15. Lex
Iwished I could say kissing Ivy was only about the game or meeting Carter’s challenge because some toxic rule of honor demanded it, but that wouldn’t be true. It was just as much about Ivy as it was about her boyfriend.
Watching Carter put his hands on Miri rekindled that same fury inside of me as the first time I saw him touch Ivy—the way he brushed the hair behind her ear and made her smile. I seethed with something sick and desperate.
How dare he touch what was mine?
And how dare Miri touch him? Beautiful, shimmering him, who I had ached to touch for years. God, my head was so twisted about it. All of it. I’d gotten tired of holding it in. I saw an opportunity, and I jumped on it.
I had not expected to enjoy myself so much.
Kissing Ivy had been like sticking my tongue on the end of a battery. It shocked me deep down inside. When I rubbed my thumb over that splotchy X and it bloomed to life, I could have bent her over the table and buried myself inside of her.
Some part of me still wanted to.
This was a big fucking problem.
The other issue came the next morning, when we showed up an hour late to meet Stephens. Most of the other hikers had already gone ahead, but because we were so late, two guides had stayed behind to personally escort us.
They were not happy about this arrangement.
“Glad you could join us,” Stephens said, superiority and arrogance in his tone. “If you weren’t my leads, I’d fire all four of you.” He shook his head and ran his hands through his hair. “Carter, Miri, you’re with Caroline. Lex, Ivy, you’re with me.”
“What?” Ivy groaned.
I likewise did not approve. I needed some breathing room from both Carter and Ivy, or I’d do something stupid. It had taken everything in me not to crawl over to them last night, situate myself between Carter’s legs, and see if I could make him groan the way he had the first time we met. I wanted to see if I could make that mark appear on Ivy’s neck using only my tongue, or how quickly Miri could fall apart while she rode me. My mind was in a depraved place where society’s rules didn’t matter, and I could fuck three people at once and get away with it.
What’s stopping you? a dark part of my subconscious whispered.
I thought of that panicked look on Ivy’s face this morning and the way she’d run. For Miri and me, last night had been relatively vanilla. But I imagined Ivy, the prude, was freaking the hell out. And Christ, Carter had been dropping hints all week—first with the talk about London and then that moment when he threatened to give me something healthier to suck.
What had we done?
“Can we switch?” Carter asked. “Can Ivy come with me?”
“Yeah, that would work out better,” I agreed, giving our director an enthusiastic nod.
“No,” Stephens bellowed, pausing for dramatic flare as he glanced between the four of us, dropping his jaw like he couldn’t believe we had the audacity to ask. Then he turned and stalked into the woods.
Ivy kissed Carter goodbye and walked into the woods after Stephens. Carter barely looked at me before heading in the opposite direction with Caroline.
“Don’t fight with her,” Miri said. “She’s exhausted. We all are.”
“I know,” I said, giving her a kiss farewell. “I love you.”
“Love you.”
I went after my director.
The first twenty minutes passed with Stephens mumbling to himself. “This was supposed to be a relaxing overnight camp before the final push,” he said. “We’ve got less than two weeks to get our shit together. We needed this break, but not as much as you two needed to sleep in, huh?”
I tuned him out and looked over my shoulder at Ivy, who had her gaze set on the ground in front of her, purposely avoiding me. Which was fine because it gave me time to think.
What the hell did we do?What the hell did Carter do? What would prompt him to strike up that challenge at the bar? Was it as easy as he got drunk and took it too far? Or was it something else?
As far as I knew, he and Miri were friends. If it were more than that, Miri would have told me. Of course, it was more than that between Carter and me, and I hadn’t told her. Still, I knew about her night with Ivy, so she had no reason to hide any desired tryst with Carter. The whole making out with Miri thing couldn’t have anything to do with Miri herself. Which meant it had to do with me. Or Ivy. Or me and Ivy.
Once the bug had been planted there, I couldn’t stop spinning it around in my web, turning it over and examining it from all angles. He knew we hated each other. He knew we could barely stand to be in the same room together. And yet, he’d egged us on, mischief in his eyes, curiosity in his smile, like a cat batting around its prey.
Then he came all over her in front of me.
The words from a few days ago blared to the forefront.
“One last time, for old time’s sake. You’ve always known who I am. And I know who you are.”
And the possessive way he’d held on to Ivy when she came into the room.
He knows about the engagement, that dark part of my subconscious whispered. He knows our secret.
* * *
“Ivy, I need to talk to you,” I kicked her shoe to shake her awake.
“Go away, Lex,” she murmured, lying on top of her sleeping bag in her tent.
After a grueling two-hour hike into the forest, we reached our campsite. It was still hotter than a fucking lava pit, and by the time we stopped, dehydration had me blinking and shaking my head to see straight. Stephens gave us a few hours to rest before we had to do the stupid team-building shit he had planned. We’d camp here tonight and hike back to join the other group for more rehearsal tomorrow. But right now, I was spiraling, and I needed Ivy’s voice of reason.
“It’s important.” I took a deep breath and shook her again, this time nudging her harder.
“Fuck off.”
“It’s about our happily never after.” I huffed, damn near losing my patience enough to straddle her and slap her cheeks until her eyes opened. “Get up.”
She growled and rolled over, glaring at me like that would make me leave, as if I hadn’t spent the last twenty-two years perfecting my best eat-shit stare in return. She finally relented and pushed to her feet.
“Fine. Let’s go.” Her hands clenched into fists, she stalked out of the tent and gestured at me to go first. I led her down the creek, following it until it fell over some rocks and provided the perfect sound barrier. I didn’t want anyone else to overhear.
“Carter knows,” I said. “About the engagement. He knows.”
“What?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “What makes you think that?”
“Why was he goading us on last night?” I lit up a cigarette and handed the pack to her so she could light one up for herself. “It’s not like him.”
“He was drunk. We were all drunk.” As if that explained it all.
“He knew what he was doing, Ivy.” I was sure of it.
“You’re being paranoid.” She sighed and rolled her big steel eyes.
Maybe.
“Has he said anything to you?” I asked. “About me? About us?”
“Why would he say anything about you?”
That seemed even more strange. He told me he planned to confess our secret to Ivy, and he hadn’t. Maybe he was testing me, seeing how I’d react to knowing he planned to stay with her after he moved to California. No, it made more sense if he knew about the arrangement and that we’d kept it from him. He was fucking with us.
Would he be that conniving?
Ivy didn’t know the whole story. She only had half the picture.
“I need to tell you something,” I said. “And full disclosure, he said he was going to spill first. I’m only saying it now because we need to figure out our game plan.”
I bared my soul to her. I told her everything about Carter and me, the night in London and the years of pining afterward. When I was done, we sat in silence while she processed four years together under this new lens.
“Jesus Christ,” she said. “We’re officially the most fucked-up group of friends on the planet.”
My load lightened at the chance to laugh at her wicked sense of humor.
“I’m serious,” she said. “You fucked my boyfriend. I fucked your girlfriend. Now we’re getting married. It’s a goddamn soap opera.”
“Or a Greek tragedy,” I said.
That stopped our levity as the consequences of reality sank on our shoulders. Our lovers would hate us after this came out, and what we’d cherished coming here would certainly meet its demise once it did. Like a tragedy, none of us would survive this fairy tale unscathed.
“I don’t think Carter knows anything,” Ivy said. “He wouldn’t be that maniacal. We don’t keep anything from each other. If he suspected something, he would say something.”
“He’s a very good actor.” I shook my head and sighed. “You’re keeping at least one thing from him, and he kept this from you for four years.”
She laughed out a sigh through her nose and shook her head, inhaling deeply on her cigarette before murmuring a quiet, “Why are you the dirty little secret for both of us?”
That made me run hot for reasons I had no desire to examine. “You and I haven’t done a great job of being cool about it.”
“I know,” Ivy said. “Last night was—” She took a deep breath and sighed. “We can’t repeat last night.”
“We won’t.”
We locked gazes, and I remembered the way she looked when she came—how her eyes had yearned for me and how much I ached to be closer. To her. To him. Her cheeks flushed and the X bloomed on her neck, and I wondered if she was having the same thoughts, if she yearned to figure out what more that connection between us could mean.
“We should tell them.” Ivy looked out to the water and sat with her legs crossed, digging her fingers into the emerald grass. “When we get back.”
“What happened to waiting until we get home?”
“It’ll be too late.” She sighed. “We need to do it now.”
I imagined how they would react to the news. Miri would pretend it didn’t bother her while slowly rotting away on the inside. We had a good thing, the two of us. We were honest with each other, and we understood what the other needed out of our partnership. It was above monogamy. We didn’t ask for more than the other could give. Carter, on the other hand, would probably be a jealous, angry mess. He’d want us both and be conflicted about that, as conflicted as I was about him and Miri or him and Ivy. Or, God help me, all three of them.
“What do you think it would be like?” she asked, her voice too soft and broken for my liking. “If we got married?”
I let out a breath and sat next to her. “Exactly the same as it is now.”
“You don’t think anything would change?” She raised her eyebrows. “We would go on sleeping in separate rooms, sleeping with separate people?”
I barked out a laugh. “I guess that last one’s negotiable, huh?”
“You know what I mean.” She shoved my shoulder and let out an annoyed scoff.
“Would that bother you?” I asked, curious about her answer. If she had asked me a month ago, it wouldn’t have bothered me if she slept around, especially if it was with Carter. Now, it ached like an itch under my skin. Perhaps, after last night, after all of this, some part of me had started to consider her mine.
“If we have children, yes.” She stabbed the cigarette out and glanced down at the ground in front of her, considering how this charade would actually play out. “I don’t want to be embarrassed the way my mother was.”
Understandable. While her father was in office, he’d had an affair with one of his interns. It had taken nearly an act of God to repair the Washington reputation after that. But since she’d mentioned it, I figured we might as well talk about it. “Do you want children?”
Were we talking about this like it was going to happen? What happened to fighting it to the end?
“Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, no.” Ivy furrowed her brows together, a soft smile curling on her lips. “It gets in the way of my senatorial plans, you see.”
“Ah, yes. The ole kids or career debate.” I lay down in the grass, my hangover catching up to me as my head pulsed. I needed to drink more water. “Don’t worry about that. We’ll have nannies to raise our kids, just like we were raised.
“I don’t want to do it that way.” She lay down with me, my right arm touching the side of her left, the heat of her body a heady alluring thing, urging me to explore of it. “What about you? Did you and Miri want children?”
“Miri wants a ton of kids,” I said. “A whole house full of them. I’ve never been that serious.”
“Our parents will expect at least two.”
I turned to face her, hoping she took what I was about to say with the best intentions. “You can have another man’s kids, Ivy. I don’t care if they’re mine.”
She looked up to the sky, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath before letting it out in a ragged sigh like she was trying not to cry. “How did our lives get to be so screwed?”
I didn’t have a good answer, so I didn’t say anything. We stayed like that for much longer than we should have, lying silently together in the violet heather and staring up at the sunny afternoon sky.
* * *
I could always sense a storm brewing days before it came. The air had a heaviness to it, weighing down the world with its building intensity. The sky seemed even more radiant, an even brighter blue than before, as if in warning, as if to say it was about to boil over. It was like that with Carter and Miri after the camping trip.
Something happened between Ivy and me on the banks of the creek as we slept off our night of terrible decisions. A simple peace, perhaps. An acceptance of what we needed to face. But something happened with Carter and Miri, too.
When we met with up them the next morning, Carter wrapped his arms around Ivy and pulled her to the side so they could whisper to each other. Miri put on a good show, but I saw the sidelong glance at Carter when he cuddled Ivy close. I saw the small frown on her lips, there for a blink and then gone, a plastic smile in its place.
“Hello, darling.” She gave me a kiss. “Did you two play nice?”
“Did you?” I narrowed my eyes and put as much suggestion into that question as I could.
She seemed confused, but her smile never faltered. “What do you mean?”
“What’s going on with you and Chicago?”
“Me and Chicago?” She raised an eyebrow and shook her head. An unexpected response. Had I read this wrong? “Darling, the only thing going on with me and Chicago is wondering what the hell is going on with you and X.” She jabbed me in the chest with her finger. “And running lines, of course. We’re always running lines.”
“There’s nothing going on with me and X,” I lied. “Why would you think that?”
She linked her hands behind my neck and leaned into me, letting out one of those judgmental sighs that said she was playing along for the sake of playing along. She pressed her forehead to mine and whispered, “You’re entitled to your secrets, love. Just don’t be cruel.”
She gave me a sweet kiss, broke away, and called out to Stephens to ask which scene we were starting from.
Just don’t be cruel.
Were Ivy and I being cruel by keeping our charade to ourselves? We didn’t love each other, not like I loved Miri or she loved Carter. So why did it matter? Nothing had to change. Then why the smoke and mirrors? Why did I feel this sinking dread when I thought about spilling my guts? Why did I fear the look in Miri’s eyes and in Carter’s when they learned the truth?
The reason was obvious. Because once we spoke it out loud, everything would change. Perhaps it already had. Perhaps it was too late.
We were shit at rehearsal that day, the tension between us clear to anyone watching. After the big fight scene ended with Ivy and me bombing our final lines, Stephens scrubbed his face and let out a groan of frustration.
In the years we’d been performing together, we’d had our disagreements, but we never let it impact us here. This trust and mutual respect had landed us these roles to begin with. Now, everything we did brought us one step closer to an impending explosion. We needed to talk about what happened between us, even if it was to brush it under the rug. Ivy and I needed to tell them about our engagement. We couldn’t keep it a secret anymore.
But after we ran through the first three acts again and hiked back to the dorms, we were exhausted and disgusting. Despite the cracks in the foundation of this dilapidated friendship, we showered and slept in the same room that night, decidedly avoiding the enormous suffocating tension between us.