sent me home.”
“Why is she sending you home? You have two hours left of your shift.”
“Because someone walked past me with three cups of coffee, and I vomited on the bar.”
“Are you okay?” I asked, putting the whiskey down.
“I’m fine,” she said brightly. “But I don’t think I’m ever drinking coffee again, so I guess I need to develop a taste for tea.”
Simon pinched the bridge of his nose. “This is going to be a long few months.”
“You think you’ve got it bad,” Ivy said, looking back at him. “You’re not the one who’s going to get cankles.”
With that, she flounced out of the office, leaving the heavy wood door to swing shut behind her.
Simon stared after her for a moment before he shook his head. Looking at me, he said, “Good luck. You’re gonna need it with her.”
I grinned. I’d take all the luck I could get as far as Ivy Stuart was concerned.
***
“Are you sure you’re fine?”
Ivy froze, her lips puckered around the straw of her McDonald’s milkshake I’d driven into the next town to buy her at her request. “Kai, we’ve gotten a cab back home, then driven a forty-five-minute round trip for a McDonald’s. If I weren’t fine, your dashboard would know about it.”
I grunted a noncommittal noise and pulled into the apartment parking lot. I parked in my designated spot, next to her car. “I know, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop asking.”
She rolled her eyes as we got out. “What did my dad say to you?”
“Talked about fishing,” I lied, juggling my keys. “I think we’re going to figure out a trip soon.”
“Mm.” She sucked milkshake up the straw so hard she got a mouthful of air if the gurgling from the cup was anything to go by. “He knows this relationship is fake.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I know my dad. He doesn’t miss anything, but he wouldn’t dare tell Mom and Grams.”
I sighed. “Fine, yeah, he knows. He told me he knew but he wouldn’t say anything.”
She shrugged and dug in her purse for her keys when we reached our floor. “I figured.” She paused. “Hey… Do you want to come in?”
I raised my eyebrows.
“I’m not asking you for sex,” she deadpanned. “Just… you know. Baby stuff?”
“Really? You just threw up on your parents’ bar and you want to talk about baby stuff?”
She huffed, and I swear she stomped her foot. “Fine. Tori’s on a date and my sister went to her friend’s house. I’m a little afraid I might throw up that cheeseburger and need someone to hold my hair. Since you got me into this situation, you’re up.”
I laughed and wrapped one arm around her, pulling her into my side. “That’s as good a reason as any. Come on, then. I suppose it’ll stop me texting you in ten minutes.”
“There’s that,” she muttered, nudging me with her elbow before she unlocked her door.
I followed her inside and kicked off my shoes. “What do you want to do? Talk? Watch a movie? Sit in never-ending silence and play games on our phones?”
“Are you capable of silence?” she asked, pulling two bottles of water from the fridge. “Judging by your endless texts, I’d say no.”
I took the bottle she offered me. “Hey, if I didn’t text you and check up on you, you’d complain about that.”
“I suppose that’s true,” she mused, cracking the seal on her water bottle. “I’m going to get changed into my pajamas. I won’t be wearing a bra, so don’t stare too hard when I come back.”
“Are we at that stage already? This moved fast.”
“Yeah, well, in a few months you’re gonna have a front-row seat to a human being exiting my body, so my pajamas is child’s play.” She turned and stalked off to her room, leaving me chuckling at her.
And staring at her ass in her jeans.
Jesus, it was one hell of a nice ass.
“Stop staring at my ass!”
“It’s your ass or your boobs,” I shouted after her. “You can’t expect me to ignore both!”
“Nobody can ignore my boobs!” she yelled. “They doubled in size overnight! Pornstars are jealous of me, damn it!”
“I’ll let you know in a minute!” I laughed to myself and sat down on her sofa, grabbing the remote on the way down. I loaded the Netflix app and chuckled when I saw the two profiles named Ivy and Holley.
Who was paying for Netflix here?
“I pay,” Ivy said, making me turn my attention to her.
She was wearing a tiny pair of cotton