Ivy winces at the spatters of dark red blood I left behind on the light carpet. “Oh God, the rug is a mess.”
“Eh.” Charlie shrugs, shaking his bangs out of his eyes. “Trevor Bronson puked in that exact spot last weekend, so, you know. It’s seen worse.”
“Ew.” Ivy springs to her feet, wrinkling her nose at the patch of carpet where her knees just were. “I really wish you hadn’t told me that.”
Despite everything that just happened, it’s such a classic Ivy reaction that I almost laugh. But I can’t, because at some point soon—probably once Charlie and I are less bloody—Ivy and Cal are going to start asking questions about why Charlie’s house got ransacked. They’ll ask, naturally, what somebody might have been looking for.
And I’m afraid that I already know.
* * *
—
Soon after, I’m seated on a stool in Ivy’s first-floor bathroom while she roots through the medicine cabinet. She opens an industrial-sized bottle of Tylenol and takes out two, filling a cup from the edge of the sink with water. “How do you feel?” she asks.
“Fine,” I say. It’s mostly true. My shoulder is a little sore from where Charlie whacked me with the club, but other than that, nothing hurts except my head.
“You’re lucky. It could’ve been a lot worse.” Ivy hands me the cup and the pills, and waits for me to wash them down. “Why didn’t you leave when you saw what had happened at Charlie’s house?”
I buy a little time by finishing my water, but ultimately, there’s no good answer. “Why didn’t you?” I counter.
“Because you were there,” she says.
The ache in my chest that only Ivy ever seems to cause returns, making me feel like I lost whatever compass was helping me navigate this conversation. “You were supposed to wait in the car,” I grumble. Ivy crosses her arms. I know I should apologize, or thank her, or both. Definitely both. But all I can manage to add is “Where’d you get the baseball bat?”
She takes the empty cup from me. “Cal had it in his trunk.”
“So you were gonna—what? Take a swing at someone?”
“Worked for Charlie, didn’t it? Up to a point.” Ivy opens a door built into the wall behind us, revealing shelves of neatly stacked towels. The bathroom looks almost exactly like I remember from when I used to hang out at Ivy’s house, except it’s now painted a cream color instead of blue. Ivy pulls a facecloth from the cabinet and turns the tap back on, wetting it and folding it in half before turning back to me. “I’m going to clean your cut now. It might hurt a little.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I force myself not to wince as she starts to dab at my temple. Her hair’s come partly out of her ponytail, and when it swings in her face, she makes an annoyed noise and pauses to tuck it behind her ear. I must be feeling better already, because I was a second away from doing it for her. “Thanks for this,” I finally say.
“You’re welcome.” Ivy resumes cleaning, her golden-brown eyes roving across my temple. “This doesn’t look so bad after all. There’s just one cut, and it’s not very deep. The bleeding is already slowing.” She steps back to rinse the facecloth beneath the tap, then bends over me again. The return of the cool cloth, and Ivy’s light touch, is a relief. “You know, you don’t have to do everything on your own.”
“What?” My eyes are following hers, and my ears need a second to catch up.
“You can ask people for help. It’s not a sign of weakness.”
Crap. She thinks I was being noble, going into the St. Clairs’ house by myself. Not acting out of self-preservation. I’m torn between wanting to set her straight and wanting to stay the guy she thinks I am. The guy I used to think I am.
“I wasn’t worried about looking weak,” I hedge, shifting restlessly. I should get out of here and check on Charlie instead of leaving him alone with Cal. But with Ivy still swiping gently at my face, I can’t bring myself to leave. It feels good, and she’s wearing some kind of light, citrusy perfume that smells fantastic, and all I want is to stay cocooned in here for as long as possible and not think about what comes next.
“Well, I hope you weren’t worried about me and Cal,” Ivy says. “We can take care of ourselves. And we’re all in this together, so…” She steps back and tilts her head critically. “You have the start of an impressive bruise, but hopefully you won’t need stitches. Just keep a bandage on it overnight, at least.” She turns for the medicine cabinet once more and pulls out a carton of Band-Aids, adding, “Has the Tylenol kicked in yet?”
“Yeah,” I say. Either that, or Charlie didn’t hit me as hard as it felt at the time. But I already miss her tending to me, so I add, “You sure you got all the blood off?”