Cheeks the color of her hair, Ivy looked up at me from her hands and knees. Her eyes were misty with aches and embarrassment as I reached down with both hands and lifted from under her armpits. I’d noticed how small she was, but I still wasn’t prepared for her to be so featherlight.
When she’d opened the door and stepped inside, white-hot annoyance had made the surface of my skin tingle. I didn’t want her to be here. I liked to drink alone, and I did it with the purpose of going numb. Ivy, for all she was, was the last thing in my life that would aid in my bid for apathy.
Exhibit A: I’d been out of my seat as soon as she hit the floor.
“You all right?”
She nodded and tucked her chin, the prospect of meeting my eyes too much in the fresh hell of public mortification.
“I’m fine.”
I nodded back above her head in an effort to give her the benefit of secrecy in her true feelings, but avoiding her eyes meant noticing others, and believe you me, the eyes of the town were upon us.
“Come on,” I ordered thickly, trying not to let the invasion of privacy turn me callous. I knew my trigger had only a breadth of forgiveness these days, and all that communal inspection was hell on its sensitivity. “Let’s go.”
“Where?” she asked, her vivid green eyes meeting mine for the first time.
The question caught me off guard. Surely, she wants to leave, right? She’d just fallen to her knees in one of the most attended places in all of Cold. There wasn’t a chance in Hades she’d be able to do anything for the rest of the night without being watched, and I’d stupidly cared enough about her well-being to connect us via being the first person to run to her aid and support her with my own hands. She had to go.
“To your car. I’ll help you.”
Her eyebrows drew together a half an inch and stood up in the center, and the slow shake of her head swirled a curl of dizziness through my mind. “I’m not leaving.”
“Ivy,” I nearly growled, the determination in her voice making mine get heated. “Come on. I’ll walk you to your car.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“Ivy. Turn the fuck around.”
“I’m not leaving!” she yelled. Time contracted on that one moment, and any-fucking-body who’d been oblivious to our meeting of the minds before wasn’t anymore.
My hands left her arms quickly—as if they burned.
“Fine,” I gritted. “Suit yourself.”
Our separation was bitter, and the crickets chirped almost violently as we both walked over to the bar—me, back to my seat, and her to the farthest stool at the other end.
Lou had already filled my glass when I returned, so I picked it up with a shaking hand and downed it. The silky warmth that coated my throat in its wake made it easier to sit down and blind myself to the rest of it.
I didn’t see her hair or her scowl or her haunting green eyes, and I couldn’t hear the whispers. I didn’t care what she was doing or who she was with or if she even stayed there after that. It was just me and my glass, and I took a trip to oblivion.
Three hours and seven glasses of whiskey later, a ghost from my past found my arm and set out to mend the hurt from earlier.
“Levi?” Grace asked me softly, her voice a little different than normal, but still pretty.
I squinted, trying to find enough focus to make out her perfect features, but all I could manage was a blurry painting of green, peach, and red.
“Grace,” I hummed with a smile. “Iss good to see you.”
The pink of her mouth changed shape, flattening out at the corners, and I reached up with a thumb to try to smooth it.
“It’s good to see you too, Levi.”
“Where you been? You get mad at me or somefin?” Deep into the recesses of my brain that hadn’t let alcohol drown out logic, I knew it didn’t add up. But I ignored the truth. It was easier that way. Simple, easy. Yeah. That sounds so nice.
The big blob of her hair shook back and forth, and her answer was a whisper. “No.”
“Thas good,” I remarked, followed by a “Whoa.” She had a shoulder under my arm and was lifting me off my stool before I could protest. She’d always been a stout little thing. “You’re strong, you know that?” I muttered. “So strong.”
“I didn’t really,” she said weirdly. “But I’m starting to get it now.”
My brain ached, like my skull was abrasive and too tight around the membrane, and I blinked to open my eyes, but the light stabbed at me like a knife.
What in God’s hell had I done last night?
Rebelling against the pain, I forced my eyes open, expecting to see Jeremy’s couch or the sheets of my own bed courtesy of him. Anytime I got drunk, he was the one to deal with it. He didn’t have a signed contract or anything, but his number was the lucky one Lou could reliably find on his speed dial.
What I found instead made me sit up entirely too fast. Vomit threatened, and my eyes burned.
Thankfully, a trash can sat next to the plaid couch, a fresh bag lining the inside. I heaved and purged, voiding myself of the rotten alcohol in no more than thirty seconds.
A bottle of water on the coffee table quenched the cottony dryness of my tongue and rinsed out everything putrid.
Things were looking up.
Relief was sweet but brief as I realized with renewed clarity where I was.
The banana yellow curtains and soft cream walls. The painted butterfly on the back of the front door and the furry gray pillow behind my back.
This was Grace’s living room.
Ivy’s living room.
Jesus Christ.
I had to get out of there.
Listening intently for signs of a woman awake, I tied up the now disgusting trash bag beside the couch with plans to dispose of it in one of the outside bins, pulled on my boots at the foot of the couch, and grabbed my jacket from where it’d been draped over the back.
The air was still and the morning silent—thank God—so I moved to the door on the tips of my toes, pausing for only a moment, hand on the knob, my gaze no more than a passing glance.
Come hell or high water, I had to find a way to put both of the women in this house behind me.