Ten Thousand Hours

by Ren Benton

  He gently pried her nails from his arm. “I’ll get her. Call the police.”

  Ivy made the call to report the domestic violence and gave the dispatcher what little information she had, as dictated by Griff. She spent half the call making sure they knew he wasn’t the bad guy. The dispatcher assured her the responding officers wouldn’t hurt him and hung up when she’d wrung out as many details as Ivy could provide.

  Her queasy stomach had no interest in the ravioli. She fed them to the kids — Holly’s and Jen’s — and then paced circles around the kitchen table waiting for the phone in her hand to ring. Someone would call to let her know everything was okay.

  She wanted the caller to be Griff.

  Holly was invincible, impervious to lasting damage and consequences. She used the anxiety she generated in others to construct her armor. As a result, Ivy had developed a superstitious conviction that her worry was protective, but Holly had depleted the resource so there wasn’t enough to extend even a shield to Griff when he entered the fray.

  When she sent him into the fray.

  A car door slammed in front of the house. She darted through the living room, ignoring the kids’ protests as she passed between them and the TV, and raced out the door.

  Griff strode up the walkway.

  She smothered a sob and ran to meet him halfway. “Where’s Holly?”

  “At your parents’ house. I’m fine, thanks for asking.”

  “I can see you’re not bleeding. I can’t see my sister.” The numbness blanketing her during the period of not knowing dropped from her shoulders, and the shaking began. She flung herself across the space between them and buried her face against his chest. “Thank you.”

  Her gratitude had much more to do with coming back safely than rescuing Holly.

  He exhaled, and his tension abated enough for his arms to loop around her. “Sorry I snapped at you. Your sister is... a lot to deal with.”

  She rested her cheek against the reassuring thump of his heart. “I could have told you that.”

  “I bet you could,” he said grimly. “Did you know she keeps old pictures of you on her phone in case the occasion arises to show someone you used to weigh more?”

  “She has worse than those.” She was probably still selling the ones she’d taken of Ivy in the shower to internet perverts who liked underage girls. “Come in and tell me what happened.”

  He resisted her tug on his hand. “Are the kids sleeping?”

  “Watching a movie.” She sank to the stoop when he did. The light spilling from the front window illuminated a dark splotch on his jaw. “What’s this?”

  He shied away from her inquisitive fingers. “Your sister’s small, but she’s quick.”

  Her fingers curled into her palm. “Holly hit you?”

  “She’s not big enough to do any damage.”

  Big enough to leave a bruise. “You went to rescue her, and she hit you?”

  He squeezed her hand as if there was a pressure-sensitive volume control within. “Kids, Duchess.”

  The reminder had an effect on her, although not the one he intended. If nothing else, ten years of kids had taught her how to treat a bruise.

  She left him on the steps while she ran to the kitchen and grabbed a bag of peas from the freezer. Guilt added weight to it. She had embroiled him in her mess, and he’d gotten hurt because of her.

  She took the peas out to the stoop and pressed the bag against his jaw. “That should keep the swelling down.”

  A corner of his mouth lifted. “You always know what to do.”

  She wished that were true. “If I did, I would have called the police before you got here and spared you the theatrics. All I know is damage control after the fact. I’m so sorry I got you involved.”

  “I involved myself.” He took over holding the peas. “Against your wishes, as I recall.”

  She tucked her frozen fingers behind her knees and hugged her thighs to her chest. “What happened?”

  “The police got there first, which made her easier to find. By the time I arrived, she was trying to talk them out of arresting the asshole who smacked her around because they’re in love and sometimes their love flares out of control.”

  Holly wasn’t stupid. She’d had years of therapy. She’d talked judges out of giving her jail time. She knew all the right words and how to use them for effect. When she chose to act like a guest on a low-rent daytime talk show, it was because she craved the drama she created, not because she believed the bullshit that came out of her mouth. “Did they take him anyway?”

  His mouth tightened. “He’ll be out in the morning when the victim and only witness doesn’t pursue charges, but they did what they can do.”

  “How did you get hit?”

  “She was pissed that I called the police.”

  She blinked in surprise. “I made the call.”

  “And I don’t want her taking a swing at you, so if the subject comes up again, I did it.”

  He was trying to protect her despite everything that had happened tonight — and before, between them. “You should have called them when she assaulted you.”

  “It wasn’t worth it over a little bruise.” He laughed without humor. “And call me crazy, but I felt like she was willing me to do it so she could say it was self-defense when I tried to rape her.”

  “You’re not crazy.” Holly was a gifted table turner. Ivy had listened to many a Machiavellian scheme that ended with her in more trouble than Holly if she didn’t keep her mouth shut and do as she was told. The tactic was paralyzing. “I am so sorry. The knight in shining armor deserves better from the damsel.”

  “My armor isn’t that shiny, and she wasn’t the damsel whose distress I wanted to alleviate.” He wiped his hand on his jeans to dry the condensation from the melting peas. “I had to redeem myself to you somehow.”

  “Not by endangering your life charging into a violent situation.”

  “I’d play hero again. You’re talking to me. Mere anguished messages didn’t accomplish as much.”

  She rubbed her forehead. She hadn’t heard any anguished messages. “My phone took a swim in the wading pool with Cole. Without it chirping at me, I haven’t thought to call and check my voicemail. Everybody I’d expect to hear from called the house if I didn’t answer immediately.”

  She hadn’t expected to hear from Griff after the undignified scene she’d caused. Confronting him had seemed like a great idea in the heat of righteous outrage. In hindsight, it seemed desperate, pathetic, and cringe-worthy — as it must have live and in the flesh from his perspective.

  He’d been right about her anger. It fizzled while she was driving home from his place, leaving her cold, shriveled, and thirsty for why.

  But the more she thought about it during that long, restless night, the less the reason mattered. She broke the rules of the fling. She cared too much. When he got bored with her, when there were other women, when he stopped calling and it wasn’t a mistake, she would be heartbroken.

  She had already suffered through the end once. Why put herself through that agony all over again when she could get the recovery process over with right now?

  In her mind, if not her traitorous heart, she let him go.

  And then he strolled up her walkway in the midst of a crisis and reminded her why he was too easy to fall in love with.

  Her voice came out thick. “I was in panic mode when you got here. I didn’t know what to do. I was embarrassed that I couldn’t handle it. Embarrassed that I needed help. Embarrassed about my sister. Resentful that you had the option of walking away and that you’re big and strong and can fix everything if you want.”

  “I’m beginning to see why you didn’t welcome me with open arms.”

  “I had a lot on my plate.” Otherwise, she probably would have flung herself at him like a starving woman. “Thank you for the ravioli, by the way.”

  “Are there any left?”

  “Sorry. Seven kids decimate the land like
a plague of locusts.”

  He reared back at that number. “How did they multiply so fast?”

  “I’m watching Jen’s three while she talks with Roger.”

  “I hope he’s taking my advice and not talking.”

  “I doubt—” There she went again, assuming they would behave in a civilized and respectable manner. “I don’t know what they’re doing. I don’t know if I should know because we’re friends or if I shouldn’t because it’s between them. I’m kind of burned out trying to unravel what I should and shouldn’t do.”

  “So take a breather. The problems won’t go anywhere while you put your head on my shoulder and relax.” He bumped the aforementioned shoulder against hers in invitation.

  She sniffled at the sudden prickling of her nose and eyes. Damn him. She didn’t want to get comfortable on that shoulder. She would miss it when it was no longer there to lean on. “I know the kind of people Holly associates with. No matter how big and strong you are, it hurts to get hit. Maybe stabbed or shot. I sent you off to get hurt or killed for someone who doesn’t want to be helped and will put herself right back in the same position tomorrow.”

  “You are not responsible for anything that happened tonight.”

  “Then why do I feel guilty for endangering you and having uncharitable thoughts about my sister, who is obviously unwell?”

  “Because she has you trained.” The words were clipped. “When she gets bored with threats, she can manipulate you with guilt for variety. I’m relieved you can be uncharitable. I was afraid you accept the way she treats you as normal and that dysfunction had bled into your love life. I thought you had an abusive ex, but it’s all Holly, isn’t it? She’s why you think you’re not worthy of being looked at unless you’re skinny as a paper doll. She’s why you think you’re an embarrassment if...” He shook his head. “I can’t even imagine how you could embarrass someone who has absolutely no sense of shame. Help me understand that one.”

  She hid her face against her knees and hoped her words were muffled to unintelligibility. “I tried to stop her from sneaking out of the house once. She said she was going, but if it would shut me up, I could come along and babysit her.”

  “I know you were trying to protect her, but that sounds wildly unsafe for you.”

  “Yeah.” Starting with the driving skills of Holly’s drunk boyfriend, which led to a secluded riverbank with two underage girls, six guys, and their combined weight in booze and pot. “Fortunately, the forceful arrival of my period distracted everyone from whatever nefarious plot may have been afoot. Would you like to hear a few hundred menstruation jokes?”

  “No, I don’t think I would.”

  Just as well. They weren’t funny, although they had taught her where men got most of the wrong information about female reproductive organs that they carried into adulthood. “By the time they exhausted the supply, I was covered in blood. Holly’s boyfriend refused to let me in his car. I was hysterical because I knew she’d leave me there and never tell anyone where I was and I’d get eaten by bears and alligators, but he left her behind, too, because girls are gross and should be exiled together.”

  “Well, all your periods are in sync, so she’d be hemorrhaging all over his precious seats in a minute, too.”

  “Exactly.” His exaggerated seriousness implied he had already been lectured down the correct path, saving Ivy from that tedious chore. “She screamed at me the entire walk to the nearest gas station so we could call home and get a ride. Because I couldn’t carry a tampon like a normal person, she was in trouble for sneaking out, in trouble for taking me into that situation, in trouble for drinking, and — worst of all — embarrassed in front of all her friends.”

  “And you never left the house again without a fifty-pound preparedness kit,” he guessed correctly. “You do know that entire situation, from the moment she decided to sneak out, was her fault, right?”

  His uncertainty made her smile because it was one more thing they had in common. “What I know and what I’ve been trained to believe since the age of four are rarely the same. I know she’s awful, and I’ve given up on her being any other way, but I’m stuck with her as long as the kids need me.”

  Another wave of guilt crashed over her. She loved the kids, but the responsibility for them — responsibility thrust upon her, not sought — made her feel stuck. Mired. Trapped. This wasn’t the life she had envisioned for herself. Everything she wanted for herself had been indefinitely postponed.

  As if reading her mind, Griff said, “That’s not fair to you.”

  She told him what she told herself several times a week. “There is no fair. Only what needs to be done.”

  Therein was the trap. Someone had to do what needed to be done, and no one else volunteered.

  “Do you know why a hot young bachelorette like myself bought a four-bedroom ranch in the burbs?”

  He looked over his shoulder at the throwback to another era that she called home. “I wondered if it was an inheritance.”

  It did look like a grandma house. A place where families had grown and moved on with their lives, coming back only once a year for Granny’s Thanksgiving spread. “I bought it. I took on the biggest debt of my life in anticipation of being responsible for children who aren’t mine. I didn’t even look at anything different. The list I gave to the agent was big yard, quiet street, good school zone. A single, childless, twenty-something-year-old woman shopping for a soccer mom’s house. Driving a soccer mom’s minivan.”

  Her contemporaries drove cute, zippy little cars — hybrids, even — while Ivy needed room for three car seats. It was ridiculous to resent a mode of transportation, but she did because if she didn’t take it out on the van, she was afraid it would transfer to the kids, and none of this was their fault.

  “You haven’t asked why I acted like an ass.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  His laugh was arid. “That was easy.”

  No. It wasn’t easy at all. “I’m glad you came. I’m glad you’re still in one piece. But you don’t belong here.”

  His body tensed. “Ivy—”

  “This is my life.” This being babysitting Holly and the kids, with occasional extra kids thrown in for what passed as excitement around here. “I’m not fun or interesting or sexy, and pretending to be only leads to disappointment when reality intrudes.”

  “You’re not imaginary. You’re beautiful and clever and warm every time I see you, none of which is disappointing.”

  Their arrangement was tolerable now, but he wasn’t considering the future. His fearless pursuit of danger required blinders she’d never been given. “Holly’s going to die, or CPS is going to declare her unfit. I know her kids aren’t my responsibility unless I make them, but I love them and could never let them be put in foster care. And I’m finally facing the fact that I have to take them before their mother does permanent damage to them. Or more permanent damage.”

  “That doesn’t mean I can’t see you.”

  He was spoiled by all his freedom. “Single parents of four can’t be out partying.”

  “No one told their mother that.”

  Her bitterness had found its way into his voice — one more way in which a relationship with her would slowly poison him. “I can’t follow in Holly’s footsteps. The kids need me to do better. And you don’t want this much responsibility rubbing off on you. It will ruin all your fun.”

  She wiped the moisture gathering on her lashes before it spilled and smiled as if uttering the truth didn’t cut to the bone. “Thank you for playing with me. I needed a good time, and you did not let me down once. Go have enough fabulous adventures for both of us. Just don’t break any more bones, okay?”

  She would not kiss him goodbye again. She’d been kissing him goodbye for weeks and knew it made parting from him no easier.

  She retreated into the house, ignoring the kids when they grumbled as one because she passed between them and their movie for the sixth time. She made it to
the privacy of her bedroom before her tears broke through the dam.

  They had let go of each other days ago. It shouldn’t hurt like he was leaving with her heart in his fist.

  She crawled onto her bed and curled into a ball. She should be watching the kids, but she needed two minutes to get herself together.

  Two minutes to get over losing the one thing in her life she’d done for herself.

  Griff sat on Ivy’s steps for ten minutes, bag of peas melting on his knee, trying to come up with one good reason she should allow him to stay.

  A good reason for her. Any reason would suffice for him, but there was little to compel her in I want you to fuss and comfort and worry over me, too. I want to be one of the burdens that makes you look tired and sad, if that’s all you have time for.

  He didn’t have a damn thing to offer her other than orgasms. He had no other virtues, despite his bungling attempt to play knight for her. She was the distressed damsel for whom he donned the ill-fitting armor. She’d been under attack, and his instinct had been to save her and make sure she never hurt again.

  Never was a long time. He couldn’t keep a basil plant alive for a week. Why did he imagine he could grow a relationship with her?

  Maybe he’d never had incentive to properly care for a potted herb. If it didn’t work out, he had a canister full of the dried version in his cupboard.

  He didn’t want a dusty imitation of Ivy. He wanted the real, vibrant woman, not a substitute.

  According to his mother, a woman would let him know what she wanted.

  This one had requested his absence.

  The throb in his jaw was nothing compared to the empty ache in his chest as he complied.

  13

  Ivy’s reward for giving up her selfish pursuit of pleasure was an entire weekend without the kids that could have been spent in the selfish pursuit of pleasure if she still did that sort of thing.

  Negotiations between Roger and Jen were ongoing. He convinced her to take their kids home while he stayed with a friend, so Ivy had the house to herself once more. She did laundry, filled the freezer with meals, bought a replacement for her cell phone, had a quiet dinner with her parents on Sunday, and cried herself to sleep only three or four nights in a row.