Appearances meant a lot to the both of them.
Looking back in the dirty mirror of the office bathroom, I adjusted my light blue collar so it was no longer suffocating me. I could hear my father talking to some woman out in the lobby but I wasn’t paying much attention, not until his voice boomed with happiness.
“I almost didn’t recognize you! Of course I remember who you are. How are you?”
I pulled back, still staring at myself in the mirror. I should have shaved this morning. My five o’clock shadow from yesterday made me look like I definitely should be wearing a hard hat instead of nice, pressed clothes.
Fuck it. No time to shave now.
My hand twisted on the cool doorknob and when I opened the door to walk through the lobby for my meeting, my ears instantly started burning.
I heard a low, feminine voice that caused my heart to thump. It sounded just like…
No. I’ve been through this shit before. It isn’t her.
I knew it wasn’t.
“Yes. Uh, I bought the house on Burbank,” the woman’s voice said. Although muffled, I could still understand her.
My father’s voice was much louder than hers, so I could hear him clear as day. “Burbank?”
I walked a few more feet towards the lobby and as soon as I rounded the corner, I stopped dead in my tracks. Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Ivy’s head snapped up to mine and those vivid green eyes, that I still very much remembered, shot right through my body. I’d felt like I’d just touched an electric fence. Even my legs were tingling.
“Hi, Dawson.” If I thought her eyes shot right through me, what did her voice just do? Am I fucking dead?
I said nothing in response, too shell-shocked to get myself to conjure up even a grunt.
After a few long, painful seconds had passed, I regained the ability to think again. At first, I felt like I’d just been given my life back. Like it had been stolen from me the moment she left, and she was so kindly handing it back over to me, saying, “Here ya go, Dawson, I’m back. Things can now resume to normal.”
But, then… I felt angry. For so many fucking reasons I couldn’t even pinpoint them.
Before I could say anything (which was probably a good thing), my father looked back at me, delight covering his tanned face.
“Dawson, you remember Ivy Collins, right?”
My head bounced up and down but what I wanted to say to my father was, “How the hell could I forget her? She was only my best friend for most of high school and she’s the only girl who has ever broken my heart.”
“Yep,” I answered.
The voice inside my head was on repeat; What is she doing here, what is she doing here, what is she doing here? And my God, why is she so perfect?
I grunted, clearing my throat. I wouldn’t look her in the face. There was no way that I could. If I looked her in the eye, I would wind up doing one of two things: crush my arms around her frame and never let her go, or, grab her by her shoulders and shake her, asking why she’d just up and left me and never looked back.
Both were extremely poor choices.
“I have a meeting,” I said, casually walking toward the desk my father was sitting behind. Blueprints were spread across the top, along with pencils and pens, measurements on bright yellow sticky notes, and of course, his sunflower seeds.
“Dawson, Ivy bought Missy Holloway’s house, over there on Burbank.”
Jesus Christ. She’s moving back? Why did that make my heart skip a beat?
Once again, I kept my mouth shut and I was hoping my father would get the fucking hint that I didn’t want to discuss anything at the moment. He lo
oked over at her, ignoring me while I searched around for the keys, and then rubbed the cleft in his chin, “So, that’s close to your old house then…”
His words caused me to snap my head up in an instant. My pulse hammered in my wrist, blood rushing through my veins. Did she know?