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“She sure did,” Greer piped up. “Excellent meeting, everyone. Ivy, you are a force, and I’m glad you’re here to keep us straight.”
Cameron wouldn’t make eye contact with me, which was suspicious enough. Ivy’s grin held the terrifying edge of a self-satisfied smirk, and I opened my mouth to question her again, but her phone rang, and she picked it up immediately.
“Ivy Lynch,” she said, pausing to listen to what the other person was saying. Her brows bent down. “No, that’s not what we agreed to. You said you’d come down three percent on your commission because you’re the buying and selling agent, and I’m not budging on that.”
With a huff, she marched out to the office, and my brother watched with a gooey look in his eyes.
“Sap,” I told him.
“She’s amazing,” he said. “I love watching her scare the shit out of people.”
“Let me guess, she likes to tie you up in bed and walk on your back with stilettos.”
He smacked me on the shoulder. “Brother, if I wouldn’t make you feel woefully inadequate, I’d tell you just how wrong you are. But I’ll take pity on you since you probably haven’t gotten laid in a decade because you’re such a troll.”
I snorted.
“So,” he drawled. “Harlow grew up. She was cute in high school, but she’s … she’s beautiful now.”
I grunted and kept my eyes down, packing up my shit to go home.
“That must’ve been a shock,” he said.
“That she aged?” I asked dryly. “Not really.”
“Dick. You know what I mean.”
“I don’t, actually. Change tends to happen when you haven’t seen someone in seventeen years.”
His eyes were heavy on the side of my face, and I ignored the absolute hell out of it.
“So you’re done hiding from your own house now?”
“Guess so.” I hitched my bag over my shoulder. “Anything else you need or do I have permission to leave?”
“Like you have ever asked my permission for a single thing in your life.”
I tilted my head. “Good point. I haven’t.” As I passed, I shoved him in the chest. “Good luck with your scary girlfriend.”
He laughed the kind of laugh that only a man completely secure in his relationship could manage. “Good luck with your best friend who had to come yell at you today because you’ve been a chickenshit all week.”
In response, I conjured a withering glare because I was not comfortable enough in my relationship with Harlow yet to laugh the way he had. My drive home was about two and a half minutes, so there wasn’t enough time to feel nervous about the slight whiplash I’d given all of us.
But it wasn’t until I pulled my truck up to the house and saw Sage next to the dilapidated fence that looked over the field by the barn that I felt the first real stirrings of guilt.
She was just a kid. Not that young age had anything to do with it. It didn’t insulate you from shitty things happening in your life. When I was ten, I’d already watched my mom get sick with cancer and die, held Parker’s hands while we buried her, and soon after started a new phase of life with my dad marrying Sheila.
Maybe Sage hadn’t experienced that sort of trauma, but hers was significant all the same. Not having a father in the picture couldn’t be easy, especially not when she’d had to see her mom struggle in her job, or when they moved across the country to a new school.
Sage’s arm rested on the fence as she stared out at the tall grasses, and her chin rested on her arm. I took a deep breath, only briefly glancing at the house before I got out of the truck and walked in her direction.
“Looks like you’re having a serious think out here,” I said.
She nodded, then turned, producing a beat-up foam football from the hand that I hadn’t been able to see. “Can you catch?”
I slid my bag off my shoulder and let it fall in the grass. “Guess we’re about to find out.”
Her eyebrows rose in challenge. “You can back up farther than that. I have a pretty good arm.”
