“But I can come to you during the week or between shows, and you can come visit when you get the chance.”
She nods.
“We’ll make it work, Ivy. Whatever we have to do, okay? We’ll make it work.”
“Okay.”
She still seems hesitant and seeing it makes me nervous. Nervous for what I’m planning to tell her this weekend, nervous about how she’ll react, and worried if she’ll believe that I don’t feel the same way now.
Her eyes search for something aimlessly on the ground, growing distant. I wait for her to collect her thoughts or for her to tell me what’s on her mind, but it never comes. She rests her body against me. Unable to resist, I press kisses against her shoulder, feeling the heat radiate from her skin from the sun she got earlier that day.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Huh?” she asks, her eyes snapping back to me, pulling her from her thoughts. “Oh, I was just thinking about what you said.”
“What part?”
“Just coming to see each other. What it will be like, I guess.”
I feel like there’s more she’s not saying.
“Talk to me,” I murmur, moving to look her in the eyes.
“I guess I’m curious how things were when I first got to town. The people you were hanging out with, the things you were doing. You’re not going to go back to that, are you?”
She doesn’t spell it out exactly, but I know she’s talking about me bringing home the girl from the bar and sleeping with her. She wants reassurance I’m not going to go back to living the single life, and I can’t say I blame her for wondering.
“Are you asking if I’m going to go back to fucking around?”
She doesn’t respond, but the look on her face says everything words don’t.
“Fuck no, Ivy. Are you kidding me?”
“What do you expect me to think, Brix?” She pushes off me to stand, holding her arms out beside her. “Up until recently, I was just some big joke to you. Things have been so good between us, but I constantly feel like I’m waiting for the moment when it all changes, when I find out you’ve been fucking with me this whole time.”
The hurt and fear on her face are like an iron fist to the gut. Especially knowing she’s not wrong in her fears.
My own worries about how I’m going to find a way of telling her the truth creep in, and I know right now is not the time or place. I need more time to show her how I feel, to prove to her she can trust me.
I’m terrified if I were to tell her now, she’d never believe me. Why would she? Everything I’ve ever said and done has proven otherwise.
I hope, whatever I do, that in the end, it’s enough to convince her how sorry I am because I’m scared, if it’s not, I’ll lose her forever.
Twenty-One
Ivy
After our conversation last night, I think Brix picked up on my hesitance about where things are going between us. One minute he was the man I had spent nearly half of my life loathing, then when we’re forced together for the summer, it’s like all my thoughts became a jumbled mess.
There were times when I thought I wouldn’t make it to the end of the summer without killing him, then there were others where I felt a pull so strong and a connection so real, I started to doubt myself and what I had thought about him for all those years.
I hated to admit it, but it made me insecure and question everything. On one hand, I wanted to push all the worries aside and enjoy whatever this is, but on the other hand, there were real fears in my mind that this was still some sort of joke to him.
Waking up next to Brix is something I will never get sick of doing. I felt him stir this morning as he slipped out of bed, still naked from the night before.
“You can go back to sleep. I’m going to go downstairs and call my mom.”
Nodding my head, I pull the blanket up under my chin, rolling over on my stomach. He leans forward to press a kiss against my forehead, his mouth lingering before he pulls back, staring down at me.