Chapter 17
17
Ivy
December 24
Kauai, Hawaii
The night of the Christmas lū‘au, tiki torches create a glowing runway leading to the beach in front of the hotel. Ivy, Oliver, Larry, and Shira follow the beacons toward a team of hotel dancers doing a fire dance. The bass thrums through Ivy’s body, and she feels excitement coursing through her as they arrive. She slips off her sandals so she can feel the sand beneath her feet.
Oliver ended up working another shift for Paula, so she hasn’t seen much of him. She went to Glass Beach on her own to draw, but found herself filled with anticipation all day not just about the lū‘au, but also about spending time with Oliver. She’s been turning her dinner conversation with Larry over in her mind constantly. She doesn’t have any answers, but she knows one thing: Oliver is just as much of a distraction when he’s not around as when he is. She can’t simply pretend her feelings don’t exist.
“Mai tais for everyone?” Shira says. She’s as outgoing as Larry, and Ivy took to her immediately. She’s loved listening to Shira’s Hollywood stories about the adaptation of a mystery book she’s directing.
Shira and Larry walk toward the bar hand in hand, and Oliver and Ivy are left alone.
“Hey,” she says, suddenly shy.
“Hey. I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages,” he says. “I’ve missed you.”
“Me, too,” she answers honestly, looking up at him.
“So, I know that kiss we had was supposed to get it out of our systems, but I haven’t been able to think about anything else since.”
“It was a really great kiss,” she admits.
“One for the ages.”
“But just because we had a really great kiss doesn’t have to mean we’re…” She trails off.
“Doesn’t have to mean we’re what?” he prompts.
“I don’t know, falling for each other or anything.”
He takes a step closer. “Right. Falling for each other,” he repeats. “Or anything. Who says?”
“Exactly. No one.”
He reaches for her hips, pulls her closer, stares down into her eyes. “So, who says that the second I saw you standing under the tree near my bar, I got déjà vu, like I had met you before, not just in passing—but a thousand times before. That I felt not just like I knew you, but like I would know you.” Ivy’s lips part as she stares up at him, mesmerized by his words, his voice, his touch. “Who says that the first time you touched me, it sent electricity through the rest of my body. I…” He stops.
“You what?” Ivy asks, practically breathless.
“Look, I know I said I wouldn’t do this. But I have to let you know.” His voice is a beacon, his whispers landing on her lips, making their way through her body, to her heart. “Ivy, you, with your artistic soul and your incredible talent, your strength, your heart, your casual sexiness, your beauty that comes from inside you, too…I feel like you’re exactly the person I’ve been looking for.” Now he kisses her, slowly, gently. “So, who says we’re falling for each other? Well, I’m falling for you. Hard. And I had to say that to you.”
He holds her hand against his heart. She feels it beating under the firmness of his chest, and her mind fills with things she wants to say. About how she felt the same when she first saw him, despite the bleakness of her situation. How, as much as she has tried to deny it, she has thought of almost nothing but Oliver since the moment they met. How when she sits down to draw, even when she’s surrounded by more beauty than she’s ever seen, she still returns to his face, his eyes, has to force herself to draw anything but him. The way she feels like she’s falling, too. How hungry she is to know everything about him. But as he keeps gazing into her eyes, she becomes aware that she doesn’t have to say any of this to him, not right now. She just has to allow herself to feel it.
“Give me your phone!” Larry shouts over the music.
“Why?” Ivy asks her.
“You two are adorable. Look at you, dancing and kissing. Finally. There needs to be photographic evidence of how completely enamored with each other you are, and the fact that you’ve finally admitted it!” She takes Ivy’s phone and snaps a few photos, then hands it back. Oliver swings Ivy around playfully, and as he does, she catches a glimpse of another couple dancing behind them.
Matt and Abby. Ivy freezes. Oliver looks down at her. “Hey, you okay?”
Then he sees who she’s looking at. “ Oh. Hey, want to dance into them and fake accidentally spill your drink on his shirt? Wait…I already did that.” His face is close to hers. “Do I need to hide you? I can really kiss you this time.” His lips are almost on hers again, and as much as she wants another kiss, all at once she also needs this game of cat and mouse with Matt to be over.
“I’m not hiding from him anymore,” Ivy says. “I’m done. I’m going to talk to him.”
“I’m right here if you need backup,” Oliver says.
Matt has left Abby on the sand and is heading to the bar. Ivy follows behind him, then stands waiting as he orders his drinks. He turns to walk back to the beach and does a double take when he sees her, puts down his drinks, rubs his eyes. “What the…”
“Matt.” Ivy’s greeting is as flat and devoid of emotion as she can make it—but inside, she’s a boiling cauldron of rage.
“What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“It’s my—”
“Please, don’t. Do not say, ‘It’s my honeymoon.’ What the hell, Matt? You brought your new girlfriend on your honeymoon? This is over the top, even for you.”
“Hey! Don’t insult me on my—”
“Honeymoon?” Ivy rolls her eyes. “You’re the worst, Matt—and I guess the one good thing about the way you hurt Holly is that I finally get to say that to your face.”
“But why are you here?”
“Because Holly, in her infinite kindness and generosity, insisted I go in her place. Logically, she never imagined you’d be here with someone else.”
Matt looks genuinely stricken. “I asked her if she wanted to use the honeymoon, and she said no way. I didn’t want it to go to waste, either!”
“Well, good for you, Matt!” The anger in her voice is drawing looks from some of the other patrons, so Ivy tries to dial it down. “How could you do this to her?” she says, her voice now an angry shout-whisper. “She doesn’t deserve it, and you know it.”
“I know that, okay? You’re right. I feel horrible about hurting her this way—but don’t you think it would have hurt her more in the long run if we had gotten married when we weren’t really in love? I know she thinks she wanted to marry me, but we were just ticking off boxes. It wasn’t the real thing. What I have with Abby is—”
Ivy holds up her hand again. “Stop. I do not want to hear about what you have with Abby being the real thing. Holly is my best friend . I am on Team Holly always and forever. And you? You’re just a…” She can’t think of an insult that would be low enough. Calling him a rat or a snake would be an insult to both those animals. “Nothing,” she says. “You’re just a nothing.”
He looks agonized, and she doesn’t feel a shred of empathy. “Please don’t tell Holly,” he says. “I’m begging you. Not yet. Not now. I know I hurt her, and it’s Christmas, and she’s alone.” He shakes his head. “Where is she, by the way? With her parents?”
“No, she is not with her parents, and if you actually cared about her, you would know that is the last place where she would get emotional support. She’s in the Hudson Valley. We swapped holidays. She’s in an eco-cabin, having some alone time and trying to regroup.”
“Holly…is in an eco-cabin? Like, one of those off-grid ones?”
Ivy nods.
“And you’re sure she’s okay? Like, she’s figured out the power and the water and…all that?”
“Of course I’m sure she’s okay! Because we talk and text every day.”
“Please don’t tell her.” Matt has now doubled down on his begging, and Ivy feels a wave of disgust. “Let me do something for you. Where are you staying? Can I pay for you to have a room here? What can I do?”
“I want nothing from you,” Ivy says, keeping her voice as level as possible even though the rage is bubbling back up. “Please, could you just get away from me? Go back to Abby. Go have your honeymoon .”
“But you won’t tell Holly, right? You know this would destroy her.”
“And yet you still did it.” Ivy crumples up a cocktail napkin in front of her. “Yes,” she finally says. “I promise I won’t tell her.”
Matt’s face floods with relief, and Ivy feels a stab of revulsion. He doesn’t deserve to feel anything but guilty. “I’m not telling her yet ,” she clarifies. “Not until I get back and can tell her in person. But I am telling her.” It feels like making a deal with the devil, and she hates it, but she knows that Matt is not wrong about this, at least. The news that the fiancé who left you is now on your honeymoon with his new girlfriend is not something that should be received by telephone.
But she can still find a way to ruin Matt’s night, can’t she?
Abruptly, Ivy turns and walks toward the dance floor.
She approaches a woman who is swaying to the music happily, watching the fire dancers.
“Excuse me?”
Abby turns. “Yes, can I help you?”
“My name is Ivy Casey. I’m Holly Beech’s best friend. As in Matt’s up-until-very-recently fiancée? The one he dumped for you, the night before their wedding?”
Abby tucks a lock of her short, blond hair behind one ear and tilts her head. She doesn’t look as shocked as Ivy feels she should. “Okay. Nice to meet you, Ivy. What are you doing here in Hawaii?”
“The question should be, what is Matt doing here, on his honeymoon?” She waits for Abby to have a reaction, but her face stays blank. Ivy tries again. “Did you know it was his honeymoon, Abby, or did he convince you he was taking you on a romantic holiday trip?”
Abby is still unfazed. “Of course I knew,” she says. “We discussed it. Didn’t we, Matt?” He has now reached his new girlfriend’s side. “Matt explained that he had asked Holly if she wanted to take the trip, and she said absolutely not. Which meant a very expensive, nonrefundable trip was going to go to waste. We both agreed it just made good financial sense to go on the trip ourselves.”
Ivy can see out of the corner of her eye that Oliver has approached to make sure she’s okay, and is now standing behind Abby and Matt, trying to wipe a surprised smile off his face. What the actual fuck? he mouths.
Suddenly, Ivy can’t sustain her anger. She starts to laugh and she can’t stop. “Okay, wow,” she says, pointing a finger from Matt to Abby. “I never thought you were good with Holly, but Matt, this woman is perfect for you.”
“Thank you,” Matt says. “I think so, too. Now do you see why I—”
“No way. I don’t want to hear it. I told you before, Team Holly, all the way.” She lets out another snort of laughter, while Matt leads Abby away, both of them casting concerned glances over their shoulder.
“Come on, no ,” Shira says moments later, when Ivy and Oliver have explained what happened. “We were all totally ready for this huge confrontation with you and Abby, and she knew the entire time.”
“Said going on Matt and Holly’s honeymoon just made good financial sense ,” Larry adds, and Ivy nearly doubles over with uncontrolled laughter again. “What a jerk .”
“Holly is beyond better off without him,” Oliver says. “And I’m glad to see you laughing, Ivy, because normally when you see him, I feel like I’m going to have to stop you from committing a murder.”
“I was very close.” Ivy grows serious again. “But confronting him felt good. And learning that he and Abby are a match made in hell? Kind of awesome, too.”
They’re dancing again, the moonlight and torchlight casting shadows across their faces. “I’m relieved for Holly,” Ivy says to Oliver as their bodies move together. “I know she’s going to be okay, even if it takes time.” She pauses, looks up at him, tests out again how it feels not to have walls up around her emotions. “I’m happy, too. About us. About this…”
He pulls her close. “Me, too. But I have something I need to tell you.”
“What is it?”
“I know it’s Christmas tomorrow, and I hate to do this—but I managed to secure a camping permit at Nā Pali again, earlier today.”
“You’re going to take on the waterfall one more time?”
“I feel like I need to. And you’re more than welcome to come with me…”
She shakes her head. “Of course not. You need to go on your own so you can focus. It’s so important.”
“I’ll leave first thing and be gone twenty-four hours, tops. I really don’t want to leave, not right now, but—”
“Oliver, I completely understand. You have to do this. If we go out into the wilderness alone together again, I’m sure working is the last thing you’ll do. I’ll miss you. A lot. But it’s only one day.”
“You’re sure you don’t mind that I’m leaving you alone on Christmas?”
“I won’t be alone. I have Larry and Shira.”
“And knowing Larry, she’ll make a Christmas dinner for a hundred people, but it will only be you three.”
“Exactly.” She runs her hand down his chest and toys with one of the buttons of his shirt. “I’ll survive. But…Oliver?”
“Yes?”
“If you’re leaving at dawn tomorrow, that only gives us about eight hours.”
“Eight hours for what?”
She stands on her tiptoes and kisses him deeply, then snakes her hand under his shirt and lets it run over his smooth, muscled back. The waves of desire she has been holding at bay nearly knock her off her feet, and she knows he feels it, too. “For a lot more than kissing,” she whispers.
“Let’s get out of here,” he says. He grabs tight hold of her hand. In her haste, she’s left her sandals on the beach, but she doesn’t care. She feels the cool smoothness of the sand against the soles of her feet as they run. All she wants is to get back to the villa and be with him, but as they race through the night and she sees the sparkle of the moon on the ocean, hears the sound of crashing waves, she also wants time to slow down, to stretch. She’s never felt this way before—not just filled with desire for someone, but also replete with a sense of rightness and connection.
Soon they’re stumbling up the stairs into Ivy’s apartment—and she forgets all about wanting to slow down. She tugs at Oliver’s T-shirt, pulls it over his head, and tosses it away, then does the same with her sundress. “Ivy…” he murmurs.
“No. No words,” she instructs. “We’ve waited too long for this already.”
Together, they spiral into a place where time doesn’t exist. His hands on her body, her hands on his, her legs around his waist as she tilts her body back on the bed and tells him—without words—what she wants him to do.
She runs her fingers through his hair as he kisses her, takes the condom from him when he pulls it from his wallet, puts it on him herself while she feels his body under her touch, so hot with want and desire.
He’s above her on the bed, and then she pulls him inside her, presses her hips up, against him, feels the inside of her body ripple, squeeze, hold tight. Harder, faster , she hears herself say. Or maybe she doesn’t. Maybe he simply knows what she wants and needs, because he is hers in this moment, and he knows her, mind and soul.
The pleasure is sudden, too much and just enough, coming in waves, inevitable. No more words inside her head, only the sounds their bodies and mouths make. Her eyes lock with his at the last moment. It’s perfect.
After, they breathe hard, chest to chest. Ivy knows she has never felt this way before, not with anyone.
And suddenly, words pop into Ivy’s head.
A bird may love a fish, but where would they live?
This, Ivy decides as she snuggles into Oliver’s arms, is a problem for another day. And all at once, it doesn’t really feel like a problem at all.