11. Ivy
IVY
S itting across from Cam in the booth at Eagle Bar, I can’t help but scan the massive wall of alcohol only a few feet from us and focus on the neon sign advertising “The Biggest Drink in Philly.”
The smell of the two foot-long cheesesteaks spread out in front of us on pieces of unrolled paper mingles with that of stale beer and whiskey that always seems to cling to places like this.
Cam lifts half of his sandwich and takes a bite, groaning in a way that is wholly indecent as he chews and wipes the side of his mouth with a napkin. “God, this is exactly what I needed.”
I clear my throat, staring at my untouched sandwich, unable to even think about eating it when my stomach churns with unease. “Um, should we be here?”
It’s the question I’ve been internally asking since the moment he walked in here after ordering our dinner and slid into the booth.
Cam looks around us at the patrons sitting on stools at the bar and in the few other booths, swallowing the second bite he just took. “Why shouldn’t we be here?”
Leaning forward slightly, I drop my voice low so no one else hears our conversation. “It’s a bar …”
His brows rise. “Yeah…”
Shit.
I shift awkwardly on the leather seat, the sound of the movement suddenly very loud despite the noise surrounding us. “Well, you just left a meeting , so coming to a bar seems a little…inappropriate.”
Cam watches me for a second, sandwich held in one hand, the other resting on the table, so still that my breath catches.
Crap.
I definitely shouldn’t have said anything.
It isn’t my place.
All I’ve done tonight is step all over things that are none of my fucking business when it comes to Camden Usher.
My cheeks heat under his continued assessment, then the corners of his lips lift slightly.
“You worried about me, Ivy?”
Shit.
“I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have?—”
Cam chuckles low, shaking his head gently. “I appreciate the concern. Really. I do. But I’m fine eating a cheesesteak in a bar.”
Maybe that’s true.
And I might believe it.
If it weren’t for the other thing.
My eyes drift to the draft beer sitting in front of him that had me practically biting off my tongue as he ordered it. “And what about that ?”
His gaze follows mine, dipping to the table, to the untouched frosty glass with condensation dripping down the side of it. “I don’t plan on drinking it, Ivy.”
The conviction in his statement should settle me, but it doesn’t make any sense why he would leave a meeting and order a beer half an hour later…
“So…you ordered a beer to what?” I raise a brow. “Test yourself?”
He drums his fingers on the table, staring at the light-amber liquid for a few moments before he looks back up at me. That haunted look that always seems to overtake his gaze returns, making my chest tighten. “Something like that.”
Well, that sounds like a truly horrible idea…
I’ve never been to a meeting for any sort of addiction, but something tells me ordering a beer and eating dinner in a bar, surrounded by alcohol and people drinking, is a recipe for disaster when it comes to sobriety.
But it’s none of your business.
That’s what I have to keep telling myself.
I force my lips to stay plastered together rather than try to push the subject, which he clearly seems to think is closed, given the way he dives right back into his cheesesteak.
My eyes dip to mine, but the sloshing in my stomach—a mix of embarrassment for what a fool I acted like tonight, concern over the man across from me, and fear of why I care so much—prevents me from picking it up.
Cam watches me intently. “You need to eat, Ivy.”
All the meals he’s left for me over the past week flicker through my head. I’ve only managed to eat small portions of them each night, but I did eat. Far more than I had been. So, if that was his plan, he succeeded—at least, partially.
I nod. “I know…”
And it shouldn’t have taken Cam ordering me dinner every night to make me do it.
I’m perfectly capable of getting my own food—either delivered or cooking it myself. I made dinner almost every night in that house after we moved in since Drew never particularly liked eating out and said it was healthier to prepare our own meals.
Which is part of the problem.
Everywhere I look in that house, I see him.
I feel him.
I remember his touch, his words, that playful grin that always danced across his lips. Every inch of that house is steeped in memories that are both comforting and agonizing in a way I didn’t know something intangible could be.
But Cam was right about what he said the other night.
Drew would be pissed about how I’ve been living since he died.
Not sleeping. Not eating. Not taking care of myself at all.
It’s almost like he sent Cam to ensure I would.
My gaze drifts up to meet his across the table, and he simply raises a brow in challenge. Almost like he wants me to attempt to get out of eating so he can force me to do it.
Something about the hard set of his shoulders and the tension in his stubbled jaw tells me he would do just that.
There’s still a very good chance he’s been avoiding me—despite having a legitimate reason for leaving the house before I come home every night. But he does care. Maybe in the only way he’s capable of.
I reach out and grab an untouched half of my sandwich, then take a tentative bite. The juicy, delicious meat and creamy cheese melt in my mouth, and a little groan slips out as I chew. Flavors dance across my tongue. So simple yet so fucking perfect.
Cam looks smug. “I told you. Max’s is the perfect food.”
Right now, I can’t argue with him.
God, this is good…
I finish chewing and swallow, staring down at the cheesesteak in my hand. “This is pretty good. My mom always preferred Dalessandro’s.”
Cam practically chokes on his next bite, his eyes going icy cold. “Stop that blasphemy in here.”
A grin pulls at my lips. “Wow, I didn’t realize those were fighting words.”
He leans forward slightly, resting his elbows on the table. “They are in the Usher house. My dad used to bring Drew and me here whenever he was home. He said it was the single best thing to eat in the entire city of Philadelphia.”
I chuckle, examining the sandwich in my hands and rolling the flavor over my tongue. “That’s a pretty bold statement.”
His lips quirk. “He was a pretty bold man.”
That matches what Drew always told me about their father.
I guess you have to be bold to be an Army Ranger. To go headlong into that kind of conflict and violence. To spend so much time away from your wife and children in order to protect freedom on a level I can’t even fathom.
“Is that why you still lived here instead of D.C. when he was stationed there?” I wiggle my sandwich. “Because he couldn’t give these up?”
Cam smirks. “Probably. Well, that and my mom told him she’d never leave Philly when they got married.
He knew they’d have to spend a lot of time apart, but he wanted her to be somewhere she was comfortable and happy.
” He shrugs. “So, she stayed here with us, and he would come home as often as he could.”
The hint of sadness in his voice matches the one I always heard in Drew’s when he spoke of their father. Losing him at such a young age profoundly affected him.
He lost his hero.
It had to be the same for Cam.
He plays with the edge of the sandwich paper spread on the table, his lips tilting slightly. “As soon as he got home, the first thing he would do is throw the two of us in the car and drive over here. We’d sit out on the curb and eat?—”
“Drew sat on a curb ?”
Camden barks out a laugh, bobbing his head. “Hard to imagine, right?”
I scan the bustling street beyond the massive windows to my right. “I literally can’t.”
Drew was always so cautious .
I think the doctor in him couldn’t overlook risks everywhere he looked. So, him as a small child sitting on a curb, eating on a busy corner in North Philly, definitely wasn’t anything I ever would have pictured.
A sad smile pulls at Cam’s lips. “He wasn’t always like that, you know?”
“Like what?”
“So cautious.”
His choice of words and willingness to talk about Drew creates a mix of longing and fear I’m not sure how to process. Longing for the man who is gone and never coming back, and fear that Cam might stop giving me these insights into him, and I’ll never learn all these things only he knows.
“What happened?”
Cam sighs, rubbing his jaw with his palm. “I mean, he was always the more responsible one. Always telling me we shouldn’t be doing this or that. Worried we would get in trouble, but when our mom got sick, a switch kind of flipped in him.”
“You were what? Fourteen?”
He nods slowly. “Freshman year. She got her diagnosis a few months into the school year.”
The photo of them that he showed me the other day flickers through my head—that drastic change in his appearance and the darkness clouding his eyes even then.
It changed him, too, whether he wants to admit it or not.
Cam’s throat works hard, the muscles straining with his thick swallow. “When she started chemo and radiation, Drew took on that meticulous caregiver role so naturally.” His lips pull into a sad smile. “I think that was the moment he decided to become a doctor.”
“He was a really good one.”
Emotion clogs my throat, and I have to clear it with a rough-sounding cough before I take another bite of the sandwich rather than fall into tears in front of Cam and somewhere so public.
I swallow, forcing down the food that is delicious, but I suddenly don’t want to eat.
He stares at me as if he can see right through my attempt to cover my almost breakdown. That crystal-blue gaze, possessing so many mysterious corners that hold so many secrets, locks on mine, saying so much before he even speaks another word. “He really loved you…”
His voice breaks along with my already shattered heart.
The sob I’ve been fighting slips out, and I slap my hand over my mouth to keep from completely losing it in the middle of the bar.
Squeezing my eyes closed against the onslaught of tears, I shake my head, trying to heave in a breath without releasing another strangled sound of anguish.
When I open my eyes again, Cam is still watching me, his brows drawn deep over the tempest swirling in his gaze.
He really believes that.
But he doesn’t know.
He doesn’t understand.
“I’m-I’m not so sure that’s true.”
Cam’s back stiffens, his shoulders tensing along with his jaw. “Why?”
“Because…”
The truth sits on the tip of my tongue. The accusation that’s rattled around my head but I’ve only ever voiced to Marlo. The weight that’s been crushing me since the night he died.
I shouldn’t say it.
I shouldn’t speak the poison that’s been seeping into my heart since I got that call that he was dead.
Especially not to Camden.
But I can’t seem to stop myself now that the question is hanging out there.
“Because I think he was…he was cheating on me.”
Cam recoils, his jaw locking so tightly and eyes flashing with so much rage that heat seems to lick across the blue.
He leans forward across the table, close enough to make me tremble.
“Listen to me very carefully, Ivy, because I need to make sure you hear me. Drew loved you. More than anything in this world. You lit up his life and were the center of it. He never would have considered even looking at another woman, let alone touching one like that. Drew never would have cheated on you. Never .”
My bottom lip quivers, another sob threatening to spill out. “But, he lied to me that night. He told me he was going to the hospital, but he was on the other side of town. He was?—”
He reaches out and pulls my hands into his, his touch warm and strong as he clasps them tightly. Rough callouses brush across my skin, sending a little shiver through me. “He was not cheating on you.”
The sob slips out, and Cam refuses to let go so I can try to cover my mouth again and prevent the rest of the people in the bar from becoming unwitting spectators to my breakdown.
Strong hands squeeze my fingers, and Cam keeps his gaze locked with mine, though it’s now blurry with tears. “Do you hear me, Ivy?”
I nod, sniffling.
“Do you believe me?”
Do I?
I so badly want to say that I do.
I so badly wish I could believe that there’s some innocent explanation for why Drew left me in bed alone in the middle of the night, lied about where he was going, and drove across town to an area he had no business being in other than another woman.
But I haven’t been able to come up with one in the weeks since he died.
Not a single one.
I shake my head. “I-I can’t. And you don’t know. You weren’t here. You weren’t even speaking with him when it happened.”
A muscle in his clenched jaw tics, his eyes hardening as he leans even closer, so close that his warm breath flutters across my lips.
“I do know because he told me. He told me he was in love with you the day you met . He knew then , Ivy. He knew . He called me and said, ‘I just met the woman I’m going to marry.’ And from that moment on, you were it for him. ”
His words stoke a flame that had dwindled to ashes, the one that always burned so brightly when I was with Drew. The warmth of his love and that feeling of safety and contentment that always wrapped around me when I was in his arms.
Cam reaches up with one hand and brushes away my tears, a sad smile turning up his lips. “Don’t ever forget that, Ivy. Don’t ever question it again. Okay?”
This time, I nod.
This time, I don’t question it.
Because Cam has just settled that restless demon that has chased me since Drew’s death.