CHAPTER 49 Ainsley Bradley
Aligned
I feel strange going to Ivy’s house, but she assured me her parents are out at a dinner party. She thinks the reason I feel off about going to her house is because her parents are technically my in-laws.
I suppose that’s part of it.
I’ve never felt weird going to my best friend’s house before, but I’ve also never gone there when I was married to her brother and we just broke up.
I don’t want to go. I don’t want to see the photographs of a younger Dex on the walls. I don’t want the reminders of everything I just willingly gave up. But I don’t have much choice. Ivy was insistent, and she doesn’t know the truth.
I guess maybe tonight I’ll tell her. Does it really matter now that it’s over?
I pull up in front of the mansion in my little old Volkswagen Beetle.
It’s the only car I’ve ever owned, and we got it for a good price a little over five years ago when my parents needed help toting my younger siblings around.
It’s served me well, but it certainly doesn’t drive as smoothly as the Mercedes back in Vegas.
Nothing here feels as smooth as life in Vegas does, and maybe that’s why I decided to tell Ivy the truth.
Maybe she’ll be mad. Maybe she won’t care.
Maybe we’ll talk about what it’s like to have sex since she’s still a virgin.
Maybe we won’t since it involves her brother, and that could get awkward.
Maybe I’ll chicken out and not tell her the truth after all, but she’s my best friend.
We tell each other everything, and it’s not like I can easily hide the heartbreak I’m feeling right now.
I can see it on my own face when I look in the mirror, so surely she’ll be able to see it when she looks at me, too.
I ring the bell, and Ivy opens the door a moment later.
She looks all around me before her eyes meet mine, and her brows are pushed together. “Doesn’t Dex need help with the baby since he has a game this weekend?” Clearly she’s looking for her nephew. “Or is he with Everleigh?”
My brows dip together. “Everleigh?”
“Yeah, didn’t Dex tell you? She’s moving to Vegas. She might already be there.” She shrugs.
I shake my head, a little confused. Maybe Dex knew and didn’t tell me since we haven’t spoken. “No, I didn’t know that.” I hear the crack in my voice when I say the words, and I’m giving myself away way too early.
I had plans. I rehearsed what I was going to say.
But none of it matters now because tears are already falling down my cheeks, and I’m going to have to admit why to Ivy.
“Oh my God, Ains, what’s going on?” she asks as she ushers me in.
I pull it together, wiping my eyes and sniffling. “Sorry,” I say.
“Did he hurt you?”
“No more than I hurt him,” I say, though honestly I don’t know if that’s true.
I don’t know if he’s hurting or not. He doesn’t seem like he is when he stays out all night the way he did, but if he genuinely cares about me and what we built, like he said he did, then he must feel something over the loss of it.
She’s quiet, and she pulls me in for a hug. “You fell for him.” She says the words flatly.
“Very much so, yes.” I’m resting my head on her shoulder, refusing to move because I don’t want to have to look her in the eyes while I tell her how very much I love her big, dumb brother.
“And him?” she asks.
“He fell, too. Or he said he did, anyway. I wasn’t alone. But it’s over now.”
“Did you, uh…” She trails off, and I fill in the blank.
“Sleep with him? Yes.”
“Oh, God.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“I had a feeling when I stayed with you for my birthday weekend. I don’t know, you just seemed so…” She trails off again, and this time she pulls back as she looks at me while she says the word. “Aligned.”
I twist my lips. “We were. And then we weren’t.”
“Can I ask why?”
I can’t exactly tell her that it’s because of her father and this illegal underground casino he’s running. We tell each other everything, sure, but that seems off-limits. If her dad wanted her to know, he’d tell her. It’s not my news to tell when it involves so many members of her own family.
So I dart around the central issue. “We just have such different backgrounds. It was never meant to work.”
“You and I have the same different backgrounds, but this works,” she points out.
“Yeah, but we’re not romantically involved. It’s different. And you’re not this NFL bad boy with a history filled with women.”
She presses her lips together. “What can I do?”
We’re still standing in the foyer, and there’s a huge family photograph on the wall. It’s from several years ago, but Dex is in it, and it feels like his eyes are on me as I stare up at it.
“Come on,” she says as her eyes follow mine to where I’m staring, and we head toward the kitchen. She gets us each some water, and we sit at the kitchen table. “Talk to me, Riggs.”
I chuckle a little wistfully. “It’s Bradley now.”
“Right. Not if you ended it. Are you sure about this?”
“He’s a complicated guy. He’s secretive, and he claims he keeps those secrets to protect me, but how do I know I can trust him?”
“I feel like somewhere in that question, you’re admitting it’s not over yet,” she says.
“It feels permanent. But you know me, the eternal optimist.” I roll my eyes.
“I do know you, Ains. And I know you try to be sunshine and rainbows all the time, but those rainbows don’t come without a little rain, right?”
“This feels like more than a little,” I point out. “This feels like thunderstorms and lightning and destruction.” I twist my lips.
“The storm before the calm?” she suggests, and I shake my head.
“I don’t know. He kind of holds the keys, but he has to want to fight back, and I’m not sure he does.”
She reaches over and squeezes my arm, and frankly, I’m surprised she’s being so cool about this. We never had to hide it from her, and she’s not even questioning why we did. She just seems to get it, and that is why she’s my best friend. “He’s never had to fight before. He might not know how.”
I chew on my lip. Is she right?
He’s an adult, but he’s always lived recklessly.
He’s always done whatever he wanted that felt good or right in the moment.
He never had to think about anyone else.
And regardless of what happens with us, he’ll still have Jack.
He’ll still have someone else to think about in every decision he makes.
Eventually I head back home. I don’t feel any better after admitting the truth to Ivy, so maybe some family time will do me good.
I still share a room with Claire and Holly, my nineteen- and seventeen-year-old sisters, respectively.
Claire is attending community college while Holly is a senior in high school, and my brothers—Carson and Henry—also share a room.
It’s a modest, three-bedroom home with only two bathrooms, and I can’t say I miss sharing a bathroom with two sisters.
It’s probably why I spent so much time at Ivy’s house, to be honest.
But I’m back. This is where I lived all through college and even after I graduated last year. I was saving up to find a place of my own, something that’s harder than I realized it would be when rents are skyrocketing while entry-level paychecks remain the same.
It’s a Friday night, always movie night in the Riggs household, and when I walk in after visiting Ivy, I find my two brothers and my parents on the couch, a bowl of popcorn on my dad’s lap as everyone reaches in to grab handfuls.
There’s popcorn on the floor, and my mom will make a game of cleaning it up once the movie is over.
They’re watching one of the Marvel movies.
I debate heading to my room for a bit just to be alone, but instead, I plop down onto the couch beside Henry.
I reach across him to get my own handful of popcorn.
“Where are Claire and Holly?” I ask.
“Claire is out with friends, and Holly’s at Becca’s,” my mom says, naming Holly’s best friend.
I miss having them here. These little family moments are always so lovely, even if I didn’t appreciate them so much back when I could have them any time I wanted.
I’ve even missed this since I’ve been in Vegas for the last few months.
Maybe I didn’t realize how much I missed it until I was back here in the thick of it.
But it doesn’t even come close to comparing to how much I miss Dex and Jack.