Chapter One
▲
Previously, in Vexillum…
(AKA: this would be the prologue if I thought you losers would read it.)
Maple
The skirt of my dress swishes lightly around my legs as I travel down a stone path through a garden on the cusp of blooming.
My bare feet take me from my backyard art studio to the large, Tudor-style main house I share with my best friend.
Paint drips from my fingertips, adding to dried speckles beneath my feet formed from other days by other hues.
Tiny splashes of color continue to fall as I enter the house through a terrace door into a massive, magnificent, overflowing library.
Books line every wall and fill several low wooden bookshelves scattered throughout the room. Deep, lush, jewel-toned furniture takes up what little space the bookshelves leave free. I inhale, breathing in the paper-and-firewood smell of the space, then exhale satisfaction.
As I pass behind a sapphire-blue sofa, I remember myself enough to clutch my dripping hands to my chest. I grimace at the trail I’ve left behind.
It won’t be the first time acrylic paint has been scrubbed from the otherwise impeccable hardwood floors, but that doesn’t quite lessen my discomfort at the mess.
I make a mental note to come back immediately after my lunch with Ivy and hope that the cleaning staff doesn’t get in here before me.
I’d do it now if I had the time, but Iverson will be here any minute, and his lunch break is only so long.
I’d like to spend as much of it with him as I can.
Being extra careful not to further dirty the library, I take my mess through the equally lush living room, across the foyer, down a hidden service passage, and into the massive, professional-grade kitchen where my brother, Birch, can usually be found.
In his absence, the room feels stale, and I shiver at the bare black marble counters.
They sit frigid and empty, waiting for my brother to come along and give them the warmth of bountiful creation.
I walk around the lonely slabs to the butler’s pantry and quickly retrieve a handful of napkins, an older, worn-in tablecloth, and two chocolate cupcakes Birch made over the weekend.
Loaded up, I make the trek out of the kitchen, up the stairs, and across the hall to the sitting room attached to Ivy’s master suite.
I briefly consider rewarding myself for surviving the perilous journey here—perhaps with a cupcake? Perhaps with a relaxing lounge?
Perhaps with both?
I could sit… chill… devour the dessert in three bites…
I sigh dreamily, but maintain self-control in the face of such temptation. The treat would be sweet, but I know that it will be all that much sweeter when Iverson is here to enjoy it with me.
With that in mind, I set the confections on a side table and spread the old tablecloth out on a small round table tucked into the corner of the room beside a window overlooking the back garden.
With a soft rustle, creamy plaid covers the table .
Its faded spots and stains tell the tale of a lifetime of friendship.
From the time when my parents gifted me this tablecloth, it’s held my dearest memories with Iverson Swallow—my housemate, dearest friend, and greatest love.
Not that he knows that. Well, he knows the first two.
It’s the third one where things get a little secretive, as they must. While I think that Ivy loves me back, I’ve never been able to tell if he loves me in the soul-deep, all-consuming, fiery sort of way, or in the would-do-anything-for-you, peas-in-a-really-close-pod sort of way, and I’m not brave enough to find out.
We have too much history—too many memories.
Too many parts of our lives entangled so tightly that I dread the thought of what might happen if I’m not careful with the tender knots.
I smooth our tablecloth, a physical reminder of all the reasons I love him and all the reasons I haven’t told him how deep that love goes.
A strawberry stain from our first picnic together at just two years old.
A stitched-up knife slash from our puberty years when Ivy took up throwing knives as a hobby.
A patched burn hole from teenage me experimenting with a magnifying glass and the sun.
College years tattering and a rip from moving out of our parents’ and into this mansion together.
The tablecloth tells it all—the good and the bad and the ill-advised.
I’d sell my soul for this tablecloth, and I know that Ivy would, too.
It’s ours, and it’s us, and it’s… about to obtain a significantly higher amount of staining via the sloppiest barbecue this city has to offer.
I snort, throwing the napkins to the middle of the table and placing the cupcakes carefully beside them. After a quick trip to the bathroom to wash my hands, I plop my ample bottom on a cozy blue chair, cast my gaze upon the gloomy early spring garden, and wait.
Ivy doesn’t leave me waiting for long.
I hear him before I see him, heavy footfalls bounding up the stairs in the hallway, followed by swift steps bringing him to me.
I stand, meeting him at the door, face warming as our eyes meet, sapphire blue to jade green. My heart stutters at the sight of him.
Goodness, he’s gorgeous.
Tall, lean, and muscular, despite his great aversion to anything that looks like cardio, he stands in the frame like a piece of art ready to be hung.
Dark hair dusts his cheekbones, begging for a hand to push the soft fall back from his handsome face.
At his neck, the strands play with a slithering snake made of ink and talent.
His clothes are loose, casual, and linen, as they often are, despite the fact he owns and works at a multi-billion dollar company that one might assume required a more professional dress.
Ivy’s shirts have buttons, and he believes that’s about as much professionalism as the company should require when it comes to what their employees are wearing.
If it’s not stained, ripped, suggestive, or otherwise inappropriate, then he believes a person should be comfortable at the place where they spend the majority of their lives.
Or, at the very least, he believes he should be comfortable at the place where he spends the majority of his life.
Workplace stress lines his shoulders, and I’m glad for his stance on comfort. Imagine having to do your highly stressful job while your collar chokes you for eight-to-nine hours. Absolutely no, thank you—especially not if you’re Iverson Swallow.
His shoulders soften at the sight of me, work-induced tension giving way to ease as he lifts a supremely greasy brown paper bag with a food truck logo stamped in black ink in one hand and a drink carrier with two size-gargantuan cups in the other.
The food bag drops, and I tear my eyes away from his no-longer-bulging bicep, where the mischievous things had wandered. If they want to ogle the perfect male specimen that is our best friend, they can do it during sketch time, when ogling is scheduled, like well-behaved little eyes would do.
“Rosy Maple,” Iverson mutters in hello as he approaches, then bends to kiss the bloom of pink on my cheek. “Sit back down. Let me serve you.”
I obey, finding my chair and putting a foot on it so that I might rest my chin on my knee while he sets a veritable feast before us. Even like this, the skirt of my dress covers me completely, but Iverson’s eyes narrow at my leg anyway, as if it’s causing the greatest of scandals.
“Sitting ladylike is for public,” I tell him. “Unless you’re boring. Boring people sit ladylike in private, too. Do you mean to imply that I should be boring?”
“I would never imply such a thing,” he returns. “I’m only wondering if I should suggest you change before you get barbecue sauce all over your favorite work dress.”
Oh.
“I’ll tuck the tablecloth over me,” I assure him.
“It’ll be fine.” And if it’s not… Well, who cares?
I had a different favorite dress last month, and a different one the month before that.
This one will inevitably end up in the back of my closet like all that came before it until I decide enough is enough and take it to the closest Goodwill drop off, never to be seen again.
A barbecue sauce stain only slightly changes its fate.
Not to mention, I’ll be lucky if it doesn’t already have a paint stain somewhere. A smock only covers so much.
Iverson frowns, but doesn’t push. He sits in the seat nearest to me, shuffling it sideways until we’ll probably be knocking elbows as we eat.
Satisfied with our proximity, he digs into the bag to pull out two white styrofoam food containers dripping with brown sticky sauce.
A complimentary pack of wet wipes follows, as well as a useless stack of regular napkins, most of which are already covered in grease.
He sets my container in front of me, and I wiggle as he opens the lid, slowly revealing a mound of barbecue goodness that has my mouth watering.
Rib tips stacked on sausages stacked on fries with a metric ton of barbecue sauce spread on top.
A single piece of bread resides in the corner, doing its darn best to soak up all the grease and failing miserably.
“There’s mac and cheese, too,” Iverson mumbles, producing a carton of creamy, cheesy noodles from the bag. I squeal, just a little, and his lips tip up at the corner.
“You are every good thing in my life,” I inform him.
“Thank you so much, Ivy. I’m beyond excited.
” My shoulders dance happily as I grab my plastic fork and dig in.
Iverson soon follows, and we take turns eating from our own food and our communal mac and cheese.
Satisfied groans break the silence with each new bite.
“This is amazing.” I rave around a spoonful of macaroni. “So worth torturing Birch over.”
Iverson concurs. “Your brother is a pest, you know.”