Chapter 7Does it do something with a banana?
SEVEN
Does it do something with a banana?
Ivy
“Oh, come on,” Dolly whines, stomping her bare foot on the kitchen floor. “Please?”
I dunk the knife into the open jar of mayonnaise one more time. “Only one more swipe, right?” I look over at Bear who is perched atop a barstool, his little legs swinging. He nods.
I slather the bread again, pressing the slices together to spread the condiments around. Peeling the wax paper off a slice of precut cheese, I add it to the bread to begin the ingredient layering. “I let you host a one-month celebration dinner already. That was… enough.”
“Enough?” Dolly harrumphs as Juni appears at the top of the basement stairs, using one of her bare feet to knock the door closed behind her. Arms full of empty canning jars, she waddles toward the island and sets them down with a sigh. “What was enough?”
“Aunt Ev wants to have girls’ night for Ivy but Ivy doesn’t wanna,” Bear says, dipping an animal cracker into the little dish of fresh jam Juni put out for him.
“It’s not that I don’t wanna… I mean, I love hanging out with you guys,” I amend, immediately feeling guilty and selfish.
It’s just… wine and comfort is the literal recipe for secret spilling.
Dolly knows I want Trace. For that matter, I’m sure Juni does too considering she brought me my coffee every day for the last week and I made no effort to hide my sketch—which was of Trace’s hand holding the tattoo machine.
She didn’t ask whose hand it was but she’s met Trace and it’s highly unlikely that I’d be sketching a different man with an octopus wielding eight knives. Yep. That’s what Trace has on the top of his hand. Three legs coiled beneath its body, the other five fingers bearing a leg with tentacles, a different bladed knife held by each.
From what I’ve seen, that’s the only maritime ink he’s got. And I have seen him naked.
That monstrous veiny thing of his flashes through my mind. I chew the inside of my mouth to keep the groan from flying out of me.
“C’mon,” Juni joins, “Ev said she’s using her fondue maker. She hasn’t used it since she’s been married.” She uses the end of her sundress to wipe sweat from her face, then pulls her hair into a messy bun. “Pop the fondue cherry with us.”
“Girls’ night,” Dolly begs.
If I don’t go, I’ll stay home and work on my sketch of Trace’s hands, then masturbate while I think of his hands (and other long, thick, swinging things) and then force myself to fall asleep while frustrated, horny and excited.
“Fine, I’m in,” I agree as I finish layering ingredients onto the slices of bread. I cut the sandwich and pass it to Bear. “You gonna be at girls’ night or what?” I ask him.
He wrinkles his nose. “Heck no!”
Juni gasps for dramatic effect. Dolly winks at him while she balances Honey on her hip. “Tell your aunts what you’re doing instead,” she says, standing at his side as she smooths her long fingers through his hair. I watched their relationship start, from the first time she watched him as a baby in footie pajamas, all the way to pulling him from the creek and giving him mouth-to-mouth. Dolly is the embodiment of a mother, loving that child hard, as if he came from her. Watching Dolly have a child with Hudson has only intensified and validated her natural role as a mother. Bear, Honey and now their new little one growing in her belly are so lucky.
“Gettin’ tattooed,” Bear grins, a smear of mayo at the corner of his mouth.
I smack my hand on the counter. “And you’re not having me give you your very first tattoo?”
He sets his sandwich down, using his little white napkin to clean his hands. Serious expression on his face, he says, “It’s not going to be a real tattoo Ivy. I’m only six.”
I fight the laughter threatening to spill out. I take his hand and hold it. “Thank goodness,” I breathe. “Promise you save your first for me, okay?”
He returns to his sandwich, saying, “Okay, I promise. Tonight, Trace is gonna give me a cool temporary tattoo while Daddy and Uncle Deuce install something.”
“Something?” I mimic, turning to look at Dolly. “What are they installing?”
She shrugs. “I dunno.” A smirk curls the end of her mouth. “I mean, Huddy told me but as he was telling me he was also undressing for the shower so… you know me. I can’t hear a damn thing when that man is N U D E,” she smiles, spelling her inappropriate behavior so that Bear doesn’t catch on.
I roll my eyes. “Your obsession is admirable.” It doesn’t surprise me that her passion hasn’t waned even a little bit.
Ellington women set their sights on things and very rarely break stride.
It’s why I’m terrified to want Trace. To have set my sights on him.
And it’s not for any “he’s out of my league” type of self-loathing bullshit either.
I'm a badass. I know it. If my dad and Juni taught us anything, it’s that nothing attracts people more than confidence.
But Trace is complicated. Something is weighing on him. He has a break in him somewhere that he hasn’t addressed, and I see that manifest in boozing, sleeping around, snarky remarks and now, tattoo mistakes.
I want him. It just might take some… work.
I’m not afraid of a little hard work.
Never have been.
I’m afraid of bad tattoos, soft rock and products labeled both “new” and “improved.” But hard work? Psh . Bring it on.
Especially when the prize is Trace.
God I’d die before I let him hear me say that.
While Bear finishes his sandwich, I change into yoga pants and a crop top, pull my hair into a ponytail, grab my tumbler of water, and head across the way to Dolly’s place.
I promise myself to stick to water instead of the wine, so my secret stays with just my sisters.
I’m not sure I’m ready for Ev to know. She’ll tell Deuce and I think I may die of embarrassment if Deuce knows I like Trace.
It’s so… expected.
In his eyes, I’m probably like every other woman who meets Trace. Immediately falls for him, and doesn't care that he’s an asshole. Though that’s where Deuce would be wrong—if he found out and if he thought that, I mean. Because I didn’t just fall for Trace.
I fell for him when I saw his tattoo of Edgar Allen Poe on a woman’s sideboob years ago. I’ve followed his work online ever since.
“Hey, Ivy,” Ev greets, pulling open the door to her brother’s house. She’s wearing jeans and a white tank top, her feet are bare and her hair is up, but there’s no baby on her hip.
“Where’s Ace?” I ask as I move past her into the house, kicking off my sandals.
Ev closes the door and twists the deadbolt, eyeing my bare feet. “In the playpen napping.” She looks me over. “No boots. You actually wanna be here tonight, hmm?” Her smirk is contagious.
“So you know my trick,” I say, a tiny tinge of guilt swimming down my spine. “You know, it’s not you, it’s not Hudson’s place, it’s not anything but me. Sometimes I’m just not in the mood to be… anywhere but my bedroom.”
She touches my arm gently as she smiles. “I completely get it. I’m just giving you a hard time. I’ve been hanging out with Deuce and Trace too much. I’m turning into a shit talker.”
We make our way to the kitchen. “If that’s your shit talk, you’ve got a long way to go.”
Ev plunks down on a barstool and lifts her glass of white wine. “I’m glad. And I’m glad it’s a no-boot night.”
“Me too,” Juni says, appearing from around the corner, a tray of roasted asparagus in her hands.
Bear, Juni and Dolly walked over while I was changing clothes because the guys arrived and goodbyes needed to be said. Even though this is just a couple of hours, Dolly couldn’t go without tonguing Hudson’s face off before they left.
I wonder if Bear even got to say goodbye?
Ev takes a pull of her wine. “Deuce says you’re incredible. And since all I’ve seen today are shapes and colors, please tell me you brought your book with you.”
Blinking, shocked, I cave and pour myself a small glass of wine. Not the size of glass that spills secrets or brings tears, more so, the size that makes your cheeks warm and your tension fade. I take a sip.
“Excuse me,” I draw out. “Did you say Deuce said I’m incredible?” A flush eats up my cheeks, but it’s such a proud moment that I don’t care that Ev sees it. And I certainly don’t hide my emotions from my sisters.
I don’t hide anything from them, and them from me.
“Yep,” she nods, finishing off her wine as she empties the rest of the first bottle into her glass. “So show me. If he loves your work, I’ll probably be obsessed.”
Dolly mimics her fingers walking as she pops a piece of asparagus into her mouth. “Trot back and get your sketches. I’m dying to see your current WIP anyway.” She winks and I cast her the eyes . You know the kind. The eyes that say shut up or I’ll kill you in just a singular flare.
Dolly laughs, then buries her smile in sparkling cider.
“Fine,” I groan playfully, as if getting my sketches to get complimented and doted on isn’t the literal best thing in the world. It is. Don’t get me wrong, as an artist, getting lost in the process of creating is beautiful.
But getting atta girls for my hard work? I’m here for it, since all I get from Trace are comments like “if your clients like slop” and “if the goal is an ironic tattoo then that’s great.”
Yeah, kudos from the girls might turn this girls’ night from great to epic.
“Then you just… strain it,” Juni calls from her spot on the couch, her third glass of wine in hand, bare feet stacked on the coffee table.
At some point during bottle number three (which is worse than it sounds since Dolly has her own bottle of sparkling cider) we decided we’d make our own butter to go with the bread for dinner. Juni, already tipsy, decided she’d teach us from the couch.
“We don’t have cheesecloth,” Dolly hiccups from the bubbles of her sparkling cider, staring into the appliance drawer. She gently closes it so as to not wake a sleeping Honey. “I’ll go get one from your place, can you keep your ears perked if Honey wakes?” she says to me, and though I only know her as Hudson’s girl, it still sounds weird every so often for her to refer to our home as my home, or Juni’s home.
I nod and she rushes out, tearing through the distance between our houses.
A few minutes later she returns with a grocery sack full of stuff. Pulling one item out, she asks, “Can we use this?”
Juni, one eye squeezed shut, peers at us across the home. “That’s an organic coffee filter, not cheesecloth.”
Confusion knits my brows. “They both just strain though, right?”
“Sieve size,” she says. “It won’t work.”
Dolly digs around in her bag like Santa looking for the perfect gift. “How about this?” she laughs, pulling a metal cage from the bag, balancing it in the center of her palm for us to see.
Juni sits up, lowering her glass to the table next to a Field & Stream copy. “What the hell is that?”
Ev takes it from Dolly, turning the device over in her hand time after time. I press my palm to my lips to smother the smirk growing.
I literally cannot wait to tell them what that is.
“Does it do something with a banana? Or like…” I watch as Ev presses her fingers into the wide metal slit at the tip. “Does it, like, strain the egg white from the yolk or something?” She hiccups.
Clearing my throat, I take in Ev’s, Juni’s and Dolly’s interested faces. Ev moves the item around between two hands now, her glass of wine taking a back seat to her curiosity. “It could be–”
“It’s a male chastity cage,” I deadpan.
Juni actually physically startles back.
Ev brings the cage closer to her eyes, inspecting it further.
Dolly moves around the counter, standing next to her sister-in-law, and smooths one fingertip down the metal. “Wow,” she says, as if she’s staring at the Grand Canyon.
Ev’s nose wrinkles. “I love you, Dahlia, but please take one step back if you’re thinking of my brother while touching this.”
We pause, and a moment later, Dolly steps back, causing all of us to erupt into laughter.
“Where’d you get it?” Juni asks, coming to study the metal device with the others.
“ Why’d you get it is the better question,” Ev says, wiping beneath her eye as she sets the chastity cage between the soft cheeses and roasted asparagus. A strange charcuterie.
“You know how my first official solo session is coming up, right?” I ask rhetorically because of course everyone in this room knows. This room is full of my people.
It’s why I wanted to apprentice and work in Bluebell. Because my people are here. My sisters—and now Dolly’s extended family—are everything to me. Family is everything.
When Deuce said he was opening an Ink Time here, it felt like kismet. Like the gods of fate coming down from the sky to gift me with all the tools I need for a perfect, peaceful life. Now I just have to work to make it happen.
I can’t wait for my first solo session. It’s going to set the tone for my entire career.
“Well, the piece I’m doing is on a female domme. And it’s of her submissive’s chastity cages.” I wrinkle my nose. “Well, a replica of one.”
“So she’s a dominatrix?” Ev asks, sipping her wine, staring at me like I’m about to reveal the world’s biggest secret.
I shake my head. “No, not really. She’s just the dominant in their sexual relationship, as well as their emotional one. I don’t think it’s about heels and corsets as much as it’s about an equal exchange of power, with a reward system, too.”
“Interesting,” Ev says, drawing circles around the top of her wine glass.
“Her partner has his thingy in a cage all the time?” Juni whispers, making Ev and Dolly laugh.
“Yes, Juniper, his penis is in a cage and she takes him out to reward him,” I say, refusing to use the term thingy about male genitalia. “And she wants his cage inked onto her to always remember the dynamic and their experience. For when it ends.”
They sip their drinks in unison, and I sip mine too, all four of us turning our heads and narrowing our eyes to imagine the cage in action.
Trace’s third leg comes to mind, and I get a vision of his lean, toned body covered in art from head to toe. He’s naked, his hair is wet, his feet are bare, and his hands are working to close the cage. It hangs heavily between his thighs as he outstretches his arm, a silver key hanging from a delicate chain. “Take my control,” he rasps as the key rests in my palm.
“To each their own, I guess,” Ev finally says with a sigh as Juni and Dolly move into the kitchen to work on the food.
My lower half surges with heat and desire at the fantasy of Trace naked, in the cage, at my mercy. Ev did say she thinks Trace needs discipline…
“I’ve been using it to sketch. Working on the design.” I take my sketch pad from nearby and slide it along the white marble counter for Ev to flip through.
She’s silent–even at the chastity cage sketches–and takes her time moving through each page as Juniper and Dolly talk about chicken glaze and roasted potatoes.
Finally she turns to me, the wine making her cheeks rosy and her voice soft when she says, “You’re so talented. You remind me so much of the girl who taught Trace.”
My eyes drop to the sketch pad where Trace’s hand is on full display. We both stare at the detailed octopus leg swimming down his pointer finger, curled around a tattoo machine.
I keep the rattle from my voice, despite the way my chest echoes with unanswered questions and frayed nerves. “Who taught Trace?”
“Before his show, he was trying to just work his way up the chain like everyone else,” Ev says as Juniper slides her a plate of food—roasted chicken and potatoes, steamed vegetables and a slab of garlic bread that makes my mouth water. My plate is next. I can’t eat until I know. I can’t do anything but push a potato around with the tines of my fork and scream SPIT IT OUT in my head.
“Anyway,” she says after blowing on a bite of food. “He connected with this artist. She was his age but had already been working for a few years.” She finishes her wine. “They bonded over art and fell in love.”
I knew he had heartbreak in the past, but now I need to know what happened.
“And?” My pulse is echoing in my brain as I stare at stray pepper flakes on my dinner plate.
“She… got him connected to the agent where he got the TV deal.” Ev takes another bite and I swear to Henry Cavill I’m about to take the fork out of her hand, throw it across the room and scream SPIT IT THE FUCK OUT, EVERLY.
But I stay calm because flies with honey, flies with vinegar and all that.
“But she also cheated on him in one of the most horrific ways. She broke his heart and left him right before he was leaving to start the show.” Another bite, only now that I know what happened, I almost need a second to process. Except now she keeps talking as my heart races and my stomach coils with pain.
He was betrayed by the person he loved most, by a person deeply entwined in his art and dreams.
That had to feel awful. Beyond awful.
“Is he in Bluebell to get better?” I question, not even sure what I mean by ‘get better’? Sober? Healthy? Heal his heart? I don’t know. But Ev understands the subtext of the question.
“Deuce wants him to stay. Now that Trace is out of contract with the network, he wants Trace to lay down roots here in Bluebell and live the life he dreamed of before his TV deal.”
“What kind of life is that?” I ask, afraid to know the answer. Selfishly afraid it won’t fit into my dream.
“Small town, family he loves, wife he adores, doing the work he was born to do.”
“Simple,” Dolly comments on the dream.
“Perfect,” Juni replies.
Silence falls between us and I don’t know what they’re thinking about, but I’m definitely thinking about Trace. He doesn’t feel grounded, he doesn’t give off the energy that he wants to stay. Hell, he’s racing off to Oakcreek to drink almost nightly.
But I want him to stay.
For myself but for him, too. Bluebell could heal him.
I could heal him.
“I don’t think he was ever the same. He’d only loved her and he hasn’t been in love again…. He definitely loves Jack Daniel’s… and fucking random women.”
“Everly!” Dolly giggles. “You said fucking!”
“I say it all the fucking time when I’m drunk!” Ev laughs. “And stop full-naming me.” She grins wickedly. “I’m only Everly when I’m on my knees in the bedroom.”
“Hey!” Dolly laughs, slicing her hand through the air. “If I can’t talk about Hudson, you can’t talk about Deuce.”
“Deuce isn’t your brother!” Ev laughs, and their laughter has me and Juni laughing, too.
We eat and we talk, the conversation moving back to the chastity cage, then dominance, and then somehow we’re deciding who would win a naked wrestling match between Dwayne Johnson and Liam Hemsworth.
But the entire time, even with the flurry of booze in my veins and the high of being complimented on my work by Ev, all I can think about is Trace.
And his broken heart.