47. No Excitement
NO EXCITEMENT
Ivy
“I think my brothers are up to something tonight,” Payton said mid-margarita-sip.
Hudson was already upstairs asleep in Aspen’s guest room. We’d come over and had a movie night and ate popcorn. Hudson was the only boy allowed, but once nine hit, he’d been exhausted from hockey practice and school starting back up. He hadn’t lasted one full movie.
So the four of us—Aspen, Ember, Payton, and I—made margaritas, and now we were playing a sloppy game of UNO and talking.
“What makes you say that?” Ember asked as she laid down a skip card. I wasn’t sure who that was skipping anymore. Either me or Payton, who knew, but I laid my cards down and assumed it was me so Aspen could go.
“I asked Theo what they were doing and he gave me a funny look and said boxing.”
“Well yeah, that’s where they are,” Aspen said as she laid down a red seven and looked at Payton to go.
“Yeah, but the weird look?” she questioned as she laid down another red card.
I looked at Ember as I waited for her to go, but her eyes were wide as she stared at her phone. “Um, Ivy?”
“Yeah?”
“Where does Todd’s dad live again?” she asked.
“Trailer park off of Main Street, why?” I replied, but she shook her head and slid the phone to me.
The four of us crowded around and stared at the screen. It was a short clip that she’d found while doom scrolling with a caption that the fire department received a call from a neighbor reporting smoke. A trailer had caught fire, and the entire thing was ablaze right now.
“Is that…” Aspen’s voice trailed off as the video replayed again. It didn’t seem to be spreading to the homes next door, but the entire thing was engulfed in flames.
“I mean, I don’t know. All the single wides look the same,” I mumbled nervously.
“And even if it is, why would I be so…” I wanted to say anxious, but I swallowed down the word.
I was anxious, and I was anxious because with that combined with Payton’s comment about her brothers and them being together and?—
“Isn’t the boxing gym just around the corner from the trailer park?” Payton asked, her voice quiet and filled with nerves.
I sat back down and laid down another red card, unsure if it was even my turn.
“Uno,” I said, breaking the silence, but there was no excitement in it, just more nerves.
“You don’t think,” Aspen began but then stopped, as if remembering exactly what they’d done for her a year ago.
“I absolutely do fucking think,” Payton finished. “They always leave me out of the fun.”
“Burning down my ex’s father’s trailer is fun?” I quipped, the words sharper than I meant them.
“I mean, if he has,” Aspen began again, and I shook my head, cutting her off. She knew about the threats of course, but no one else except her and Oliver did. I didn’t want to rehash it again.
However, Payton, always the observant one, caught on.
“I’m sure whatever the reasoning, assuming of course that it was them, my big brother had a great reason.
” She held up her margarita glass. “A toasty cheers for my brothers, always protecting what’s theirs, no matter who they have to step on in the process. ”
She eyed me pointedly as I held up my glass, clicking it with theirs as we all let out a shaky laugh and downed our drinks.
“Well, no one’s died for me yet,” Ember said as she laid down a wildcard to the pile and changed the color to green.
Payton rolled her eyes. “Only because Wyatt needed the police to know you were innocent for your identity shit. Otherwise? Death over jail time, surely.”
We all shook our heads at the insanity of it all.
“Personally, I just say send a prayer if Theo ever finds Violet. That’ll be a whole can of worms that even we’d question.”
All of us cringed, and Aspen changed the subject away from the insane men, but me? My brain was going a million miles a minute as I tried to decide how I was going to confront him later.
The next morning I woke up to him kneeling beside the couch, pushing hair from my eyes and holding a cup of coffee. I began smiling, only to remember the video of the fire blazing on Ember’s phone screen and stopped myself.
Oliver being Oliver noticed, of course.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice quiet and full of concern.
“Just surprised you don’t smell like smoke.”
If he was surprised by my comment, his face didn’t show it.
“Let’s talk about this at home, okay? It’s still early, and Hudson is still asleep upstairs. Rowan said he’ll bring him home when he gets up.”
I nodded, slipping off the couch and sliding on my shoes. Arms folded across my chest, I said nothing as we got in his truck and drove the few minutes back to our house.
Our house.
The house I lived in with someone who made a habit of burning down the house my ex lived in.
Insane. Absolutely bat-shit crazy, if I were being honest. But I said nothing.
Did nothing but climb out of the truck and walk into the old farmhouse I wanted to spend the rest of my life in, with the man I wanted to spend it with trailing behind me.
The door wasn’t shut five full seconds before I flung myself around, both hands on his chest, and pushed him. Of course, him being a solid foot taller than me and at least eighty pounds heavier, it did nothing.
“Really?” he questioned, his voice that annoyingly calm sound. The sound I normally loved, but right now, it made me want to scream.
“Really?! Really!! Are you fucking with me? You went out boxing with your brothers? Boys’ night? You burned down a man’s house, Oliver! You’re lucky no one was hurt!” I yelled, grateful we didn’t have actual neighbors to hear me going bat-shit.
“Luck had little to do with it. More like careful planning,” he replied.
I stared incredulously. “Are you fucking with me? Careful planning? Are you fucking crazy?”
“For you? Absolutely.” He took a step closer, and another and another until my back was against the wall and he was staring down at me.
“And let me make this crystal fucking clear for you, Ivy Tinsley. The piece of shit could’ve been home, and when I broke in to get the flash drive with those videos on it?
I still would’ve burned the damn place down with him in it.
Nothing, and I mean nothing, will keep me from keeping you safe and happy. Am I clear?”
I stared for what felt like an eternity, and I could see the careful and calm exterior beginning to crack.
“You were scared,” I whispered, the words cloying in the air between us.
“I was terrified that the man-child you spent so long with would do something that we couldn’t fix.
Something that would hurt you and I wouldn’t be able to fix it, Ivy.
You and Hudson are everything to me. I don’t care whose house I have to burn down or evidence I need to destroy to keep you safe. I’ll do it.”
I swallowed past the tightness in my throat. “Were you at least careful?”
He smiled then, the small half smile he did when I said or did something he found cute.
“Damien and Wyatt doctored some video footage for us, and we wore gloves. Also helps that the fire burned the place to the ground. Kitchen looks like a bomb went off, from what Wyatt said.”
I shook my head, leaning forward and wrapping my arms around him in a tight hug. “I can’t believe you’re this insane.”
He pulled me tight against him, and I could feel him smile against the top of my head.
“Upset about it?”
I scoffed and looked up at him. “Not even close.”
His lips fell to mine then, an endearing kiss that said all the things we hadn’t gotten around to. Forgiveness, love, loyalty, and an unbreakable ability to stand beside each other always.