Chapter 15
Ivy
A miracle. At this rate, that’s what it will take me to believe in myself again.
It’s been nearly a week since I said yes to illustrating the new Harmony Hills Fire Department calendar, and I have nothing. Nothing. If I felt like a failure before, now it’s tenfold.
It doesn’t help that, as my deadline looms in the distance, I’ve already overheard people in town discussing the new calendar—customers at Sunny Stitches, my coworkers at The Harmony Grove, even people at the grocery store—and the general consensus seems to be that nothing will replace real abs and muscles, so why bother?
When something is judged and criticized before it even has the chance to be, finding the joy in making it actually happen becomes nearly impossible.
The silence of the house feels a lot heavier than usual as I sit cross-legged on the couch, tapping my digital pencil against the tablet I haven’t turned on once since I packed my life away in New York City.
But no matter how persistent my tapping is, hot firemen don’t magically appear on my screen. Rude.
Joe is hanging out at Ethan’s house tonight, playing video games and stuffing his face with homemade pizza, so I can’t even pester him as a way to procrastinate. The universe has a vendetta against me, I swear.
I take a deep breath through my nose. In and out. And again.
“All right. Muscles and abs. It’s not that difficult,” I mutter to myself as I scan Ford’s email for the millionth time.
He sent me everyone’s pictures from their files so I can accurately turn them into sexy cartoon-like characters. I’m supposed to make them as recognizable as possible without them having to get half naked and pose in real life.
Aside from Ford, I recognize Ian—the flirt—another man whose kid I’m pretty sure goes to Joe’s school, and that’s about it. But I don’t need to know who they are in order to draw them, and I know I’m stalling by trying to remember if I’ve seen them around town before.
The time on my phone tells me I’ve wasted almost an entire hour overthinking instead of drawing a single thing.
I chew on the end of the pencil. I can’t back away now. The department has paid me upfront in full, but it’s not even about that—I don’t want to throw in the towel.
In an act of desperation and with a lot of impulsiveness, I grab my tablet and my phone in case Joe calls and head out the door. Moments later, I’m knocking on Ford’s.
“Ivy, hey. Everything all right?” he asks with a confused frown when he answers the door.
“This is your fault,” I blurt, clearly not thinking straight.
In my defense, he’s wearing the gray sweatpants again.
He arches an amused eyebrow. “Oh, yeah?”
He opens the door wider, silently telling me to come in. Wooden stairs greet me right away, with a modern kitchen on the right and the living room on the left.
Ford shuts the door behind him. “What’s my fault, exactly?”
“You talked me into drawing half-naked men.”
“And…?”
“I can’t do it.”
The way he leans against the front door so casually has no business looking that attractive. “Why? Never seen a half-naked man before?”
I glare at him, but I don’t think I look too intimidating if his laugh and the heat rising to my cheeks are any indication.
“Come on, show me what you’ve got so far,” he says. “I’m sure it’s great.”
I unlock the device and show him my blank screen.
“You’ve got nothing?”
“Nada.”
“All right. Let’s regroup.” With how tall he is, I have to crane my neck up to look at him when he closes the distance between us. “I’ve seen the way you draw people, so I know you can do it. What’s troubling this little head of yours?”
He taps my forehead with one of those long fingers, sending a thrill all the way down to the tip of my toes.
“Well, a few things.” I decide to be honest instead of pondering why his touch makes me feel this way.
“First, my creativity is still on vacation with no plans to book a return ticket, so there’s that.
Second, I’ve never drawn half-naked men before, and I guess I’m feeling a little nervous about that.
I don’t even know where to begin. What if they look weird and everyone thinks they suck?
You’ve already paid me, we’re on a tight deadline, and I know you don’t want to actually pose for another calendar, so the pressure’s on.
And to top it all off, word has gotten out about the illustrated calendar, and Harmony Hills isn’t happy.
Real abs or nothing, apparently. So, yeah. ”
When he says nothing for a moment, I suspect my rant has broken him. But his eyes haven’t left mine once, and I know he’s heard every word.
“Okay,” he starts slowly, “how about we take this conversation to the couch? I can get you a coffee if you want.”
The couch. His couch. Act normal.
“Yeah, sure.” I clear my throat, my hands getting clammier by the second. “I don’t drink coffee, though. It makes me want to climb the walls. Water is fine.”
“Water it is. You can wait for me in the living room. Hungry?”
“I could use a snack.”
“I’ve got chips and popcorn.”
“Sold and sold.”
Because I can’t help myself—not that I’m even trying, to be honest—I snoop around his living room while he’s busy in the kitchen.
His massive flat-screen is mounted on the cream-colored wall in front of the L-shaped couch. The TV is playing some action movie I don’t recognize, something with a guy running at full speed on top of a moving train. How is that humanly possible anyway?
There’s a built-in shelf next to the TV with family pictures—I recognize his brothers and Lexi, and I spot two older people I’m assuming are his parents.
In the various photos, they’re on a lake or beach, in the snow, and what looks to be someone’s backyard, and they’re all smiling.
Well, Rhys isn’t. Now that I’ve spent some time with him, I don’t find it weird.
He’s more serious than his brothers, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
For reasons that are neither here nor there, I also notice there are no women in any of those pictures, aside from their mom. Not that Ford’s love life is any of my business, of course.
A plush rug sits under the couch and coffee table. The room is decorated in a simple way, but everything matches and feels lived-in.
“Here’s your water.” He walks in moments after I sit on his couch and sets the glass on the table along with a bowl of popcorn. “And your popcorn. Let me go back to grab the chips.”
“Thank you,” I say a little shyly, suddenly too aware that I’ve just barreled into his space to complain and eat all his snacks.
That must be why, when he comes back with a mug in one hand and a bag of barbecue chips—my favorites—in the other, I blurt, “I’m so sorry for showing up unannounced.
Feel free to kick me out whenever you want. I won’t take it personally.”
First the shed and now his house. What’s with me and invading this man’s property?
“I’m not kicking you out. I wasn’t doing anything productive anyway. I’d rather hang out with you,” he says as he turns off the movie he was watching, unaware of the butterflies that have started fluttering around my stomach. Shit, shit, shit. “So, half-naked men are a pain to draw, huh?”
“Don’t make fun of me. I’m in a real crisis here.”
He sounds totally serious when he says, “I’d never make fun of you. Tell me what I can do to help.”
“You could show me your picture from the calendar. The real one. You know, for inspiration,” I half joke.
He almost chokes. “Yeah, that’s not happening.”
“Why not?”
“It’s tacky and should have been burned a long time ago. I don’t know why I haven’t done it yet.”
“Come on, don’t be a bore. Show me the scandalous picture that has half of Harmony Hills fanning themselves.”
“In your dreams.”
I throw my head back with a groan. “Fine. I’ll just rot, I guess.”
“That won’t happen. Tell me what I can do to help you—that doesn’t include showing you the real picture.”
“I don’t think you can do anything. It’s fear that’s holding me back,” I admit, feeling more and more like an idiot for interrupting his evening for nothing.
“When was the last time you drew for fun?”
I purse my lips, trying to remember. “It was one of those drawings I showed you the other day. The brownstone in Brooklyn. I did that one about two weeks before I moved back here.”
One of the many Sundays I spent out and about with my friend from work, Alma. I remember it vividly—we would try out different cafés in the area, chat for a bit, and then I would draw while she read. Two introverts living life to the fullest.
“I’m no therapist, but could it be that the stress of moving back to Harmony Hills is adding to your creative block? Does that sound right?”
I nod because he’s hit the bullseye.
“We can talk about it if you want,” he offers, nudging my leg with his.
My words won’t come out, and it’s not because I don’t want to talk about my creative block. I wish it were that. Instead, the butterflies in my stomach are trying their hardest not to multiply. And my brain, the traitor, brings back Joe’s question.
Do you like Ford or something?
The word “no” refuses to take shape in my mind. I don’t want to like Ford as anything other than a good neighbor and an unlikely friend who watches out for my brother and me. He’s a good man, and friendship is all I want of him. All I should want.
I don’t want to think about how my body sizzles when he gets close or touches me, or when he looks at me like he’s doing now.
There’s enough on my plate as it is. The very last thing I need is to have a crush on a man who wants nothing to do with me, romantically or sexually.
“Earth to Ivy.” He waves his hand in front of my face. “We can just watch a movie or something. Hang out. We don’t have to talk.”
I shake my head and reach for my glass of water, then drink it all in one go. It’s mostly an excuse to pull myself together.