Lydia followed him to his truck. “You are such a darling,” she cooed at him.
He wasn’t so sure about that, but he accepted the praise with a faint shake of his head. “It’s nothing.”
“Nothing? You’re my hero!” Her gaze flicked over his shoulder for a moment and a smile curled her thin lips. Then she returned her gaze to him. “Thank you,” she added, and leaned in to give him a hug.
Blake accepted the hug because it was the polite thing to do, but before he could pull away, Lydia turned her head and planted a kiss square on his lips. He was stunned still for a moment before he could gather himself and jerk away from her. He’d never had a woman do that to him before. He was about to ask what the hell she thought she was doing when Blake heard a commotion across the street.
He turned toward the sound. Ivy was standing across the street with a pool of various bags and purchases at her feet. Her mouth was hanging open, her eyes reflecting fresh betrayal. He knew that look well. It was the same expression she’d worn when she’d caught him with that cheerleader. Dammit. Lydia had done that on purpose. She knew Ivy was there.
Ivy crouched down to gather up everything she’d dropped and headed as fast as she could in the other direction.
“Ivy, wait!” Blake untangled himself from Lydia’s greedy arms and jogged across the street after her. It took longer than he’d like to catch up with her, but sprinting was not an option anymore. “Ivy, please stop!” he begged, reaching for her shoulder and finally tugging her to a stop outside the antique shop.
“Let go of me.”
“No. Listen to me, that wasn’t what you think it is.”
She chuckled bitterly and shook her head. “It wasn’t you kissing Lydia?”
“No, it was Lydia kissing me. There’s a big difference.”
“Please,” she groaned. She adjusted her hastily gathered bags, avoiding his gaze. “Don’t bore me with excuses, Blake. You don’t owe me one, anyway. It’s not like we’ve gotten back together or anything. You’re allowed to kiss whomever you want to, even snotty Lydia Whittaker. It’s none of my business.”
Blake scanned around them for one of the rental cars or their suspicious occupants. He didn’t see any, but better safe than sorry. He opened the door to the antique store and gestured for her to go inside.
“I don’t need anything from in there.”
“There are rental cars all over town today. Would you rather we go inside or have this discussion on the street where Nash or some other sleaze can film it?”
Thinking better of it, Ivy ducked into the store, and he followed her. The only person in the shop was the owner, Miss Phyllis. She was stone-deaf and couldn’t spread any of their conversation around town even if she wanted to.
He led Ivy behind a multipanel lacquer screen, where they couldn’t be seen from the street. “Lydia and I are not together,” he insisted at last. “And I had no intention of or interest in kissing her.”
Ivy sat her bags down on a dusty dining room table and crossed her arms over her chest. “You just tripped and fell into her, right?”
“Of course not. She asked me to take some things to the fairgrounds for her. I thought she was just going to hug me for assisting her.” He shook his head and winced. “Then she saw you coming and kissed me. But I did not kiss her.”
“It didn’t look one-sided.”
“Come on, Ivy. You’ve been gone a long time, but some things don’t change. I’ve never had any interest in Lydia, but you know that’s never stopped her from trying. Having you back has just made it worse. She’s probably more interested in upsetting you than she is in kissing me.”
“I have no doubt of that, but why would she think that seeing the two of you kissing would upset me?”
Blake placed a finger below Ivy’s chin and tipped it up so she couldn’t look away from him. “Really? I saw it in your eyes, Ivy. It did upset you. You dumped all your stuff onto the sidewalk.”
“It startled me,” she argued dismissively. “I didn’t expect to look across the street and see the two of you making out at the gas station. It gave me flashbacks to high school and all the things she used to do to me when we were together.”
Lydia had been full of tricks over the years. She was always looking for reasons to talk to Blake, especially if Ivy was around. She tried to get into the same classes and was always asking him to study with her. One time, she’d even invited Blake to her house for a party and when he arrived, he found out he was the only guest and her parents were out of town at a horse show.
Things like that, combined with her constant digs at Ivy, had worn Ivy’s nerves thin over the years. It was no wonder the incident with the cheerleader pushed her over the edge. Ivy had probably been waiting to lose him for years.
“It didn’t mean anything back then,” he assured her, “and it doesn’t mean anything now. I wouldn’t do that to you, Ivy. We went to all that trouble to make up; I don’t intend to throw it all out the window a day later. Besides,” Blake added, his voice low, “I?
??m more interested in the two of us moving forward than moving backward.”
Ivy’s dark green gaze focused on his, a touch of surprise reflecting back at him. “Forward? What do you mean by that?”
Blake wasn’t exactly sure. They weren’t really in a position to pick up where they’d left off all those years ago. She would be back in California long before his freshman boys mastered the new tennis module. But he knew he wanted something more. Maybe friendship. Maybe spending time together catching up on their lives. Maybe making out in his Corvette like they were teenagers again.