“Did you buy every pregnancy test in Seattle, Washington, Livvy, shit.” I come out of the bathroom only to stop dead in my tracks, screaming bloody murder. “What the fuck?!”
Bowen’s hands fly into the air as he steps forward. “Babe, babe. It’s not technically her fault. Although, she did leave her cell phone on the bar in the kitchen, I was the one who read the text when I walked by on my way to the fridge for some yogurt. Technically not her fault. A baby?” he quietly asks.
“You couldn’t start off with, “Ives, I’m not fucking alone, oh and by the way, your possible baby-daddy is in tow? Bitch,” I growl under my breath.
“I’m sorry. He wanted to surprise you.” She looks guilty as shit. “I told him it was a bad idea,” she whispers.
“Ya think?” I bark.
And butting right in, Bowen doesn’t hold back, God forbid. “A baby, Ivy?” he repeats. Where’s easy at now? Huh? Where?
“Oh just give me the bags.” I start snatching them from Livvy and muttering cuss words under my breath before heading back towards the bathroom.
Bowen’s right on my heel the whole fifteen steps, “Ives, what about your birth control? I thought you were on birth control. When I asked—“
Both bags slam against his chest at the same time my hands do, “Stop it. If you think I wanted to procreate with you any more than you wanted to procreate with me, you are sorely mistaken. I don’t want this, you are wrong. Dead fucking wrong. Now let me piss on these sticks in private. Give me ten minutes on top of that, and when I know whether or not you and I will be parents, I—again, will let you fucking know, deal?” He and I both nod.
Then I slam the door in his face.
Fifteen palm sweating, nausea, bile at the back of my throat minutes later, I breathe a breath of relief.
I passed.
I am not fucking pregnant. Praise the lord. I passed the test!
Bullet dodged and easy does it, indeed.
“I passed!” I yell coming out of the bathroom dancing like no one’s watching. “I passed! I passed!” I sing.
After some group hugs and high fives, I kiss Bowen goodbye and shower. When I come out of the bathroom, Livvy hands me a tightly rolled blunt and runs around the room holding a lit incense to cover the smell.
As we plan our sick day around the time, we chat and laugh about life, work, and love and I get dressed and fix my hair.
But when Livvy asks about next week’s meeting, it causes butterflies in my already fragile stomach. “Did you decide on a dress? I know you were freaking out yesterday at work about what to wear next week. Deli right?” she asks as she pulls her car into traffic towards Tom Chee’s and I nod.
“Yeah, deli’s good. I don’t know what I’m going to wear. Not yet. Rome said he’d help, but everything he picks is slutty as hell. I can’t tell if he’s being serious or an ass hat when he gives his opinion, either.”
“Okay, and why do you care? I’m sorry, I’m still confused about that part,” she asks as she parks.
I try the easy way out by shrugging and smiling. After we’ve sat down, we’re waiting on our food when she starts in again. “What color are you thinking? And dress or blue jeans and t-shirt. Like, obviously you’re over thinking it, so now let’s measure how much you’re overthinking it. Because if it’s blue jeans and t-shirt meeting with old friends, then I’m going to stop letting you out of my earlier question so easy. Are you following me?” she asks, looking at me suspicious.
“Ye-yes. Fucking hell, Livvy. I don’t have a color in mind. I’m wearing a dress, I don’t give a fuck what anyone else is wearing…and I’m wearing heels. It’s friends—Old best friend turned ex-boyfriend, with the first love of my life boyfriend turned estranged friend, and fuck buddy-boy toy-boyfriend friend, friends kind of meeting, okay? Now get off your ass, let’s go.”
I stand up and chuck my sandwich in the trash, grab my to-go cup, shoulder my purse and head out the door.
With Livvy’s heels loudly click clacking behind me, she yells, laughing, “Holy fucking shit, Ives, what are you going to do?” Her wide eyes look back and forth between mine over the hood of her car.
I pause.
I smile.
I breathe.
“I’m gonna fucking move forward, Livvy. It’s all I can do,” I tell her.
Chapter 16
The next week is complete and utter hell. And I mean every single fucking day of it. By Friday, I’m distracted, disheveled, and stumbling my high as hell ass out of the building at work with Livvy in tow.
“Okay, so Bowen said—OH shit! There it is!” she squeals as a limo pulls up and she starts dancing from one foot to the other.
When the car pulls away from the building she turns to me, looking like a child on Christmas morning, and says, “I can’t believe he sent a limo!” Before looking back towards the passing shops.
I can.
All week he has been doting on me hand and foot. And every day this week, he sent a gift and a dozen roses, and every night he counted my seven orgasms to his one before playing with my hair until I fell asleep.
To say he’s been over attentive and that things are easy where he’s concerned is an understatement.
So today’s shopping spree and escort service is over the top, even for the ostentatious Bowen Teller. It’s that excessive.
We’re in the middle of the third shop when I finally find the dress I’ll wear tonight. It’s a pale peach colored sheer short-sleeved dress that hangs to my feet, over laying the black satin slip that’s sleeveless and stops just above the knee.
You could see just enough skin, under just enough sheer, to make it the perfect dress. I found the perfect pair of shoes to match in the store next to the salon we had four o’clock hair and nail appointments at, they were nude and black six-inch peep toe heels with red soles.
The perfect pair.
And all funded by Mr. Teller.
Late that night, as I finish my make-up looking in the mirror, Bowen zips my dress up behind me. When he finishes, his hands squeeze the top of my shoulders and he smiles at me in the reflection. He looks so beautiful in his black on black suit with his long brown hair combed back and his salt and pepper brown beard, cut the perfect half inch across his strong beautiful jaw. When his brown eyes land and stay on mine, I swallow past the rising dread that lies ahead.
“Ivy, I…I like you. I like you a lot more than I ever anticipated liking you. You’re different. Much different from other girls. To tell you the truth, I’m surprised by the way you handled our pregger’s scare last week.” He squeezes my arms again and kisses me on top of my left shoulder before walking back into the room.
I don’t know what to say.
I know I don’t want to talk to him. I know I don’t want to do this shit, especially not right fucking now.
I’ve done well today, I think. I’ve hit a few lines, but nothing more than needed.
But I’m about to do bad. Very bad and very quick, if he doesn’t stop talking shit and making this…not easy. My decent into indecency will be so fast it’ll make his head spin.
He comes back into the bathroom with one of his token silver baggies and picks up where he left off, “You handled it very calmly. And I fucking dig that. Thank you for being so cool, my little woman.” He hands me the baggie before sticking the metal end of an empty fountain pen into it, spilling white powder into the cupped part where the ink pools. He sniffs the powder and squeezes his nose before pinning my eyes with his. “This came from my boy, Rico. Puerto Rico. It’s clean shit. Here.” He hands me the pen before heading back out of the bathroom. “I just need to slide my black Ferragamo’s on and I’m ready, you?”
I don’t answer him. I can’t.
I feel like I’m at a crossroads. Where there’s a before and an after, but I can’t see in the shifty sand, where one begins and the other ends.
I just stare at myself in the mirror and think of all the possible ways this night could go.
&nbs
p; Fucking anybody’s guess is as good as mine. We all knew I was kidding myself.
We all know this is all by chance.
I slowly drag the blood red lipstick across my upper and lower lips before snorting the three lines I cut and separated from the baggie, then I step back and take myself in from head to toe. I finish pinning my hair up and spray some perfume I haven’t smelled since my last life then step from the bathroom.
“I’m ready, Bowen.”
And minutes later we’re in his black on black ’67 SS Chevy Camaro heading for my date with destiny.
The only thoughts looping around in my head as we step into the restaurant, were: there goes easy, and no more easy does it.
I’m relieved when we get there and find out we’re the first of our party, but that relief withers fast after Reese soberly re-introduces himself, then sits. “Ivy, you look hot as hell, as always.” He catches the waiter’s attention. “Drinks?” he asks.
Once we’ve been seated in a corner off to the side of the quaint little uppity restaurant called, as luck would have it, Where the Ivy Hides, and ordered our drinks, Reese begins, “So, Ry doesn’t think he’s going to make it, something came up. His kid or something. I don’t know. But as of…” He looks at his watch, “Three o’clock this afternoon, he was pretty sure he’d be a no show.”
His kid?
His fucking kid came up?
It was like hearing you were going deaf moments after going blind. It felt like a new cut across an old one. It was too much, too late, and too little too soon. It was the devastation of my wilted dreams and the obliteration of my future—I hated it. As much as I hated him.
As Reese and Bowen discuss business and the perks of becoming the third co-owner of Lucky Pipes, I down as many Mai Tai’s and Jack’s and Diet Cokes as I can. And those were between whatever else I was popping and snorting in the stall of the bathroom on one of my many potty breaks.
As I move through the crowd of people making my way back towards the table from the ladies’ room, I feel a big hang grab my elbow and I stop instantly.
I don’t need to turn around to know who it is. I feel him. I felt him as soon as he walked into the restaurant. And I didn’t need to hear his voice to know it was my Ryker, but I heard it all the same. God, do I hear it all the same. “Ivy, love,” he chokes on the words and I feel his breath on my shoulder as he breathes, “Bloody fucking hell, ya look beautiful, love.” His Irish accent sounds thicker, darker, and more tired. “Like a breath of fresh air. That’s what you are, me Ivy.”
Tears pool in my eyes before falling down my face. I don’t try to brush them away or catch them in a tissue, I just let them fall.
I want to tell him I love him.
I want to wrap my arms around him and never ever let him go.
I want to hurt him. I want to see him feel the pain I felt every night I cried myself to sleep that he wasn’t there.
I want to hold him and make the past go away with all these people, all this pain, and all these tears.
But I don’t.
With tears still spilling down my cheeks, I turn and face the love of my life, Ryker David Killian, and I tell him, “That’s what I am. It’s nice to see you, too, Ryker. Please let the boys introduce themselves, you’ll have to excuse me. I have to go powder my nose. And the unexpected mess of my face. My goodness, I must look a fright.” I laugh adopting my mother’s polite lady-like behavior before slowly walking away and making my way back to the ladies room.
It’s not easy. But I struggle my way through two more drinks and a hand fed—by Bowen, appetizer when I reach my limit of bullshit and pleasantries.
If I have to look into Ryker’s dark blue eyes boring into mine from across the table once more…
Our glances clash for the hundredth time.
Fuck it! I was good. Now, just fuck it. Now, I’m bad.
I abruptly stand to my feet and my knee hits the table in the process, shaking and rattling every damn noisy thing on the fucking table, and my hands fly up. “Sorry. Sorry.” I awkwardly laugh, “Please, excuse me. I don’t feel very well,” I look at Bowen and smile, trying to reassure him, “It’s nothing, I’m sure. But just give me a moment, please.”
Somehow, and by the grace of God, I manage to make it to the restroom without a single tear falling over my bottom lashes. But as soon as heels cross the threshold of the bathroom, the tears stream in rivers down my face.
I make it just inside the bathroom and close the door before falling apart with my face in my hands.
When I feel someone else walk in and bump me from behind, I yelp before sniffling, “S-s-sorry. I didn’t see anyone behind me.” I mutter and step forward.
As soon as his hand circles my wrist, I know it’s him. He gives little to no warning before slinging me around and pushing me back against the rough stucco bathroom wall and invading my space. He pushes his massive body against mine and with his mouth close to my ear he growls, “I’m gonna fuck ya, Ivy. I’m gonna fuck ya till you can’t say his name no more. I’m gonna fuck ya till the last name you can say is mine. And then, me Ivy, I’m gonna fuck ya till ya tell me you’re mine. That I’ve finally caught ya. Is that understood?”
I don’t get a chance to respond to his question.
Just as his mouth slams against mine, his body follows suit. His kiss is so rough it bruises, and when his tongue circles mine, I taste the metallic tang of our blood. His callused hands catch and snag the material of my dress as they move up and down my body. He yanks down at the material when his hands cup my breasts then snatches it up when he reaches the skirt sliding its way up my thighs. “Bloody. Hell. I love the way you smell.” He grunts as he angles his narrow waist between my legs, just as his forearms slide between my knees and his hands anchor me against the wall under each of my spread thighs. His erection pushes harder against my damp panties. “Ya wore those knickers in vain, love. Tear them off.” I snap the string in half at my waist and shove the offending material away as fast as I can.
He stands to his full height towering over me, with my half stripped body pinned against the wall and puts his mouth to my ear and speaks as he rubs his hard cock against my bareness. “Pull out me cock, Ivy.”
I unlink my arms from around his neck and simply comply. It doesn’t take much for a button and a zipper, and when I wrap my hand around his cock, I feel warm pre-cum spill from the head and run down my hand.
I slide my wet fist over his hot flesh and goose bumps break out across my skin as he whispers darkly in my ear, “I want to feel your pussy pulse around me, Ivy. I wanna feel ya fall apart in me arms.”
I think it was knee jerk reaction to the intensity of the moment. I’ve seen a lot, I’ve done a lot, I’ve had a lot. But some is never enough when it comes to Ryker.
I lick his cum clean from my hand and he shudders, and then he shudders a little harder when I line him up at my entrance.
But he doesn’t move a single muscle until our eyes meet. Not one taut, tightly strung, tanned skin covered muscle—.
Then in one quick, deep thrust, he’s inside me to the hilt and we both cry out. Fucking hang on for dear life.
Ryker does just as he promised. He slams into me like his next breath depends on it. Only to slam harder and deeper with every plunge that follows.
He fucks me. Hard.
Hard enough to shatter moments and break lives. Whose lives? It doesn’t matter, let them be damned.
His hands grab and his fingers bruise as his mouth bites and his tongue licks the sting and his lips kiss the pain. As we stand here, with his firm body pressed against mine, my leg hiked up to his thigh and my beautiful dress tattered between my back and the rough stucco walls, he’s still seated deep inside me with our eyes locked. It’s then that I notice the fine laugh lines around his eyes and the smile lines around his mouth for the first time.
He looks older. Still just as beautiful, just older.
I pause.
He smiles.
&nb
sp; I breathe.
And then his face falls.
His tone is dark as it lashes out, “Get rid of him.”
“Okay.” I breathe. “I will.”
He pulls himself from me and helps me to my feet.
I’d promise him anything right now. Anything in the fucking world, if only he would look at me just once more.
As pathetic as it sounds, I’d sell my soul if he asked me to in this moment.
The dark tone in his voice and harsh look across his face don’t match the tender touch of his hands cupping my face. “And if I see ya this bloody high again, I’ll drag your ass, both kicking and screaming, back to bloody rehab. Get your shit and that lily white arse, little Brit of yours, and get the fuck outta my face, Ivy.”
He shoves away from the bathroom wall before turning and storming away, leaving me literally in tatters, alone in the bathroom at Where the Ivy Hides.
Chapter 17
I promise, ever since I was a little girl, I’ve known this was a shitty life. I haven’t lived this life with grand illusions of fairy tales, and I haven’t strived a single day for my happily ever after.
It’s hard to believe in these things when your first memory is your mother being taken.
I knew I would never find my one and only, I’ve known it all my life. But I didn’t expect the one and only man I’d ever love, to hurt so fucking much.
Why does it hurt so much more when he comes back than it does when he leaves?
Over the next couple of days, I can’t even look Bowen in the eyes much less speak to him. And although it seems like he knows something is off, he thankfully leaves it alone.
I don’t think Bowen ever let himself believe we were anything more than what we are, it’s one of the reasons we worked for as long as we did.
He’s easy.
He was easy to be with and even easier to let go.
“Has Ryker tried to contact you?” I’m caught off guard by Rome’s question in the middle of our family Sunday brunch and cut my eyes at him as soon as it’s out.
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