Wild: The Ivy Chronicles (19 page)

Because she had just taken away my freedom. And what freedom was that really, anyway, if it could be seized with a snap of her fingers? I never really had it to begin with, I realized. I was at the mercy of her whims.

The enormity of returning to Dartford and supporting myself—covering tuition, room, and board all on my own—overwhelmed me. Oh, and without a car or insurance. If I left here, I’d be on my own. An orphan, essentially.

“I’ll think it over,” I agreed, my lips hugging the words numbly.

“Of course, you will.” Patting my shoulder, she turned and walked from the room.

As soon as she left, I fell back on the bed, every part of me suddenly as heavy as lead.

Chapter 21

T
HE DAY AFTER MY
conversation with Mom she left the application forms on my bed for Muskogee Community College. It was her not-so-subtle way of moving things along.

A week passed before I forced myself to start filling out the paperwork. Something withered and died in me with every swipe and scratch of my pen across the paper. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to sign my signature on the last page. Instead, I shoved the application forms in a drawer in my room.

But out of sight wasn’t out of my mind. I couldn’t forget they were there. Nor would Mom let me. She reminded me every day that there was a July twentieth deadline.

“Maybe you don’t want to finish college,” she suggested over breakfast one morning.

I looked up from my cereal, watching her warily, wondering if this was some new tactic, because surely she wanted me to finish college. She was an educator for God’s sake. A principal.

Mom shrugged. “You can live here and work at the bank. Of course, I’d like you to complete your degree. I tell all my students that, but college isn’t for everyone. Even I know that.” She lifted the coffeepot to refill her mug. “And how important will it be for you to have a degree once you marry Harris anyway? I’m sure you’ll stay home after the wedding. Start a family.”

Oh. My. God. I looked down at my bowl and spooned another mouthful of Cheerios into my mouth so I didn’t have to tell her just what I thought about that idea. When had my life turned into this world of suck?

I HELD BACK MY
tears through the phone call with Pepper. I didn’t need her to know how upset I truly was. I tried to sound practical.

“I can’t afford tuition, Pepper . . . and all my other expenses on top of that.”

“You can live at Mulvaney’s. You don’t have to pay rent, and we can float your utilities for a while. You use so little anyway and it’s all rolled into the business.”

“I appreciate that.” And it really was generous, but that still left tuition and all my other expenses. I could get a job, but that still left tuition and books. It was a lot to wrap my head around. Mom knew that. She expected me to fall in line. I rubbed the center of my forehead where it was beginning to ache. I’d taken a run after breakfast but the endorphins had done little to alleviate the pressure building up in my skull.

“Look. I’m not saying I’m
not
coming back. I just need time to figure out a plan . . . how I can make it work without my parents supporting me. I might not be coming back until the spring.”

“Georgia, you know if you drop out it will be harder to get back into Dartford. Have you called Dr. Chase?”

“Yes. I explained I had a family emergency and wouldn’t be back for the summer. He was very understanding.”

“Maybe he can help you, if you explain . . .”

“We’ll see,” I say, the ache in my head unbearable now. I rubbed harder, beating the heel of my palm to my head a few times as if that might kill the pain. “I have to go. It’s dinnertime.”

Pepper paused and I realized how lame that came out. I sounded fourteen having to hang up the phone because I was wanted at the dinner table. Not that it was even the truth. I already ate an hour ago.

“Georgia, what are you doing?” Her voice was almost a whisper here, but no less demanding.

“I’ll be fine, Pepper. It’s not the end of the world if I have to move back home.” It only felt like it was.

She sighed. “What about Logan?”

Everything inside me seized tight at her question. “What about him?”

“You and Logan—”

“You heard Logan. He’s not sitting around waiting for me.”

“Yeah, I heard Logan.”

Embarrassment sizzled through me. “Well, then you know.”

“I know you’re both totally into each other, and you’re going to blow it if you don’t come back here.”

I already blew it.
I pressed a hand over my chest, directly over my constricting heart. Great. Now my chest hurt, too.

“It was a fling, Pepper. What else can it be?” Bile surged in the back of my throat at the lie. It was so much more than that but what else could I say? I couldn’t tell her that I loved him. She would only protest harder for me to come back. She might even tell Logan.

“Look, I know Reece and I came down on you two like a pair of disapproving parents. Sorry about that. We were kind of assholes. But I’ve been thinking . . . why can’t you and Logan be together? He’s going to school forty minutes from here. He’s a good guy and I’ve never seen him act this way over any other girl. I’ve never seen
you
act this way over any guy. If you come back here you could both—”

“It was just sex, Pepper.”

My blunt words fell on the air, the lie tearing something open inside me. The line crackled in sudden silence. My head felt like exploding. Tears streamed silently down my face.

Then she laughed.

“What’s so funny?” I snapped on a wet, tear-soaked breath.

“Yeah. Well. Once upon a time I was hooking up with Reece just for foreplay lessons so I could land another guy.”

“Yeah, I kind of remember that.” I might have been involved in some of that scheme, crazy as it sounded now.

“I know all about deluding myself. And I almost lost him because I was too stubborn and too afraid to admit what was between us.”

I filled my lungs with air. Yeah. I was afraid. I could admit that. I’d felt out of control since the first moment things heated up between Logan and me. But I was more afraid to embrace it all. To turn my back on the life I was supposed to lead, the one that had been planned for me since birth—or since my real father walked out and abandoned me and Mom.

Even if I wanted to embrace a relationship with Logan, it couldn’t happen anymore anyway. I was here. He was halfway across the country. If I went to him, I was turning my back on my family permanently. On the me I was supposed to be.

“Logan and I aren’t you and Reece.”

“You sure about that? You might be more like us than you think. How does it feel? Knowing you might stay forever in Muskogee while he goes off to college? The next time you see him down the road a few years, maybe at my wedding . . . if your mother lets you attend, that is.”

Her words hit their mark with all the accuracy of a well-aimed arrow. I flinched.

“Of course, he’ll probably be seeing someone by then,” she added. “He’ll have a date with him. Probably a girlfriend.”

“Stop. Stop it.”

“It hurts, right?”

I nodded, pressing my fingers to my mouth, holding the tears inside.

“Well, it wouldn’t hurt if there wasn’t something there. If you didn’t love him.”

I nodded, but didn’t let a sound escape. I didn’t dare. Not for her to hear.

“Georgia,” she pleaded softly. “I almost lost Reece . . . and myself. Don’t let that happen to you. Your home is here. Come back. It will all work out if you just come home. I’ll help you figure it out. We all will. That’s what friends do.”

I inhaled, closing my eyes tightly. “I have to go.”

Her answering sigh rippled through me. “Good-bye, Georgia.”

I hung up the phone and clutched it in my hand for a few moments before flipping to my photos. There was a group shot in there at Mulvaney’s taken a few months ago. Pepper, Reece, Emerson, Shaw, Suzanne. Even Annie was in there, tagging along with the group—whether we wanted her or not. I laughed, the watery sound filling the silence of my room.

And Logan. He was there, too. Coincidentally, he was next to me, his strong arm draped over my shoulders for the picture. My chest clenched. Not coincidental. I knew that now. There had been something even then, drawing us together before either one of us realized it. Or at least before I did.

I zoomed in on his face and let the ache in my chest intensify as I studied his strong features. The deeply set eyes and the square jaw. The golden-brown shadow of a beard growing in. The brilliant blue of his eyes seemed to stare directly into my heart.

I curled into a tight ball as dusk slid into night, tapping the screen of my phone every minute or so, stopping Logan’s face from going dark.

I don’t know how long I did this. Half an hour? An hour? Staring at his face, sodden in my longing and misery, a breath shuddered past my lips. I flipped to my contacts, to Logan’s name, and started texting before I lost my courage. I started several messages, deleting them all before settling on one.

Me:
I’m sorry

At the very least he was due an apology. I went back to the photo of us, not expecting an immediate reply. Not after our last exchange at the police precinct when I had let us both down. When his message popped up, my heart tripped a little, feeling suddenly connected to him through this tenuous thread of dialogue. Even if he was halfway across the country.

Logan:
What for?

Me:
Everything

I wish I could take back the words I had said. I wish I had been more honest with him . . . with myself. I’d still be stuck in Muskogee, but there wouldn’t be the foul taste in my mouth whenever I thought of my last sight of him.

Logan:
Where r u?

Me:
Still at home. Alabama.

I’m sure he’d been apprised of my change in location by Pepper and Reece. For a moment, it appeared he was typing, and then nothing. I was reminded of his resolve that night in the police precinct. He was finished waiting on me. Inhaling a watery breath, I typed again.

Me:
I wish I could do things over . . .

He didn’t reply. I stared at the screen for a few moments, resigning myself to the fact that he wouldn’t. Those words were enough. As much as I could offer. I wouldn’t tell him that I loved him. That wouldn’t be fair. Not with me stuck here and him there. He had moved on, and I was taking his advice and growing up.

The most adult thing I could do was let him go.

Chapter 22

G
EORGIA!
C
AN YOU COME
down here?”

I left my room and descended the stairs, assuming Mom wanted help with dinner.

When I stepped in the living room I noticed my sister’s face first. Jeremy was with her. They’d been watching a movie, but the big screen was frozen on pause. Pity gleamed in her green eyes, which I didn’t quite understand until my gaze shifted and collided with Harris.

For a moment, it felt like déjà vu with Harris standing in my living room, Mom beaming beside him, Dad sitting on the couch with an absent expression on his face as he read the latest Clive Cussler novel.

I opened my mouth, but words wouldn’t come. They were there, trapped in my head but couldn’t get past my lips.
What are you doing here? Go away. Go away. Go away.

“Hi, Georgia.” He stepped forward and touched my elbow as he leaned in to kiss my cheek. My skin shivered. “Good to see you. You look great.”

I didn’t look great. I hadn’t washed my hair in two days and I had pulled it tight in a slick ponytail to try to hide the fact. As for the rest of me. I wore yoga pants and a Dartford T-shirt. Yes, the former me was making a silent protest.

“Isn’t it nice Harris decided to drop by? He’s home for a visit.” Mom stared at me with wide, almost pleading eyes, willing me to say something nice.

“Hello.”

There. That was civil.

Awkward silence filled the air. Mom jerked her head toward Harris, looking at me meaningfully, trying to convey only God knew what she wanted me to do.

Suddenly she clapped her hands together. “Well, it’s almost dinnertime and we haven’t made any plans yet.”

Um. Liar much? Any fool could smell the roast that was cooking in the oven.

“Oh.” Harris glanced between me and my mother, reading her unsubtle maneuvering. “Maybe we could all go grab something to eat?”

Mom waved a hand. “Oh, no! I’m not dressed to go out.” And I was? “You two kids should go to dinner.”

I glared at her. Was she really doing this? It wasn’t going to work. The ploy might have worked in
The
Parent Trap
, but forcing me alone with Harris wasn’t going to get us back together.

Maybe I needed to let him know that. No matter what our mothers plotted, I wasn’t interested in reconciling. For all I knew, neither was he and he was only here because his mom had pressured him. I knew something about pressuring mothers, after all.

Harris lifted an eyebrow and grinned suggestively—a grin that used to make my heart melt but did nothing for me anymore. “How about it, Georgia?”

I held silent for a long moment, considering him, and then, “Sure. Give me a minute to change.”

IT TOOK THE WALK
to Harris’s car to confirm that our mothers had arranged the night’s impromptu dinner date.

“I have a reservation at Guido’s Kitchen.” It was the only establishment in Muskogee that could be considered fine dining.

I nodded, pissed, even though I had surmised as much. “So when did you get in?”

“Yesterday,” he replied, backing out of my driveway. “And it took five minutes for my mom to inform me that I had to take you out tonight.”

“Nice.”

“I kind of knew it was coming though. She’s been on my case ever since we broke up.”

“Same here with my mom.”

“Mom never liked Tiffany.”

I didn’t really care to talk about the girl who had briefly replaced me. I supposed I should be curious. Weren’t ex-girlfriends always curious about their replacements?

Shaking my head, I looked out the window at the passing lights of the Muskogee’s main street, aptly named Main Street. It was a short ride to the restaurant. It wasn’t very crowded. We probably didn’t even need a reservation. They seated us near the large brick-oven fireplace that they cooked their pizzas in and the heavenly aroma of rosemary and olive oil and bread washed over me.

Harris didn’t even open the menu. When the waiter brought our water he ordered his usual, chicken picatta, and my usual, baked ziti. It was my old life again. Harris in the driver’s seat. Ordering for me. Shit, how did this happen? I hate this life.

“Wait,” I said, stopping the waiter and quickly glancing over the menu. “I’ll have the small Hawaiian pizza.”

Nodding, the waiter took our menus and left.

“Pineapple on your pizza?” He wrinkled his nose. “Since when?”

“I do a lot of things now I didn’t use to do.”

He stared hard at me for a long moment. “Yeah. So I’ve heard.”

Ah. Facebook. Suddenly, I was thankful for my life being plastered all over social media. I was glad he knew that I was different now and not the girl he broke up with all those months ago. I smiled thinly and took a sip of my water.

“So let’s talk.” He flattened his hands on top of the table like he was about to discuss some important business negotiation.

I shrugged. “Let’s.”

He frowned. “You sound bitter, Georgia.”

“Oh, why would you think that? I’m on a date with you against my will. My mother is doing everything in her power to keep me here instead of going back to Dartford.”

“Maybe it’s for the best. Those friends of yours . . . I never liked them.”

I laughed harshly. “Pepper and Em? Oh, they’re bad influences, are they?”

“Yeah.” He looked me up and down, and then leaned across the table to hiss, “You went to a sex party.”

I laughed even harder, indifferent to the stares swinging our way from other tables.

“Who would have ever thunk it, right?” I took a savoring sip of water. “Boring Georgia getting kinky. An old dog can learn new tricks.”

That succeeded in pissing him off. His face flushed. He always got splotchy when he got mad. But behind his anger there was something else in his eyes. A light of interest as he looked me over. Like the things I might have learned without him intrigued him. Pig. Suddenly I had no appetite.

When he reached for my hand across the table, I tried to slide it away, but he tightened his grip and squeezed my fingers. “I missed you.”

“Did you?” I angled my head, the end of my ponytail sliding over my shoulder.

“Did you miss me?” he asked, sticking out his bottom lip. I knew he thought he looked adorable when he did that because he had told me so.

I studied him, thinking, trying to feel inside whether even a small part of me had missed him. That first month after the breakup I had been crushed. Hurt. Angry. But had I really missed him?

The last couple years of our relationship had felt like a lot of work. It had been a long time since I’d felt relaxed and enjoyed myself around him.

Kind of like how I felt here with Mom. Tense and unhappy. I didn’t enjoy myself. I never felt relaxed or at ease in my skin. I felt like an imposter, trying to be someone else—the person who made them happy and not me.

I only felt like myself at Dartford. After Harris and I broke up, I’d finally uncovered myself. And then I met Logan.

I thought about the way he made me feel . . . the things we did and shared. Being with him . . . it felt like freedom. I never knew it could be like that with a guy.

I remembered how easy it was to be with him—when I wasn’t pushing him away.

I met Harris’s gaze. “No.”

“Huh.” The sound escaped more like a grunt than a word, and his expression revealed every bit of his disgust with me for confessing that bit of truth to him.

“Look, Harris, I know our mothers have this grand plan for us. But I’m not going to marry you. I’m going back to Dartford.”

It was his turn to laugh harshly. “Really? Without Mommy and Daddy supporting you?” He snorted his skepticism.

“Yeah. I like it there. No”—I stopped to correct myself and shook my head—“I love it there. I love my friends. I love . . .”

Logan. I love Logan.

Something ugly flickered in his eyes as he stared at me. “You’re kidding me, right?” He stared at me for a long moment. “There’s someone else. Was it that guy you were arrested with? The one with you in the pictures?” So he had seen the photos. He inhaled. “I forgive you, Georgia. Whatever you did, we weren’t together then. I can forgive you.”

I laughed lightly then. “You’re really incredible.”

He grinned, mistakenly complimented. “I know. I can be generous and admit that we both made mistakes.”

“No, Harris, I don’t want to get back together with you. Even if there wasn’t someone else . . . but yeah. There is.”

His nostrils flared. “You little . . .” He stopped himself short, showing some restraint. He glanced around to make sure no one was watching us. “We’re going to finish this dinner, Georgia, and then I’m going to take you home and give you some time to reconsider.”

I stood. “We don’t really need to finish this dinner.”

He looked up at me, his mouth gaping like a fish. “We ordered already—”

“You can eat. I’m going home. I’ll get my sister to come and get me.” I dropped my napkin on the table then and marched across the restaurant. In the lobby, I stopped and pulled my phone out. I’d had it on vibrate, but I immediately saw there were several texts from Amber and even a missed call. Hoping everything was all right, I clicked on the voicemail first. Her breathless voice filled my ear.

“Georgia! Georgia! Oh. My. God. I can’t believe—”

“Georgia.”

The deep voice hit me like a punch to my solar plexus. Breathing was impossible. I lowered the phone from my ear, my heart a painful thump in my chest. I turned, forgetting about my sister.

“Logan?” He looked amazing. A little rough. Like he hadn’t shaved in days. His clothes were wrinkled against his tense body. But that only made him more beautiful. More dangerous looking. “What are you doing here?”

“Did you mean what you said? In your text?” he demanded.

I moistened my lips and took a step toward him, trying to remember what I had texted, but I couldn’t think beyond the sight of him.

“You said you wish you could do things over,” he supplied, the blue of his eyes washing over me.

I nodded, remembering.

He continued, his voice deep and raw and hitting me in places that I never knew a voice could touch. “Because I don’t want to do anything over. Every minute . . . I’d do every fucking minute of it again even if that’s all I could have. But I gotta know. Is it? Do you want more?” He lifted a hand, motioning vaguely to where I stood. “Or are you staying here?”

“I don’t want to stay here,” I said in a rush.

“Good. Because I drove all this way hoping to hear you say that.”

The air released from me in a
whoosh
. Home. Dartford. Him. Yes. YES. Tears welled up in my eyes.

“Is everything all right, miss?” The hostess, an older lady, looked Logan over in his faded jeans and T-shirt disapprovingly.

And I didn’t care. I nodded dumbly, happiness rolling through me.

Logan watched me closely, his blue gaze intense, peeling away my layers.

“Everything is . . . great.”

Logan closed the distance between us then. He seized me by the face, his touch all at once gentle and rough. His need was palpable. I knew it, recognized it, because it was the same for me.

His hands cupped my cheeks. His fingers splayed wide, each finger a burning imprint. “People wait their whole lives for this. Sometimes half their lives pass before they find it. Sometimes they never do. They settle for something else. Or nothing at all. But we found each other now, Georgia. Do you know how lucky that makes us?”

My chest tightened, emotion clogging my throat, but reality was there, biting at the edges of this beautiful moment, threatening to burst the bubble with the question of how I could make this all work. Love wasn’t going to feed and clothe me and get me through school. “I know, but . . . my parents—”

“What do
you
want, Georgia?”

He was the first person to ask me that. To care what I wanted. My mother never once asked me what I wanted. She never asked what was important to me.

“I came here for you, Georgia, but if you really want to stay here . . .” He released a deep breath and dropped his hands from my face. “I’ll go.”

A sob burst from my lips. “No. I want you! I want to be with you.” I reached for him, grabbing hold of his head and tugging his face down to mine. “Don’t you dare stop fighting for me now. For us.”

I couldn’t let him go. I chose him. The rest I would figure out.

He kissed me, swallowing the sound of my sob. His hands flattened against my back and hauled me against him.

The hostess sputtered from where she stood a few feet away, but we ignored her.

“I won’t,” he muttered between hot, fevered kisses. “Never.”

“
You little whore.”

I tore my mouth from Logan with a gasp to see Harris standing just beyond us with hands balled at his sides. “I came here tonight willing to give you a second chance and you’re ready to spread your legs for this loser who got you arrested.” Logan’s arm tensed under my fingers.

“Harris, enough!” Words burned on my tongue. I wanted to hurl insults at him—and not even for calling me a whore. I wanted to hurt him for calling Logan a loser.

“No, this was good,” Harris continued. “I needed to see this. Like I would even want to put my dick where this punk has been.”

Logan slipped from my grasp before I could even snatch hold of his arm again. He was across the lobby in quick strides and struck Harris in the nose.

Harris flew back into the hostess stand. He shook his head as though to clear it and then charged Logan, wrapping his arms around him and tackling him to the floor.

They went down with a crash on the floor, limbs flailing, fists connecting. The terrible sound of bone on bone filled the air. The hostess screamed.

I danced around them, trying to look for a way to separate the two of them, but they were a tangle. Logan landed more hits, but Harris wouldn’t give up. Somehow they managed to get on their feet again. Locked together, they rammed into a wall, rattling pictures depicting the Tuscan countryside. The hostess danced around them, screaming for them to stop.

I grabbed Harris’s shoulder. “Harris, stop it!”