Ivy
Hampton, Virginia
The kitchen smells faintly like garlic and lemon and something warm I can’t quite name but have started to associate with Dalton. Comfort, maybe. Or safety.
Or something far more dangerous.
Hadley is asleep upstairs, the soft hum of the baby monitor sitting on the kitchen island as we clean up from dinner. The domestic normalcy of it still feels surreal, like I’ve wandered into someone else’s life and haven’t yet been asked to leave.
Dalton hands me a damp dish towel, our fingers brushing as I take it. He doesn’t let go right away. And I don’t either.
“You missed a spot,” he says, nodding toward the counter behind me.
“I did not miss a spot,” I counter.
“You absolutely missed a spot.”
“I am an excellent cleaner.”
“You are aggressively average.”
I gasp softly. “I beg your pardon?”
He smiles. It’s slow and teasing. He is entirely too pleased with himself. “You’re distracted.”
“I am not distracted.”
“You just wiped the same place three times.”
I glance down. I have absolutely wiped the same place three times. “I like your counter,” I say defensively.
“It’s a very nice counter,” he agrees solemnly.
His hand settles lightly at my hip as he reaches around me for the sponge, and the simple contact sends warmth skimming up my spine. He doesn’t move it right away, fingers resting just long enough to make my breath catch.
This is what we do now. We orbit each other. We find excuses and invent reasons to touch.
Earlier, while cooking, he’d come up behind me under the pretense of reaching for a pan, his chest brushing my back, his breath warm against my ear as he asked if I needed help. I’d completely forgotten what I was doing.
“You’re thinking again,” he murmurs.
“You’re hovering again,” I reply.
“Supervising.”
“Critiquing.”
“Admiring your technique.”
I turn to face him, fully aware of how close we now are. “That sounds fake.”
“It’s not fake,” he says quietly.
There’s something softer in his voice now.
His hand slides from my hip to my waist, slow enough that I could step away if I wanted to.
I don’t.
My palms flatten lightly against his muscular chest, steadying myself against the solid warmth of him.
“You’re very distracting,” I whisper.
“So I’ve been told.” His thumb brushes lightly against my side, absentminded, almost like he doesn’t realize he’s doing it. But I think he does.
“Well, it’s true,” I confirm.
“You started it,” he adds.
“Oh did I now?”
“Yes. The first time you kissed me.”
“I did not start that kiss,” I argue softly.
But he’s right. I think part of me kissed him because I was trying to distract us both from the grim reality of my past. And also because I really wanted to kiss him.
But being bold enough to actually do it completely took me by surprise.
I have never been that girl before. Before Kyler, I had barely been on more than a handful of dates.
“You definitely did.”
“Well you leaned in.”
“You grabbed my shirt.”
“You kissed me back.”
“I did.” He nods. “Very enthusiastically.”
I huff out a quiet laugh, trying not to melt into him. Trying and failing.
His forehead dips closer to mine, not touching, just hovering. “I like this,” he says quietly.
“Doing dishes?”
“This.”
My heart stumbles over itself.
“This is dangerously domestic,” I murmur.
“I’d make a great husband,” he says dryly.
I wince. He notices.
“I mean,” he adds gently, “hypothetically. For someone. Eventually.”
“You’re very smooth,” I say quietly, our lips a breath apart.
“I’m spiraling,” he corrects.
I smile despite myself. Despite everything. Despite the tiny voice in the back of my mind that still whispers that this is too good, too easy, too fragile to last.
One of his hands slides down my arm to lace our fingers together. “Hi,” he murmurs.
“Hi.”
We’re barely speaking above a whisper now, barely breathing.
His eyes flick to my mouth and back to my eyes.
He’s asking.
I nod, just slightly.
But it's enough.
His other arm moves from my waist to the small of my back, pulling me closer.
The kiss is soft at first. It’s careful.
Like we’re both aware of how quickly this could become something neither of us is ready to define.
His thumb brushes lightly along my spine, drawing small, absent patterns through the thin fabric of my shirt, and I lean into him without meaning to.
He deepens the kiss slightly, still controlled, but the warmth of him surrounds me in a way that makes everything else fade out.
For a moment, the world is just this kitchen. Just this quiet. Just him.
Then a knock at the door startles us apart.
We both blink like we’ve been caught doing something we shouldn’t.
“Are you expecting someone?” he asks quietly.
I shake my head.
My pulse hasn’t slowed yet as I move toward the door, painfully aware of Dalton just behind me, close enough that I can still feel the heat of him at my back.
I glance through the peep hole, then I open it.
Kyler stands on the porch backlit by moonlight.
He looks lethal. But in a way that was never dangerous to me.
In a way that makes him impossibly beautiful.
He’s wearing a black T-shirt that fits his chest a little too well.
The colorful tattoos on his left arm contrast nicely against his dark fabric.
His dark hair is pushed roughly out of his face, though it looks like he recently had it cut and his dark facial hair is shorter than I’ve seen it in awhile.
Tired, dark brown eyes meet mine and I know he probably had to see and do things while he was gone that have changed him.
My lips are still tingling from Dalton’s kiss. Guilt is like lead in my stomach.
“Hey, Ivy,” he says softly, his voice a bit raspier than usual.
“Kyler, you’re home.” Without thinking, I throw my arms around his neck, pulling him against me.
I don’t think there will ever be a time in my life where seeing this man safely in one piece doesn’t bring pure relief to every part of me.
He wraps his arms around my waist and hugs me tight.
I inhale the familiar scent of him, soap and pine.
I pull back but press one hand to his jaw. “I’m so glad you’re home safe.”
“Me too,” he says, leaning down to kiss my cheek. It hits me how it’s somehow not romantic, just comforting.
Dalton shifts subtly behind me, not possessive or territorial, just present.
I can only imagine what he’s thinking. That now that Kyler’s home, Hadley and I will leave and go back to my house with him. That this—whatever this fragile, unexpected thing between us is—will quietly dissolve into the life I was supposed to resume.
But I don’t want that.
I did at one point. Kyler coming home was everything I thought I wanted. The answer. The resolution. The way things were supposed to be put back together.
But now, standing here in Dalton’s home, in his space, with the warmth of him still lingering against my skin, I realize something has shifted in a way I don’t fully understand yet.
Because this—the quiet laughter in the kitchen, the soft touches that feel both innocent and charged, the way he looks at me like I am something whole instead of something fragile—this feels like breathing after being underwater for too long.
I’m not entirely sure when the shift happened.
Maybe it started the night Kyler left me in our bedroom half naked and crying beside my haphazardly packed suitcase.
Maybe it started in all the quiet mornings after, waking up alone in a house that felt too big and too empty.
Maybe it happened slowly, piece by piece, every time Dalton looked at me like I was still me and not someone broken, not someone ruined, not someone to be handled carefully.
Even after everything, I took every opportunity I was given to stay connected to Kyler. Because loving him had once felt as natural as breathing. Because a part of me still aches for the version of us that existed before everything fractured.
But now I’m realizing I don’t want to go back to fragments. I don’t want the tear-filled I still love yous that only reopen wounds neither of us knows how to close. I don’t want the careful distance or the quiet guilt or the way we both pretend we aren’t completely changed.
Hadley deserves more than a version of me that is barely holding herself together.
I deserve more than surviving.
I want something steady. Something safe. Something that doesn’t feel like I am constantly bracing for impact. I want the possibility of something new, even if it terrifies me. I want to feel like a person again instead of a collection of sharp edges and missing pieces.
And somewhere along the way, without meaning to, without planning to, I started wanting that future to include Dalton.
“I’m sorry to come by this late,” Kyler continues, voice warm but cautious. He lets go of me and takes a step back. “I just got back a few hours ago and drove over here. I wanted to check on you and Had.”
“We’re okay,” I say automatically.
His eyes search my face like he knows that answer doesn’t mean anything. “Can I come in?” he asks gently.
I hesitate only half a second before stepping aside. “Of course.”
Kyler steps inside, giving Dalton a polite nod. “Everett.”
Dalton returns it. “Wade.”
The air in the room shifts completely. The warmth from moments ago feels distant now, replaced by something thick and heavy. I lead both men toward the couch in Dalton’s family room.
Kyler looks back at me, concern written plainly across his face. “I know this isn’t easy,” he says quietly. “Not being home or getting to spend your days at your studio, but I am so happy to see you’re safe.” His dark gaze flicks to Dalton.
Shame twists in my stomach at the fact that mere seconds ago I was wrapped in someone else’s arms.
“Ivy,” he says softly, voice almost apologetic. “Some things happened while I was away. You’re still safe here, but I need you to tell me everything you can remember from South Africa…while they had you.”
The words knock the air from my lungs. And Dalton’s family room is starting to morph into the one they kept me in.
I want to reach for Dalton, instead, I lock eyes with Kyler, silently begging him to leave this alone. To let me continue to pretend nothing happened. That that part of my life is all a bad dream I’ll eventually wake up from.
Instead he takes a step closer to me and takes my hands in his. “Please, Ivy, it’s important.”