Chapter 28
CHAPTER 28
LAW
When Ivy left my house, the closest thing Malcolm got to talking about her was, “Did she just say elope?”
That’s seriously the least of what’s going on, so I brushed it off with, “I think she was joking.” And when I asked him if he wanted to talk about her, he shook his head and went back to eating, changing the subject to football immediately.
After we finish eating, we head into my family room to watch TV, and since I figure Malcolm needs time with his thoughts, I don’t push him for conversation. Dealing with Mom about his future and then coming here and seeing Ivy unexpectedly can’t have been the break he was looking for.
The doorbell rings, and then a woman’s voice calls, “Law?”
Malcolm immediately stiffens, but I recognize it as Carlie’s voice pretty quickly. “Does this happen regularly?” he asks dryly. “Women barging in and yelling for you?”
“Not until recently,” I mutter, pushing myself up off the couch. I need to intercept her, because the conversation we’re about to have really doesn’t need to happen in front of Malcolm.
“Hi,” she says shortly when I meet her in the entryway. She didn’t move far past the door.
Her tone says she’s already talked to Caleb.
“Hey. Take a walk with me?” I put my hand on her back, but she slides away. I get that she’s probably upset about what just went down, but why am I suddenly in the doghouse? I can’t be held responsible for Ivy’s actions, so hopefully Carlie will see that once we’ve had a chance to talk about it. I never imagined that I’d spend so much of my time with Carlie discussing Ivy and Caleb, but here we are.
“Sure.” She opens the door and walks out, leaving it open for me.
I expect her to start with something like, “Can you believe they were just going to get married?” So when she whirls on me right after I step down off my rounded stone steps and says, “When you told me that your brother pretended like his ex didn’t exist, why didn’t you tell me it was Ivy?” it startles me. I flounder for a few seconds, unsure why this is where we’re starting this conversation. I have an inkling I won’t be moving in to comfort her anytime soon.
“It wasn’t the point?” My voice rises, asking her to tell me why this matters. Honestly, the couple times when we talked about it, it was on the tip of my tongue to mention, but the moments didn’t feel right. Maybe I knew it would upset her that Ivy had a very serious relationship with my brother and now she was hopping into another one with a guy she barely knew. Maybe I thought it would make Ivy look bad. I’m not even sure, but it doesn’t feel like the big deal to me that Carlie’s tone says it is.
She blinks. “It wasn’t the point? What does that mean? The woman dating my brother—well, I don’t know if they are anymore or what—” She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “She dated your brother for a very long time, according to Caleb, and you never mentioned that?”
It hits me like a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound linebacker. I kept something from her. My excuse feels so flimsy. “It was Ivy’s story. Or Malcolm’s. I didn’t think it was … relevant.”
She throws her hands out. “Not relevant? That my brother was diving headfirst into the most serious relationship of his life, and the woman he was falling hard for spent years waiting for your brother to propose?”
This starts to feel familiar, even though I want to push those thoughts away. The way I worried that she’d find something wrong with me, the way she’s decided Chad has done something to Shelby. That she would take something like this and fixate on it. I shove my own hands in my pockets.
“Caleb obviously knew,” I point out. “That’s what’s important.” What would she have done? Demand he be more careful? Caleb’s an adult. I sigh. I recognize why this is important to her. Small things probably feel so much bigger in light of what she went through, and I don’t want to be dismissive of that, even though it didn’t occur to me before that telling her about Ivy and Malcolm would be this important. “I should have said something. I’m sorry.”
She presses her lips together and shakes her head slightly. “Why does my brother know that you didn’t want to be traded to the Pumas or come to Houston and you never said anything to me?”
I tense. This is another thing that’s not a big deal, but she’s making it a mountain. She’s boiling our relationship down to a few things I didn’t say. I may know why they feel so important to her, but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating.
“I have nothing to complain about. I’m a successful pro football player who didn’t get to play for the team of his dreams? Boo-hoo.” I snort. “I guess when you don’t pay for the life coaching, you don’t have an expectation of confidentiality.”
Carlie’s not amused. “I guess when your girlfriend begs you to take it slow, she should have no expectation of talking about the real stuff anytime soon.”
This is like that linebacker putting a dirty hit right into my gut as he takes me down. Is it any wonder that everyone thinks things can’t be totally platonic with me and Ivy when I tell her the things I never even considered telling Carlie? Ivy’s always been the one I trusted implicitly, but Carlie never gave me any reason not to share the hard things. She shared her hardest thing with me, and—maybe because I’d already sounded off to Ivy so much about it—I didn’t share my hard things with her.
“No, that’s not true,” I insist. “It’s not like that.”
Carlie folds her arms. “I have to go. I need to go talk to Caleb. He’s watching Northanger Abbey .” She shoots the last part at me like Ivy dumping him is my fault. In a strange, roundabout way, it maybe is. Malcolm’s my brother, and he showed up at my house out of the blue.
“Carlie.” I jog after her, the few steps she’s gotten, and take her arm gently. “Please, let’s not leave things like this.”
“I’m done talking,” she snaps.
Okay, I really do get it. I messed up by not sharing some things with her, but this isn’t fair. “You’ve already decided then, right? Just like you have with Chad.”
She reels back, stunned by my accusation. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I hold up my hands. “I messed up by not telling you some stuff, but you’re throwing our entire friendship away because of it. You’ve decided that what I did is unforgivable.”
“I have not.” She folds her arms.
I raise my eyebrows, waiting for her to show me she’s willing to talk about this. She sucks in a breath and shakes her head, whirling around.
“You’re wrong about Chad,” I say levelly before she’s out of earshot. “And you’re wrong about me.”
She doesn’t turn around, but she misses a step. I thought I was the guy who was going to prove trustworthy to her. Was ignoring the way she latched on to this stuff about Chad just prolonging this fight further down the road? If I had told her about Ivy and Malcolm, or shared about why I didn’t want to come to Houston, would it have mattered in a few months when there was something else? A white lie about what restaurant I wanted to eat at? Not confiding my favorite movie or favorite color in a timely manner?
I can try as hard as I want to prove I’m not Xavier, but in the end, I can’t force Carlie to trust me.