Chapter 16
I hadn’t laughed so hard in months. Maybe even longer. It wasn’t the alcohol, because I stopped after two. Ian stopped after one beer, leaning in at one point to tell me he’d be fine to drive us home.
Drive us home, I thought once, with only the slight edge of panicked laughter ringing in my head. Our home. His and mine.
I was already struggling to keep Feelings and Thoughts in a locked box, but it didn’t help anything when he did things like that. Or when he rushed upstairs to make sure I was fine when the lights went out.
Gawd, if that man had any idea how close I was to doing something stupid when I ran into him. Like oops I dropped my towel stupid.
The only thing that stopped me was, you know, my sanity. Rational thought. All those pesky little things. Being at the bar helped. The shit-giving at the table was relentless between three Wilder Siblings, and the addition of Ivy, who wasn’t intimidated by Jax and Ian in the slightest.
The music got a little bit louder as the evening passed. The guys told stories from the job sites that had us all laughing. Cameron and Ivy traded good-natured teasing that always had a slight undercurrent of foreplay, which made Poppy cover her face and groan. The whole night was just so freaking pleasant. They asked about my books and what I was working on.
“Right now, I’m plotting, and I sent a first chapter to my agent to see what she thought before it goes to my editor.”
“And?” Poppy asked.
I grinned. “I think her exact words were, I am obsessed with everything about this.”
“That’s great,” Poppy gushed.
Under the table, Ian nudged my leg with his, and my stomach flipped. I kept my focus on my drink but pressed my knee back into his thigh.
Jax narrowed his eyes. “You write killer books, right?”
I laughed. “I don’t typically call them that, but yes.”
“Doesn’t that shit freak you out? I’d have to sleep with the lights on if I was writing in some psycho’s head.”
“I know it doesn’t make sense,” I said, “but thinking through all the what-ifs and why someone would do what they do has always made me feel … safer. I’m not naive about the way people think. If there’s a worst-case-scenario outcome to any given situation,” I lifted my glass, “you can trust a crime writer to have thought it through.”
“Give me an example,” Ivy said.
With my pointer finger, I tapped my chin while I thought of something. I sat up, leaning closer to the table, elbows propped on the surface. “Okay, so when we moved into Ian’s, I chose the smaller bedroom closer to the stairs, even though Sage expected to have that room.”
Ivy’s brow furrowed. “Why?”
“If a murderer comes upstairs, he’ll likely choose to go into my room first.” I sat back in my chair and spread my hands out. “Boom, I’ll shank him in the kidneys with the knife I keep under my pillow.”
“I love it,” Ivy breathed.
“You what?” Ian said.
Jax blinked at me repeatedly. Poppy’s mouth hung open.
Cameron leaned toward Ivy. “Please don’t get any ideas,” he whispered loudly enough that we all heard him.
“You have a knife under your pillow?” Ian said again. He was staring at me like he’d never seen me before in his entire life.
I smiled innocently. “I lived in New York City as a single woman for a very long time. I know how to defend myself, okay?” Then I patted the side of my purse. “I’m always packing something that could do some damage.”
Jax eyed my purse like it might explode. “Note to self. Don’t piss her off.” Then he cocked a brow at Ian. “And you better not be sneaking into her room at night. You might get stabbed.”
My face went unnecessarily warm. “No one is sneaking into anyone’s room, okay? And I don’t just … whip it out as soon as I hear a noise.”
“Unless they’re into that sort of thing,” Poppy said. Every person at the table swiveled in her direction. She blinked a few times. “What? I’m not saying I am, but … people have all sorts of kinks, right? I’m not here to judge.”
“Dear God, will someone please change the subject,” Jax said, his hands covering his face.
Every once in a while, no matter what the topic of conversation was, I’d catch Ian’s eye, and there was a quick, breathless moment where my traitor, sex-deprived mind would drag me back to that hallway and the towel and the way his hands felt around my waist.
But then someone would ask a question or say something funny, and that breathless moment disappeared in a whisp of smoke, nothing I could grab onto even if I wanted. I shouldn’t grab onto it. And even though the setup at the table looked like a triple date to anyone who passed, it helped that Poppy sat next to me, and Jax was on the other side of Ian. It allowed me to remember that it wasn’t a date, no matter how date-ish it might appear.
That, and Cameron and Ivy were the only ones engaging in nauseatingly cute public displays of affection. He was always touching her. And for as cool and reserved as she came off, Ivy melted into him with every single one of those touches.
They finished whispering something to each other. Poppy was busy looking at her phone, and I hid a yawn behind my hand. It was well past my bedtime. Ivy leaned in toward the table.
“Cameron says I’m not allowed to ask this because it might be rude, but I’m too nosy not to,” she said, pinning me with a frank look. “Sage’s father. What’s the deal there?”
Beside me, Ian went still, tilting his head a bit closer. He’d been in conversation with Jax, but he stopped talking as I answered. We’d talked about a lot since I moved in with him. But we hadn’t talked about this. We hadn’t talked about my relationship history or his, an invisible boundary drawn by both of us.
Maybe Ian thought about where to push and where to stay still, too.
“Not much to tell,” I admitted. “We weren’t in a serious relationship. Maybe the fourth or fifth guy I’d dated in New York, and he just … didn’t want to be a dad. I told him I was pregnant, he said it was my decision what I did with the baby, but he didn’t want any part in it.” I shrugged, a slightly nonchalant gesture for a loaded subject. “That’s about it.”
Ivy looked very unimpressed by this answer. “He pays child support, right?”
Slowly, I shook my head. “Not a penny. I didn’t hear from him again after he walked out of my apartment the day I told him.”
Poppy looked sad. “That’s terrible.”
Jax kept his eyes on the table. Some guy standing at a nearby table called his name, and he ducked out of his seat and made his way over to talk to them.
“It could’ve been worse,” I said.
“How?” Ian asked in a dry tone.
“I could’ve married him,” I answered simply. “We could have made the wrong decision for the wrong reasons, and that wouldn’t have helped anyone.” I set my chin on my hands and sighed. “When Ian and I were in high school, I had this whole picture of my life when I was this age. I thought I’d turn thirty-five and have a party with my family, and my husband would whisk me away for a romantic date, and we’d dance under the stars, and he’d kiss me good night…” I realized I’d effectively turned the mood maudlin. Ian was the only one who wasn’t staring at me, his gaze locked onto his folded hands on the table. The skin of his knuckles were white. I forced a bright smile onto my face. “He wouldn’t have done any of that. So, all in all, I really believe it’s for the best that he walked.”
Ivy’s eyes were on fire. “You’re right, marriage wasn’t the answer. But he should’ve financially supported you at the very minimum.” Then her gaze narrowed. “What’s his name?”
Cameron chuckled under his breath. “Easy, duchess, Harlow may not want you to track him down.”
“He should be tracked down,” she muttered. “Dick.”
I smiled. “I could’ve pushed for child support,” I told her. “Taken him to court. It would have been messy and difficult, and instead, I chose what made the most sense to me at the time.” Again, I shrugged. “I was making good money off my first couple of books, had an advance for two more, and I was fortunate that I didn’t need his support to take care of her. I chose to protect my mental health and not make Sage watch me chase him down her whole life for something he didn’t want to be a part of.” My brow flattened. “I can’t imagine how hard that would’ve been for her. That constant reminder he didn’t want any part of our life.”
Ian’s big fingers plucked at the label around his beer as he listened quietly. His face, as usual, gave absolutely nothing away. Gawd, if that didn’t make me want to shake him until he said something, pry his stoic little head open until his thoughts fell out.
Ivy sighed. “Fair enough. But if you change your mind,” she tipped her wineglass in my direction, “let me know.”
“I will,” I said with a small laugh. Then I settled my hands on the table. “Please, let’s talk about something less depressing than my relationship history.”
“Well, then we can’t talk about Ian’s,” Cameron said smoothly. “You had one girlfriend in London? Two?”
Ian glared at his brother.
“He had two that we know of,” Poppy added helpfully, now the recipient of her own glare. “Sophia was the one from Scotland, there for college, if I remember right.”
“Uni,” Ian corrected tersely. When I gave him an incredulous look, he held his hands up. “What? They call it uni.”
“Dating a co-ed, old man?” I asked. “How terribly cliché.”
He rolled his eyes, but a slight pink flush on his cheeks made me smile. “She was twenty-one, and I was twenty-nine. She wasn’t that much younger.”
The turn in the topic was doing weird things to my insides. It wasn’t jealousy because hello, what a hypocrite I would be. But this blaring curiosity was so loud, it had my ears ringing.
“And then there was Esme,” Poppy continued. “That’s the one Mom and Dad met when they visited over Christmas because she lived with him.” She wrinkled her nose. “Dad said she was perfectly lovely but not even close to the right one for Ian.”
Ian’s brow furrowed. “I didn’t know that.”
Poppy set her chin in her hand and pinned him with an innocent look. “Did you ask Dad what he thought of her?”
“We all know the answer to that,” Cameron said.
The annoyance stamped on Ian’s face was such a mighty, terrifying thing, I struggled not to laugh. He cut me a look. “You think this is funny?”
I leaned closer, settling my elbow on the table. “I think it’s funny that you are completely unaware of how you act in relationships. You’ve always been like this.”
“Like what?”
“You don’t ask anyone’s opinion when you’re even a little bit afraid to hear the answer.”
For just a moment, I worried I said too much. That I cut too close to a truth about Ian that he may not want brought up on a night like this.
And even if I was right, because Ian was like that, there was something wonderful about the fact that he simply was who he was. That he didn’t put on a mask or try to be what everyone else wanted from him. For good or for bad, the way Ian interacted with the people in his life was completely genuine, even if he didn’t spend much time thinking about why he was that way. There was no artifice to this man. Not a fake bone in his body.
And I loved that about him.
Not loved loved. But friend-loved. God, my face was probably melting off.
The way he looked at me after I said it had me holding my breath for a moment.
Not the time to push, Harlow. Not tonight.
His thumb tapped on the side of his empty beer bottle, his eyes tracing my face before he said, “Whatever you say, sparky.”
I bit down on my bottom lip, but there was no stopping my smile. After a beat, his gaze moved back to the table, his frame rising and falling on a deep breath.
“Sparky?” Poppy asked. “How’d you get that nickname?”
I tore my attention away from Ian and smiled at his sister. “I think he started calling me that in fourth or fifth grade? I’m not even sure why.”
Ian made a small grunting noise. “Fifth, I think. She was always piping up in class, arguing with teachers?—”
“Only when they were wrong,” I interrupted. “And that was only a couple of times.”
With a slight raise of his eyebrow like I’d just proven his point, Ian shook his head and took a drink of water. Cameron leaned in to whisper something in Ivy’s ears, and she nodded, ducking in to kiss him softly on the lips.
Ian’s brother stood from his chair and offered his hand to Ivy. “I think it’s time to dance, duchess.”
She hopped gracefully out of her seat, and he led her to the makeshift dance floor, where a few couples swayed to the gentle twang of a slow country song. As Cameron wrapped his big arms around Ivy, he smiled down at her in a way that had my heart aching. How long had it been since I’d been able to just watch a couple so completely in love?
The writer-wheels turned in my head while I clocked all the ways they were different, how, if I’d met them separately, I never would have put them together in my head. The big, tough Cameron and the fierce, polished Ivy. But something was incredibly poignant about the softness they brought out in each other, the way they moved and talked and laughed with complete ease.
What made a couple work? I wondered. What about the quirks and flaws and their combined pasts made them perfectly fit together like that. I thought about the couple in my book, the cagey way they danced around each other, chalking their attraction up to their situation. And maybe the stage for their story was the impetus of that tension, but it didn’t create it out of thin air. It was built into them, their differences and similarities started the fire, even if something else lit the match.
My fingers drummed along the edge of my arm, and I swear, if my computer was in front of me, I’d have started working immediately.
“You’ve got that look on your face,” Ian said. He’d leaned closer, his mouth brushing my hair as he whispered. “What are you thinking about?”
“Romantic compatibility.” I ducked my chin and gave him a look from the corner of my eye. “Normally, I watch people and think about murder, so you should be very grateful right now.”
He laughed, a hearty, rich sound that had my heart aching for a different reason. “I am. Especially now that I know you have hidden weapons everywhere.”
I patted my leg. “If I had them everywhere, I’d have a thigh strap with a blade right here, buddy.”
At that, he quirked a brow but said nothing.
Poppy leaned in. “Ian, she’s a soon-to-be romance writer, staring at a dance floor and thinking about love and relationships. If you’re a smart man, you’d be asking your friend to dance right now.”
Ian blinked, and so did I.
Silence coated the space like a heavy blanket, and just like that, I got dragged back down that hallway again. A hard chest and big hands, the way he ran up the stairs and yelled my name. God, a weaker woman might swoon, but I was working triple-overtime to keep my thoughts in check. Keep them locked the hell down in the metaphorical dungeons where they belonged.
Did I want him to ask me to dance?
Yes. And no.
Not here. Not now.
Even through the throbbing tightness in my chest, I gave Ian a wry grin. “Don’t worry, I have no hopes for that. Ian has never asked me to dance.”
His eyes stayed steady on mine.
Poppy gaped. “What? Not even at prom or anything?”
“Never.” I set my chin in my hands and stared at my best friend. “What’s up with that?” I asked. “You have two left feet or something?”
“Or something,” he murmured.
Poppy gave her brother a look of such disgust, I burst out laughing. “It’s okay, Poppy, really.”
She stood from the table. “Men are stupid,” she declared, then held her hand out to me. “Let’s go show them how it’s done.”
With clasped hands, Poppy and I turned each other in circles, twirling around the dance floor. And the whole time, Ian stayed in his seat, his eyes on me while I spun to the music and laughed.