Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
IVY
My knee bounces with anxiety as Xander drives us into town. It’s the next day, we’ve already worked out this morning, and it’s time for me to go back to the house and get Brenda out of there.
“You don’t need to be nervous,” Xander says as he lays his forearm on the center console and turns his hand up, offering it to me, and I immediately line my palm up to his and link our fingers. “I’m right here with you. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
I nod, unable to form words through the ball of anxiety in my throat.
Because I’m already so damn embarrassed about what we’re going to find. I know it’s not going to be good. I know. I saw how she lived above the bar, how little respect she has for anything, including herself, and she’s already so damn angry at me.
“Take a breath,” he says calmly, and I breathe in with him, then let it out slowly. “Good girl.”
Normally, that would make me bite my lip, but right now, I want to throw up.
“I hate her,” I whisper and turn to stare out the window. “And I hate that I hate her.”
“You’re safe, Ivy.” He kisses my hand. “Hey, look at me.”
I turn my gaze to him, and he takes his eyes off the road long enough to look into my eyes. God, he’s handsome.
He’s in a black T-shirt with a black flannel thrown on over it and the sleeves rolled on his forearms, and denim that molds over his thighs and ass. His hair is a little messy from my fingers earlier, and he has some stubble on his face because he hasn’t shaved in a few days.
And I now know firsthand what that stubble feels like between my thighs, and it’s holy shit.
But more than all that, he looks so sure of himself. So positive that he can protect me against my own mother.
And that’s the saddest part of all. That I need protection from her.
“I promise, baby, we’ll be okay.”
I nod and offer him a half smile. “Okay. Thank you for coming with me.”
“Nowhere else I’d rather be.”
He pulls up to the curb in front of my house, right behind a Silver Springs police car, and Easton steps out of the driver’s seat and meets us on the sidewalk.
“I need to apologize,” I say to both men. “For what we’re about to walk in on. I don’t know for sure what it’ll look like, but I know it won’t be good.”
Xander scowls and wraps his arm around my shoulders, and Easton narrows his eyes on the movement but then shakes his head.
“We’ve got this, Ivy. Trust me, I’ve seen a lot of shit, and you have nothing to be embarrassed of.”
“Oh, I do. Plenty, in fact, but let’s do this and get her the hell out of my house.”
Easton nods, and I lead the three of us up the walkway to the porch, and when I go to push inside, the door’s locked.
I pull my key out of my purse and push it in the lock, but it doesn’t work.
“She changed the fucking locks,” I murmur, and turn to stare at the guys. “SHE CHANGED THE FUCKING LOCKS.”
“We’ll bust the door in,” Xander says.
“First, let’s knock,” Easton suggests, and raps his knuckles on the wood. “Open up, Brenda. This is the Silver Springs PD.”
“Fuck off,” she calls from inside.
Jesus Christ.
“Now we bust the door in,” Easton says with a nod.
“Wait, I’ll try the back door,” I say, and they follow me around the side of the house. I use my key in the door off the kitchen, and it works. “She didn’t think to change this one.”
I march right through to the living room and pull up short.
Oh God.
I take a step back, right into Xander’s chest, and his hands come up to my shoulders, steadying me.
“Your three days are up,” I say, sounding way more normal than I feel right now.
My house.
My sweet, cute, amazing little house.
“My house now,” Mom says with a shrug. She’s sitting on the couch, in the same clothes she was in when we left her three days ago. There are piles of cigarette butts, put out on my paintings that she laid out and used as ashtrays.
The other paintings against the walls are covered in what looks like ketchup and mustard that she sprayed all over them, ruining every single one.
She took a knife to my couch, cutting open the cushions and pulling out the stuffing. My blankets are balled up in a corner of the room, and it smells like she pissed on them.
She pissed on my things.
“Jesus,” Xander mutters, and his hands tighten on me. I can feel the anger radiating through him.
“Get the fuck out of my house.” I sound so damn angry and disappointed and sad, and Mom’s face transforms as she starts to laugh.
“You can’t kick me out. I got squatter’s rights.”
“No, you don’t,” Easton says. “You don’t have any rights here, and now I can charge you with destruction of property as well as trespassing. Let’s go.”
“No.”
She simply sits there, as if she thinks she can just refuse and we’ll leave.
Easton calls for backup, but she just laughs again.
“She’s crazy,” I whisper.
“You have two choices,” Xander begins as he gently sets me aside and steps in front of me.
“Ivy can press all the charges available and you can go to jail. Or, you can go to the rehab facility that already has you enrolled and will be paid for as soon as you arrive in Great Falls. If you choose jail, you’ll serve your time and get nothing when you get out.
If you choose rehab, you’ll get enough money to rent an apartment and start over.
Either way, you never come back to Silver Springs. ”
He’s crossed his arms, and all I can do is stare at him. He’s already found a rehab facility and made arrangements for her? I had no idea.
“I got a business here,” Mom counters.
“Not anymore. You’ll sign the deed over to Ivy.”
“Hell no.” She’s shaking her head, but I step in.
“I’ve been working at the bar for ten years without pay. Because of you, I’m broke,” I remind her, and she has the audacity to smirk. “I pay the employees, the utilities, and I just saw the notice that you owe six figures in back taxes on the business and the property.”
“So what? I ain’t giving you shit. I don’t care what your father wanted.”
What does that mean?
Xander steps forward. “This isn’t a motherfucking negotiation. You ruin everything you touch when it comes to her, and I won’t have it. Never again. Lucky’s is Ivy’s to do what she wants with it, and you’re going away. Whether that’s jail or rehab, I don’t really give a fuck.”
Mom’s eyes narrow, and she turns them to me.
“I’d take the rehab, but you never did make good choices.”
Her nose and mouth firm, and I can see that she wants to hit me. She can’t, but she wants to. More cop cars pull up out front, and she finally stands.
“Are we going to jail or the hospital?” Easton asks her. “Either way, you’re leaving here.”
“I’ll go to rehab,” she says, lifting her chin. “And there better be a big, fat check waiting for me when I get out.”
“Or what, Brenda?” Xander asks, tilting his head to the side. “Go get sober and live your life. If I ever hear that you so much as sent Ivy a text, I’ll make every fucking moment a living hell.”
“He threatened me!” Brenda points at Xander and turns to Easton, as if he’ll help her. “I want to press charges.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Easton mutters, shaking his head. “Let’s go.”
She’s ranting and swearing the whole way to the car, and the other officers have to help Easton wrangle her in.
When the car leaves, I let out a deep sigh and pull my shirt up over my nose because the stench in here is unreal.
“I’ll go back to your place and grab my things,” I say slowly, trying not to cry as I stare at my ruined paintings. “But can Cally stay with you for a little while? I don’t want to bring her here. She doesn’t deserve to live in this. I can only imagine what my bedroom looks like and—”
“Whoa.” Xander takes me by the arms and turns me to face him. “What are you talking about? You’re not moving in here. Absolutely not, you live with me now.”
I blink up at him. “I can’t just move in with you, Xander. I have a house. And I need to get started on cleaning it up.”
“We’ll hire someone to get in here and clean all of this out, and you can do whatever you want with the house, but you’re not living here.
” He shakes his head and pulls me against him.
“Besides, what about us? I just found you and this amazing thing we have going on. Cally loves it at my place, and I want you both there. I’m keeping you, Red. ”
My jaw drops as I stare up at him, and then he’s leading me outside.
“I don’t want you standing in there for another minute,” he says. “It can’t be healthy. We’ll figure this mess out.”
“So, you’re saying I live with you now, I own the bar, or what’s left of it, you’ve paid for my mother’s rehab and for her to disappear out of my life, and . . . I don’t even know what else.”
“It’s been a busy week,” he says, nodding. “We have a lot going on.”
“We’re a we?”
I’m so . . . whose life is this? Did I step into an alternate reality?
“Yeah, wildcat. We’re a we. And we’re going to figure this out. Nothing needs to be done right this second.”
“Except, I really do need some of my clothes from in there.”
“We’ll buy you new ones.”
“Xander, I don’t need you to pay for my life.”
He frowns down at me. “Do you really want to go back in there and pack a bag?”
“Yeah. I really do.”
He blows out a breath, firms his jaw, and says, “Okay. Let’s go pack you a bag, Red.”
But once we get to the bedroom, I can plainly see that Brenda already ruined all my things. She cut them to shreds. Thank God I took his hoodie with me, along with my favorite Flurry T-shirt.
But my scrubs, my favorite jeans, the one little black dress I own—all of it is gone.
“I guess I’ll be buying new things after all.” I swallow hard as Xander hugs me from behind and buries his lips in my hair.
“Come on, Ivy. I want you out of here.”
“Okay.”
He takes my hand and leads me out of the house—not bothering to lock up because, really, there’s nothing here to protect—and out to his vehicle.
“Before we go shopping,” I say, swallowing hard. “I need carbs. Lots of carbs.”
“Lunch it is, then.”