19. Ivy
IVY
THREE DAYS LATER
I secure the cellophane wrap around the bouquet of stargazers and hand it off to the gentleman on the other side of the counter with the same smile I’ve been forcing for days. “There you go. I hope your wife enjoys them. Happy anniversary.”
He grins, and the joy reflecting in his eyes as he thinks about going home to her with the flowers makes my heart stutter and my eyes well with tears I thought I had finally managed to control. “I’m sure she will, thank you again.”
My gaze follows him as he weaves around several customers and exits the shop, but even after the door closes behind him, I keep staring at it.
Watching those little bells hanging above it.
Wanting them to ring.
Willing someone else to walk through it.
A specific someone.
The same person I’ve been waiting for the last several days, who has not made an appearance here or at the house, despite my stupid hope that he would.
But there hasn’t been any sign of Cam.
That apology written on a Post-it note is apparently all he has to say about what happened between us.
I wish I could so easily push it away and go on with my life as if nothing has changed, but the massive upheaval of the last couple of months has left me desperate for something that I thought—just maybe—I might have felt that night.
Which leaves me standing here, just as lost and alone, if not more so, than I was before we drove to the shore and said goodbye to Drew.
A throat clears behind me, and I whirl with my hands on my chest, heart thundering against my ribcage.
When did she sneak up on me?
Trina leans against the counter, her gray eyes locked on me, scanning me from head to toe with the kind of look only a woman who has lived seven decades can give someone. “What’s up with you today, kiddo?”
Shit. How long was I staring at the door?
I swallow thickly, returning to the stack of orders in front of me to have somewhere else to look and something to do with my hands. “Nothing, why?”
“Because you seem distracted.”
“Nope.” I smile at her, doing my best to appear completely unaffected, like I’ve struggled to do for days. “I’m good.”
Let it go.
Please.
But she won’t.
The old woman has always seen too much.
Even when I was a little girl, running around here while Nonni and Mom operated the shop, Trina was always poking her nose where it didn’t belong, interjecting her opinions and offering advice no one asked for.
And she’s had her eyes on me all day. Observing everything. Gearing up for this exact moment.
I knew the inquisition was coming; I just had hoped to have avoided it like I have been Marlo for the last several days.
Scheduling myself when I knew she’d be off.
Ensuring I’m busy with orders or customers whenever she tries to hunt me down.
That girl knows something’s up as well as Trina does.
Marlo eyes me now from across the shop and motions to Trina to keep going, giving her a look that assures me they’re colluding.
They’re in on it together.
I should have known.
My shitty lying skills, combined with the way my mind has been seriously preoccupied the last couple of days, mean I know I haven’t been myself. And they’ve both been watching me like a hawk since I came back to work. Always checking to ensure I’m doing okay.
They wouldn’t have missed my wandering mind.
And boy has it been wandering…
To the way Cam kissed me.
To the feel of his touch.
To the taste of him on my tongue.
To the ecstasy and agony that combined that night to combust into something beautiful and oh so wrong.
But I am not about to have that conversation with my mother’s best friend—or mine, for that matter.
Not yet.
Not when I still don’t know how I feel about it. Not when my lunch with Nancy only brought more questions that I can’t seem to wrap my head around, even days later. Not when I don’t even know how I feel about the situation.
Instead of spilling all my dirty secrets, I force a smile. “Really, Trina, I’m fine.”
“Mmhmm.” She purses her lips, crossing her arms over her chest, giving me almost the exact same look Mom used to when I was trying to hide something from her.
“Then how come you’re staring wistfully at all the men who come in here buying flowers and keep watching the door like you expect Prince Charming to walk through it and sweep you off your feet? ”
I gape at her. “I am not doing that.”
She raises her white eyebrows behind her thick, black-rimmed glasses. “You are . This have anything to do with your almost-brother-in-law showing up?”
My back stiffens, and I do my best not to have a knee-jerk reaction and lash out at her.
Because that would be a dead giveaway that something happened and that my current behavior is tied completely to the man in question.
“What? No.” I shake my head a little too vehemently. “Did Marlo tell you that?”
Her lips curl up into a knowing grin. “She didn’t have to, sweetheart. You just did.”
Dammit.
I walked right into that one.
Why can’t I be a better liar?
Because this is something I can’t lie to myself about.
Not anymore.
I never thought anything would occupy my head or heart as much as how much I miss Drew, but somehow, what happened with Cam has taken up residence in both places. The two men have become twisted together, inexplicably entwined so tightly that I don’t know that they’ll ever come apart.
The irony of that isn’t lost on me.
Nor is the absolute absurdity of thinking this could ever end well with Cam.
What we did…
It can’t happen again.
It can’t be what I think about at night, lying alone in my bed.
My body can’t heat each time I remember how charged and frenetic it became or how wholly mind-bending my release was?—
“Your cheeks are pink, girl.”
Shit.
I turn away from Trina, willing away the evidence that I—yet again—fell down the rabbit hole of memories. “Did Marlo send you over here to talk to me?”
Trina huffs. “Why would she have to do that? She’s your best friend. You would talk to her if you had something to say, right ?”
The accusatory tone in her voice makes me bristle.
But her point has been well made.
Which she knows , given the smug half-grin on her face.
I give her a pointed look. “True, so…off you go.”
She laughs as she walks away, back toward a cluster of customers she should have been assisting instead of giving me the third degree, which has left me more rattled than I care to admit.
My hands shake as I sort through the order slips, the names and details blurring together so badly that I can’t even process them anymore.
Hell.
For all my intent to keep what happened between Cam and me a secret, it’s eating me alive not being able to talk to someone about it.
And when it comes down to it, no matter how much of a smartass or over-stepper she can be, Marlo has always been my sounding board where major life decisions are concerned.
And how I choose to address the Camden issue is a major life decision.
That man was supposed to be my brother-in-law. He was supposed to be family. If I fucked that up, if I fucked it up with Nancy by giving in to…whatever it was that made me kiss him that night. I don’t think I could live with that.
That means I can’t ignore Marlo—or it —anymore.
Swallowing my pride, I stalk across the store, headed directly toward Marlo, where she leans against the wall, apparently waiting for me.
With her arms crossed over her chest, she eyes me from my hair piled in a bun high on my head over my face, my smock, and down to my Chuck Taylors on my feet. “Finally going to acknowledge I’m here, huh?”
“Will you knock it off?” I cast a quick peek over my shoulder at Trina, who is busy with customers. “Enlisting that old woman to help you…”
Marlo cracks a smile and chuckles. “Trina is not some innocent bystander who got roped into a secret mission. She was perfectly willing to try to find out why you’ve been avoiding me.”
“I haven’t been.”
She snorts. “Bullshit. You’ve barely said two words to me in three days, and while I’m used to you being quiet and sometimes short with me lately, this is something else , so spill.”
Spill.
That’s what I did that night at the beach.
I poured out Drew’s ashes into the ocean and then dumped a tsunami of pain and grief squarely on Cam’s lap. It overtook me so hard and so fast that it was impossible to stop it, and I let it drag me somewhere I had no business going. No matter how good it felt.
Grabbing Marlo’s elbow, I lead her toward the back of the greenhouse, well away from prying eyes and ears.
She waggles her eyebrows. “Oooh, privacy! This must be juicy.”
I scowl at her, and when we finally make it to our workspace, I release her arm, lean against the table, and heave out an annoyed sigh. “I need you to promise me no judgment.”
“Oh.” Her eyes widen, and she grins. “This is juicy.”
She has no idea.
This is the kind of thing that ruins relationships and splits apart families, and I let it happen. I pushed for it when Cam was clearly torn and trying to do the right thing by stopping it.
If Nancy knew…
My stomach turns at the thought that I might lose her from my life when I need her in it so desperately.
And I don’t even know where to start explaining everything that went down to Marlo without it sounding as awful and wrong as it actually was.
Maybe there isn’t any way to temper it. Maybe blurting out the ugly truth is the only way to move past this massive boulder of guilt and dread that seems to have blocked my path forward.
“You know that I went and spread Drew’s ashes.”
She nods. “Yeah.”
That’s all she knows.
I intentionally kept the details to a minimum and only told her I drove out to the beach where he proposed and spread the ashes because it was time.
Telling her anything else would have opened the door to questions I wasn’t prepared to even think about, let alone answer.
Ones I’m not prepared to answer even now.