A Twisted Love Story(11)

Halfway through their conversation, her phone lights up.

Sorry, ran into a client and he wouldn’t shut up. I’m leaving now, want to meet at my place?

Adrenaline straight to the heart. Ivy smiles as she reads it a second time, forgetting all about the guy in front of her.

“Good news?” he says.

“It was nice talking to you,” she says, “but I have to go.”

The honeymoon isn’t over yet.





10




The morning sun lights up the bedroom, and Wes rolls over to see Ivy lying in his bed. She is still asleep, her brown hair half covering her face. He isn’t surprised to see her there. Not once did he think she would disappear in the middle of the night. She never has before.

Wes goes to the kitchen, leaving her to sleep. Last night, she arrived in an Uber instead of her car, and she was in a good mood, too. Jumped right into his arms when he opened the door.

“How was the game?” she said.

“Good. How are the girls?”

“Good.”

“Are you drunk?” he asked.

“Buzzed. Are you drunk?”

“No.”

“Anything else?” she said.

“Nope.”

“Then we should go to bed.”

It was a good night.

Wes is taking his first sip of coffee when Ivy walks into the kitchen wearing one of his T-shirts. Her favorite, the one she has stolen a few times over the years. He always gets it back.

He pours her a cup of coffee and sets it down in front of her. “I don’t have any cream.”

“That’s okay.”

It isn’t, because she hates black coffee, but this morning she is being agreeable. Not going to argue about that. He pops a couple of bagels in the toaster oven.

“Still eating bagels,” she says.

“Always.”

They smile. Bagels are an old inside joke. She loves them but hates all the carbs; he loves them and refuses to think about the carbs. Some things are better left ignored.

Wes opens the refrigerator and takes out the cream cheese. Plain, which she’ll eat, but she’d prefer one of the flavored kinds. He makes a mental note to pick some up, along with cream, later today. He does have Fresca, though. Always.

“So how’s your friend doing?” he says. “What’s his name? Hershey?”

“You know his name.”

“I know he’s named after a candy bar.”

“Heath,” she says. “His name is Heath.”

Yes. Heath. “So how’s he doing?”

“I haven’t seen him in a while. He’s working up in Oregon for a few months.”

Good. Heath is Ivy’s best friend, and he’s not on #TeamWes. Or #TeamWesandIvy, for that matter. If Heath is on anyone’s team, it’s his own.

The toaster oven dings, saving Wes from saying anything else. The last thing he wants to do is screw everything up now.

He and Ivy slip into a familiar rhythm, eating breakfast while discussing plans for the weekend and exchanging gossip about mutual friends. Together, they clean up. Ivy pours a second cup of coffee, and Wes checks his phone, scrolling through whatever he missed.

It’s a normal Saturday morning if you ignore all the time that passed between the last time and today. He does.



* * *



—

Ivy leaves around ten, because Wes has plans to play disc golf with his friends today. Unlike her, he doesn’t live in an apartment. Wes owns a house, a small ’70s ranch-style that he’s had for two years, but she has never lived there with him. Last time, she came close, but then they started fighting a lot. Little things at first, as always. Like when she was half-asleep and turned off his alarm without thinking. Or when he conveniently forgot to buy more cream for her coffee.

They picked at each other, letting all those little annoyances blow up into something bigger. Sometimes it was for the sex afterward, always intense. But other times it was for the fight. The downhill spiral picked up speed, and the fighting became worse. No sex afterward, leaving them with all that anger.

One night, they went to a party and he caught her flirting with a guy she had gone out with a few times. She had done it on purpose, to make Wes jealous, as she had done many times before. But flirting with someone she had actually dated was a step too far for Wes. He left the party without her.

Ivy went to his house, ready for a blowout of a fight. He didn’t want one. He didn’t even want to talk to her. Everything she had left at his place was waiting for her on the front lawn. She couldn’t get into the house, because she never got a key.

Since this was only a year ago, and she was no longer the impulsive girl she used to be, Ivy did not knock. She did not bang on his door. Instead, she stood outside his house, surveyed her options, and headed right for the garden.

She pulled up every plant, every flower, everything that made it one of the best in the neighborhood. Wes didn’t take care of it—he paid a neighborhood kid to handle the gardening—but that didn’t make him any less proud of it.

Wes never said a word about what she had done. Not directly. But two days later, she woke up to find her back patio filled with trash. He had thrown it over the wall. It wasn’t random trash from the dumpster; she could tell by the junk-food wrappers. His favorites.