Page 149 of Ink Me Three Times
“Right,” he mutters, dragging a hand down his face again. “You’re just gonna keep playing this close to the chest, huh? Until someone else finds out by accident too?”
“I’m not ready,” I whisper. “It’s not about you. It’s not about any of you. I’m just… trying to survive this in one piece.”
He looks up at me then, really looks. All the fire has dimmed in his eyes, replaced by something rawer. Sadder.
“You think you’re alone in this,” he says quietly. “But you’re not. You don’t have to be. You haveme.”
My breath catches.
He stands again, slower this time. Controlled.
“I’ll give you space,” he says finally. “Not because I’m mad at you, though I am, but because that’s what you want. Just knowthat I would help you if you’d let me. And the fact that you won’t kills me.”
I nod, because I don’t know what else to do.
Before he leaves, he stops at the door, hand on the knob.
“I’m still on your side, Ivy,” he says without turning around. “Even if you don’t trust me enough to let me fight with you.”
The door clicks shut behind him.
And just like that, the cabin feels colder. Smaller. Quieter than it should be.
Pickle whines softly from the floor and noses at my ankle.
I sit down on the couch, knees to my chest, the folded laundry long forgotten beside me.
There’s a storm coming. I can feel it in my bones.
Because Jesse thinks he’s on my side… but when he finds out the truth, that Freddie isn’t the only guy he has to worry about, then I’m sure everything will go south fast.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Mitchell
The engine'sroar is the only thing keeping me upright.
I take the curves too fast, maybe the asphalt can punish me enough to make up for what I said. Maybe if I lean hard into the speed, I can outrun the sound of Ivy’s voice going quiet. The look in her eyes when I suggested I should just leave.
She didn’t even have the strength left to fight me on it.
I told myself it was nothing more than a throwaway comment in the middle of a stupid argument.
But I meant it. Or… I meantsomething.
And now it’s burning a hole straight through me.
By the time I reach the overlook, my hands are cramping from how tightly I’ve been gripping the handlebars. I kill the engine and the silence that follows is almost deafening. The kind of quiet that forces you to hear your own bullshit loud and clear.
I sit on the rusted guardrail, shoulders hunched, staring out at the valley, like it might offer up a damn epiphany.
It doesn’t.
I drag a hand over my face and lean forward, elbows on my knees. My chest is caving in on itself, tight and mean and full of shit I haven’t let myself say out loud.
Because the truth is, I’m scared.
Not just of being hurt. But ofwanting.
