When had he stopped drinking? Perhaps the more troubling question was why. He’d had a cardiology appointment a while back but he hadn’t breathed a word about the results of the visit.
Will folded his arms atop the table and she knew the smug look he wore forewarned disaster for whatever came out of his mouth. “Judging by how pissed off you are, I’m guessing you already know that Kenna and your b.f. were almost a thing, once upon a time.”
Liam served him a stare that could’ve cut glass and insinuated that, no, she had not known. Kenna found herself wondering if he and Ivy had discussed the tense Bigleaf interaction at length. Surely, he would have wanted to know why his girlfriend had lost her cool over a casual mention of Dr. Merino. Liam must have thought himself unlucky, this doctor tainting all of the women he was interested in.
“And the world gets smaller and smaller,” Ivy said.
“More like stranger and stranger.”
That brief exchange hung in the air and, for the few seconds their eyes met, something haunting and all at once familiar passed between them.
Everyone else at the table regarded them as if they were in another dimension and the conversation quickly shifted to the outcome of the prior trivia night.
Once they had debated the answer to the first question and submitted their card, Ivy excused herself. Kenna watched, chest tense, as she wandered straight past Dayton and Nathan, along the hallway that housed the bathrooms and the entrance to the kitchen. She kept going until she reached the rear exit, shoving the door’s metal bar and escaping into the night. Kenna slowly counted down from 10 in her head before she slipped out of the booth and followed her, not bothering to give her teammates an excuse. Whatever she said would’ve been a lie.
To her surprise, she found Ivy with a cigarette wedged between two trembling fingers, shakily bringing it to her lips and inhaling. Ivy looked straight at her and exhaled a large plume of smoke in her face. Kenna immediately coughed and waved her hand to dispel the fumes as well as the stench, but both lingered as Ivy continued smoking.
“Listen,” she exhaled another cloud, eyes trained on the brick building. “I don’t know what you want from me, but we’re sure as fuck not about to be allSisterhood of the Traveling Pantsjust because we happened to sleep with the same crazy doctor.”
She contemplated telling Ivy about the other girls for precisely one second. It was obvious she had trouble keeping her emotions level and that alone ruled her out as someone who could be trusted with such damning information.
Kenna decided on a gentle approach.
“What did he do to cause this kind of reaction? All I did was mention his name and—”
“I trusted him and he betrayed that.”
She waited for a beat. “How?”
“He drugged me.”
All of the blood drained from her veins. Kenna had suspected, during the height of drunkenness and paranoia, that Dayton had drugged her the first time she’d gone to his house but she’d been quick to dismiss the disorientation and slew of other symptoms.
Ivy extinguished the cigarette with the toe of her boot. She crossed her arms and leaned against the brick. “I mean, I don’t have any proof, but I know he did it, you know?”
Kenna knew exactly what she meant but she had no intention of telling her that.
“What the hell was that at the coffee shop, by the way?”
“What do you mean?” Again, she knew.
Playing dumb wouldn’t help.
“Please. I saw the way you looked at my tattoo before you looked at my face, like you were solving some puzzle.”
She took a deep breath but it did nothing to steady her. Ivy already bordered on being unhinged. She could only imagine what her reaction would be to what she said next.
“I found a picture of you. In his house.”
“What kind of picture?”
When Kenna didn’t answer, she filled in the blanks.
“Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me. You are, right?”
“I’m really sorry,” she said quietly, adding, “There’s one of me too.”
“Just us?”