“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you two…were…um.” My brother stuttered over his words and it made a sharp laugh fall out of my mouth. He started to ramble even after I laughed. “I saw the light on and I figured if you were in here with a girl, it would be Ivy and you two would be goofing off, but…”
Ivy coughed out an uncomfortable noise and I smirked.
“I’ll just leave you two to it then,” he hastily murmured and then backed away from the door and all but ran down the hall.
I had no idea why he was being so weird about this. I mean, sure, it was Ivy. My best friend. Emmett had been around her before, and when he went to school with us last year, he protected her like she was his little sister…but, I guess he hadn’t realized that I felt this way about her.
I hadn’t fully realized it either, until about five hours ago.
I mean, yes, I’d always loved her and cared for her and I’d definitely dance around the line of flirting versus being friendly many times, but it’d never been like this. I’d never touched her with the real intention of actually kissing her. I’d touched her because it just felt right.
It felt even more right after what had just happened.
“Uh, I need to go talk to him, I think.” I said, finally taking my hand off her leg.
She lo
oked down, her brown hair falling wistfully in her face, shielding it completely from me. I didn’t like that. I needed to see what she was thinking.
Her voice fell over me in the softest way, like a leaf falling from a tree in the middle of fall. “Yeah, definitely. He looked… bad.”
I sat there for a second, feeling my heart thump wildly in my chest. I wasn’t going to pretend like what just happened, didn’t.
I was not shoving this under the rug like earlier.
“Look at me,” I pleaded. Ivy’s head popped up so quickly that her chestnut hair flew back out of her face. Her green eyes were vividly scared and confused which was a lot like being punched in the gut.
“We’re going to talk about what just happened when I come back in here, okay?”
Ivy sucked in her lower lip, biting on it gently with her teeth…which was not helping matters, whatsoever. She swallowed, allowing her mouth to close once again. Then she slowly nodded her head and I just couldn’t help but let the next words tumble out.
“I don’t regret it.”
She sucked in a breath, widening her eyes.
Her voice almost quivered. “You don’t?”
I smiled. “Never.”
Ivy let herself smile, just a small one, which was probably forced. Even through her weak smile, I could see the weary expression on her face. That’s when I took my hand and placed it underneath her chin. My heart was hammering in my chest and I can honestly say that I’d never felt so compelled to make someone calm in my entire life. “Just relax, Ivy. It’s still me you’re talking to.”
She let out a sigh and nodded, a small smile still lingering. I knew exactly what she was thinking in that moment, though. I knew her so well that it was obvious. It was also very clear to me that I was thinking something similar: This is gonna change everything.
When I walked out my bedroom door, I turned the corner and rested my back against the wall. I angled my head up and looked at the darkened ceiling, breathing out a huge breath and trying to reassure myself that it wasn’t a dream and that I had, in fact, just tried to pounce on my best friend of the last four years.
All those taunts and remarks from my friends reverberated in the back of my mind. I think everyone had known that there was always something different with Ivy and I. Memories slammed into me and I truly couldn’t comprehend how it had taken me this long to recognize the way my heart beat a little faster in my chest when she walked out her front door in the morning to climb into my Camaro. Or the way I felt blinded with anger when I’d hear some guy talking about how attractive she was; much like I felt a couple days ago when I saw the hurt flash on her face from Tyler. Whenever things were going wrong in my life, I turned to her. She was the only person I knew that could make me feel better, that could make me feel a little lighter.
I was pretty sure I was in love with my best friend, and I wasn’t the type of guy who fell in love. I wasn’t the type of guy who was sweet and tried to wow a girl, just to make her smile. I wasn’t the type of guy who could grow a weird fluttery feeling in his lower stomach just from the mere touch of someone’s skin.
I mumbled under my breath, “Jesus,” and then pushed off the wall and walked towards my brother’s room, opening his door quickly and marching inside.
He spun around, a huge smirk covering his bruised face.
“Dammmmmn, took ya long enough, bro.”
I rolled my eyes. “What?”
He barked out a laugh and landed with a thud on his messy bed. “Dude, I knew that you’d fall for her eventually. I honestly didn’t think it’d be this soon, but I knew it’d happen.”