AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She exhaled a soft laugh. “Crying doesn’t mean my legs don’t work. Is it a man thing?”
“Oh yeah,” I said. With her legs arranged on the other side of my body, I could touch her there too. I laid my head against hers and breathed deeply. “Makes me feel useful in moments when I can’t actually fix anything.”
When Ivy lifted her head, her eyes were red-rimmed, her cheeks splotchy and pink. Gently, I cupped her face and pushed some of her hair behind her ears.
“Want to talk about it?” I asked.
She didn’t answer right away, simply stared up at me like she wasn’t sure I was real. Heartbreak was stamped all over that severe, beautiful face—raw and agonizing.
“No,” she whispered.
I’d never felt so helpless, so desperate to draw out whatever was making her feel that way. And I couldn’t.
I couldn’t fix this.
I nodded slowly. “Okay. We don’t have to.”
For a moment, her brow pinched, maybe gauging how much I actually meant that. Eventually, her brow smoothed out, and her rib cage expanded on a deep inhale, then a slow exhale.
“Where were you driving?” she asked.
“Shit,” I muttered. “My truck is still running.” She started to get up, and I held her in place. “Just sit,” I told her. “The engine shuts off eventually once you open the door. I think.”
Ivy didn’t argue, which was a miracle in and of itself, finally setting her head against my shoulder with a deep sigh. She picked up my hand where it rested on her thigh, tangling her fingers with mine as she held them against her middle. Neville hopped up onto the edge of the couch, and she laughed quietly when he made his way onto her lap, curling up next to our entwined hands.
We sat there for a few minutes, my nose against the top of her head.
“I was driving to your house,” I said. “Guys are gone for the day, and I wanted to see how it looked with the floors done.”
She nodded.
“Want to come with me?” I asked.
There was a moment of silence after I asked, and I held my breath, waiting for her to say no.
But then Ivy sniffled, momentarily tucking her face closer to mine. “Sure.”
She picked up Neville first, and I watched with a tight chest as she let the cat bump his face against hers while he purred loudly. Ivy kissed the tip of his nose and set him on the ground. Then she slowly extricated herself from my lap.
The truck was still running when we went outside. Before she followed me out of the door, Ivy slipped on a large black sweatshirt that fell below her hips, swamping her frame completely, the hem of her shorts almost disappearing.
Under normal circumstances, I’d make a joke about it or try to slide my hand along the inside of her thighs while she sat next to me in the truck, but the silence was heavy in the wake of her emotional storm.
Ivy paused when she got in the passenger seat, glancing for a moment at the space between us on the bench. Then she took a deep breath, pushing up the console so she could slide right against my side, wrapping her arm around mine and laying her head on my shoulder.
My eyes closed as I settled my hand on the bare skin of her thigh. The moment was almost too big to be contained in that small space, and the warmth spread through my body, better than just about anything I’d ever felt.
I wasn’t sure what to call it. What name to give it.
It wasn’t peace because that was too settled. Too sure.
No, there was no peace when it came to what I felt for Ivy because even with her pressed tight against my side, her body warm and soft on mine, I didn’t feel like I could hold her and never let go.
The drive was too short, and I set the truck in park. It was a place transformed, and I wondered what she thought about that. A few more of my own crew had joined us the last couple of days, along with the subcontractors we used for siding and windows. The siding she’d picked was almost black, the shutters a warm wood tone.
I wondered if she noticed how similar it was to the colors I’d chosen for my own house.
She took a few moments to stare up at the house with loaded silence.
