Ivy
Hampton, Virginia
I’m halfway through cleaning the bathroom Hadley and I are sharing when my phone vibrates across the marble counter.
Unknown number.
My stomach tightens instantly.
For a split second, my mind jumps somewhere dark, to the lingering feeling that someone is always just outside my field of vision.
Then the phone vibrates again.
I swipe to answer.
“Ivy.” The sound of Kyler’s voice hits me somewhere deep in my chest, familiar and comforting even after all we’ve been through.
“I’m here,” I say quickly, softer than I mean to. “Hey, Ky.”
There’s a faint rustle on his end, like he’s adjusting the phone or stepping into a quieter space.
“I got Dalton’s messages,” he says, voice low and controlled, but there’s an unmistakable edge threaded through it. “He said there’s been a car…showing up repeatedly.”
Of course Dalton told him. I know he said he would but the thought sends a complicated mix of warmth and embarrassment curling through me. Dalton didn’t brush it off. Didn’t assume I was imagining things. He took me seriously enough to loop Kyler in immediately.
“I’m okay,” I assure him. “It’s probably nothing.”
“Ivy.” Kyler exhales my name slowly, like he’s trying to keep his composure. “A random vehicle doesn’t just repeatedly appear outside of the place you’re staying, the grocery store you shop at, and the base where our daughter goes to school…and it be nothing.”
His protectiveness is automatic.
“You don’t even know for sure it’s the same car,” I say, but even as I say it, I realize it sounds silly.
“I know enough,” he replies quietly. “Dalton sent the description. I’m having someone look into it.”
Of course he is.
I lean my hip against the bathroom counter. “You don’t need to do that,” I say softly.
“Yes, baby,” he says immediately. “I do.”
There’s a pause. The word lands differently than it used to. Once, it would have wrapped around me like something safe and familiar, something I craved to hear and didn’t have to think about.
Now, something inside me hesitates.
“Okay,” I answer instead of acknowledging it.
Because I don’t know how to explain that the word feels like it belongs to a version of us that doesn’t quite exist anymore.
“I should be there,” he adds, more quietly. “I shouldn’t be fucking hearing about this from someone else.”
Kyler has always carried responsibility like armor.
“I’m safe,” I tell him gently. “Dalton’s been…really great.”
The words come out naturally, but I feel the shift immediately. Silence settles on the line for half a second too long.
“I’m glad he’s there,” Kyler finally says, measured. “You sound tired. Are you sleeping at all?”
“I’m okay,” I say. And I don’t know how to admit that the person whose arms I fell asleep in last night wasn’t him.
We didn’t do anything. Nothing happened.
We turned on Friends after getting Hadley down and I was asleep on him on the couch in a matter of minutes.
“I wish I could be there,” Kyler murmurs.
I close my eyes briefly.
“I know.”
“I should have been there from the start,” he continues, voice tight with something that sounds like regret. “I should have—”
“Kyler,” I interrupt gently. “We’ve already done that part.”
We’ve already picked apart every decision, every missed moment, every what-if.
We’ve already tried to rewrite things we can’t change.
He exhales slowly on the other end of the line.
“I just don’t like the idea of not being there to protect my family,” he says quietly.
Something about the way he says it makes me long for the Ivy and Kyler we used to be. Before South Africa. Before everything about us fractured into a million tiny pieces.
“You don’t have to worry about me,” I tell him.
That’s not entirely true. But it’s also not entirely his responsibility anymore.
There’s another shift in the silence that follows.
“You’ll tell me if anything else happens?” he asks finally.
“Yes.”
“I mean it, Ivy.”
“I know.”
“I don’t care what time it is,” he continues. “I don’t care where I am. You call me. If I can’t answer I’ll call you back as soon as I can.”
A flicker of guilt moves through me, sharp and uncomfortable.
Because a few days ago, that would have been exactly what I did.
Now…
Now Dalton is the first person I think of when something feels wrong.
“I will,” I promise quietly.
Another pause.
“Is Hadley okay?” he asks.
“She’s good,” I say, a small smile touching my lips. “She’s very concerned about a loose tooth that isn’t actually loose yet.”
Kyler lets out the quietest huff of laughter. “That sounds right.”
“She wanted to know if the tooth fairy takes advance reservations.”
That earns a real chuckle from him, warm and familiar. “I miss her,” he admits softly.
“I know.”
“I miss you, too.”
My grip tightens slightly on the phone. “I miss you, Kyler,” I say gently. “Are you okay?”
He lets out a long breath. “I will be as long as my girls are safe.”
My girls.
Part of me hopes he never stops calling us that, even when he inevitably has another woman in his life.
“We are and we hope you can come see us soon.”
“I will, as soon as I’m back,” he adds quietly. “And Ivy?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t brush this off. If something feels wrong, trust that instinct.”
My gaze drifts toward the bathroom window, sunlight spilling across the room.
“I will.”
“Good.” There’s hesitation in his silence, like there’s more he wants to say, but instead he just says,“I’ll check in again soon, baby.”
There it is again.
The word no longer fits the way it once did.
“Please do,” I say softly. “Stay safe, Ky.”
We hang up a moment later, and I lower the phone slowly, my reflection staring back at me in the mirror.
For so long, Kyler was the person I reached for without thinking.
The person I trusted to steady the ground beneath my feet.
But now I’m starting to realize the ground feels steady in a different way when Dalton is near.
And I don’t quite know what that means yet.