He lets go of my hand to smooth a lock of hair back over my shoulder. “You look prettier now than you did before the party. I like your bare feet. And your hair falling down. ”
Even with the chaos inside my head, I can’t help but smile at him.
“I’m glad you got to see your father,” he says, once we start walking again.
I glance at him, debating what to say. “It was good to see him. I haven’t talked to him since that day I found out about my mother. ”
“Are you still angry with him?”
“Yes. ” I don’t think I’ll ever fully forgive my father for not telling me the truth about my mother’s death. Because that lie was the catalyst for so many of my decisions, so many twists and turns on the road I’ve taken. I might have chosen a different path if I’d known the truth from the beginning. My father’s cause might not have so easily become my own.
“I understand why you might want to keep your distance from him for a while,” Bishop says. “But I don’t want to be one of the reasons. ”
“What are you talking about?”
Bishop’s thumb glides over my hand. “I know our fathers haven’t always gotten along. I don’t want the fact that you’re married to me to drive a wedge between you and your family. ”
“It won’t. ” I already knew, but his words prove it. Bishop is a good person. A better person than all the rest of us. He doesn’t understand how rare he is, how everyone else is angling for something right below the surface of every interaction. He’s the only person whose motives I trust completely.
I tip my head up to the sky as we walk. The stars wink above us, shimmering slightly in the humid air. They say before the war, you could hardly see them at night because of the light from thousands of cities. Now, they are laid out above us like a vast carpet, bright in a pitch-black sky. For all the death and hardship the war brought, I’m not sorry about being able to see the stars.
I take my shoes back from him on the front porch. “I had a good time tonight,” I tell him, but forcing my mouth into a smile takes work. I have betrayed my family and put my own desires above what is best for the group. I have decided that Bishop’s life is worth more than a hundred girls’ futures. I’ve turned a corner into a whole new world and there is no easy way back.
My fancy dress ends up in a crumpled heap in the corner of my bedroom, shoes tossed on top of the pile. I crawl into bed in a tank top and underwear and listen to the sound of Bishop brushing his teeth, hanging his clothes on the back of the bathroom door so he doesn’t disturb me by putting them in the closet. His routine has become as familiar to me as my own.
“Bishop?” I call as his shadow passes by the bedroom door.
“Yes?”
I shift onto my side. I know what I want, but I don’t know exactly how I should ask, what words I should say. It turns out it doesn’t really matter, because all my words have disappeared. Instead, I pull the sheet back, uncovering the empty spot in the bed. My heart beats slow but hard, like a bass drum inside my chest. The rhythm so deep it’s almost painful. Bishop’s eyes move from the bed to my face.
“I don’t think I’m ready for…to have sex,” I say. I clear my throat to get more weight behind my words. The truth is, I’m not scared of the act itself, not really. Not if it’s Bishop and me. And, in a different world, I probably would be ready to have sex with him. But here, in the tangled web I’m trapped in, I’m scared of taking that last step, the one that will bind our bodies together in the same way the rest of us has already merged. But I don’t want him on the other side of the wall anymore, either. “I don’t want to sleep in this bed alone,” I tell him.
“Ivy…” He sounds uncharacteristically nervous, and that makes me brave. He won’t be the one to ask for this. He’s been waiting for me.
“I want you next to me,” I say.
It takes him four steps to get to the bed, and then he hesitates. He is dressed only in a pair of boxer shorts, and I’m hit with a sudden attack of nerves. Maybe I should have suggested this when he was fully dressed. Who are you kidding, Ivy? My hands itch to touch; my fingertips throb with need.
“Are you sure?” he asks me.
“Yes. ”
He climbs in beside me, the sheet puddled around our ankles. He mirrors my position, on his side, one arm under the pillow where his head rests, knees bent. Our legs are both so long that our knees bump, and after a second’s awkward hesitation, I slide a leg over both of his. He puts his free hand on the hollow of my waist before moving it lower to rest on the curve of my hip. His thumb glides along my skin, back and forth over my jutting hipbone.
I inch closer. His eyes glitter in the near darkness, his hair tousled from the pillow. I move closer still, until my body is flush against his. I twine both arms around his neck. Climbing him like my namesake.
We kiss until I’m drunk with it, drunk with the taste of him. His hands are fisted in my tank top, pulling it halfway up my sides, my leg hooked around his waist. And it doesn’t matter what either one of us said about not being ready, if we don’t stop soon, we aren’t going to be able to stop. It will be like trying to put out an inferno with a thimble full of water.
“Ivy,” Bishop whispers against my mouth. “There’s a fine line between self-control and masochism and right now we are walking it. ” His voice is husky and breathless but laced with amusement, too.
I tug lightly on his hair. “Lying in bed with me is a form of torture?” I ask, laughing.
“When we’re both half naked, it is. ”
One of my hands has found its way to his bare chest and my fingers play lightly over his skin. It’s warm and smooth, and I like the way his muscles shift under my curious hand.
“Stop,” he groans, catching my hand as it drifts toward his stomach and raising it to his lips. “Now you are torturing me. ”