“Given everything that’s happened…” He shakes his head. “Ivy was engaged to an absolute dick. She broke it off and he hasn’t handled it very well.”
“What he means is that I didn’t help myself either.”
“My sister cannot stay quiet when something pisses her off.” He watches her with the piercing look he has. “And neither can the pirate that’s trying to whisk her away.”
She smiles and it’s carefree and full of fun. “He isn’t a pirate.”
“May as well be. He has a boat. And torches. Been like a scene from bloody Moonfleet.” I just catch the reference to eighteenth century smugglers and moonshine.
“Does this pirate pose any threat?”
Isaac sighs, looks older than he did when he first laid eyes on Blair. “Not to you. Not to Ivy. Just to my fucking sanity. I’ll send you the details later and let me know. It’s a big ask.”
Blair is smiling now. Her and Ivy appear to be having some secret conversation and I feel a rush that she’s happy, even if it’s for a fleeting moment.
“I’d like some female company. Do you ride?”
Ivy nods. “Grew up with horses.”
There’s no deal to be done. Whatever it takes to make her smile.
“We have stables. I need a new riding partner.”
Because Lennox isn’t there. It was the one thing they used to do together; it was when they talked.
The band strikes up. I see Ivy’s hips begin to move, her eyes flaring. She grabs Blair’s hand.
“Dance?”
“Yes. Boys, come with us.”
Isaac rolls his eyes just like his sister has done at least ten times already and puts down his glass. I never took him as a dancer. I’m not. Not willingly.
Ivy pulls me to her as we hit the area that’s been cleared for dancing and I somehow remember what to do from the sweaty clubs that I went in when we found a city that wasn’t being peppered with bullets and bombs.
It isn’t Ivy that I concentrate on as we dance. It’s Isaac and Blair. His hands are on her hips, the thin material meaning he’ll be able to tell she isn’t wearing underwear. She wraps her arms around his neck and their bodies push together, him leading.
He whispers something into her ear and she laughs. Then his hand drops to her lower back, his fingers grazing the top of her ass.
I remember his hands.
I remember the words we whispered in a room bare of anything except a single bed with sheets whiter than either of our innocences had ever been.
Blair turns around and looks at me, Ivy oblivious to what I’m thinking. I see Isaac’s eyes too and I know what he whispered to her.
I know whose name he said.
Six weeks earlier
It’s an anonymous bar in a concrete city that could be anywhere in the western world and it’s a fucking nightmare.
The burn of alcohol curses down my throat for the first time in weeks and I want to be anywhere but here. The trip has been pointless, possibly a red herring and when I find the fucker who passed on the useless bit of information I’ll make his throat burn.
“Never thought I’d see you here.”
The lilt of a soft accent makes me down the Scotch in one.
“Wouldn’t have thought an establishment like this could be disinfected enough for the likes of you.”
