, the need in my own voice when I continue with, “We lost so much time, Ella.” I take a fast, unstable breath as my entire body shakes. “I don’t know why she came to my bed. I don’t know why she started paying attention to me, but it happened that day on
the field, after the game, when I was watching you film us. It snowballed from there, and I was caught up in the avalanche, and with not knowing for sure if it was you…I mean I was sure, and then I wasn’t. I was so fucking confused, and then we pretended—”
She puts her finger to my lips to hush me. “You said you loved that I was a nerd.”
“I do…”
“Does that mean…”
“It means I love you, Ella. I love you so fucking much that I’m empty without you. I’m so damn lost that sometimes it’s all I can do to put one foot in front of the other. But I don’t deserve you. After sleeping with Ivy, and well, she told you that night at the Growler what happened in the campus theater. I didn’t want it to happen, I just. I don’t know. There’s no excuse.”
“Landon, you’re with Ivy now though. I can’t be that other woman. I won’t.”
“It’s over between Ivy and me. I called her and told her that. Honestly, it never really began with us. We don’t belong together, and I think she knows it as much as I do. Back then, after she said she was having my baby, I got caught up in a windstorm, and wanted to do right by everyone, but I wasn’t doing right by you, or by myself, or even by Piper. I was coming home to talk to you tonight, and not just because I found out Ivy was cheating on me.”
Her eyes go wide. “Peyton told you. I didn’t think she was going to. I told her to sleep on it.”
I shake my head. “No, not Peyton. An old buddy of mine saw Ivy get on an elevator with a guy at the hotel. You told me you were watching Piper. I couldn’t get hold of Ivy earlier, and she hasn’t come home yet. I can put two and two together like that. See not all brawn and no brains,” I say, and I’m rewarded with a wobbly smile.
“I never meant that.”
I push her hair back and cup her face. “So you knew about Ivy?”
“Just today. Things didn’t add up, something was off with Ivy. Then we drove by the hotel and saw her getting out of her car. Peyton wanted proof, and she went to get it. I would have told you, or Peyton would have. I couldn’t let you go on like that. It wasn’t fair, but how do I go against my sister? Landon I never understood why she went after you either.”