Wrapped Up in You - Jill Shalvis Page 0,6

open tabs to view her savings balance.

Still there, and she felt the smile curve her lips. A few more weeks and she’d be able to talk to Caleb about getting the paperwork started for the condo. Her condo. It was almost unreal to her, given how she’d grown up in a string of motels, each more roach infested than the last because Brandon, ever the fun-loving, trouble-seeking stoner of their threesome, had burned down the one halfway-nice trailer they’d had.

Ivy had left “home” at age sixteen to strike out on her own, couch surfing or living out of her car, working at whatever jobs she could get, mostly in bar kitchens, which was where she’d learned to cook.

Something that had given her purpose, and now a job she loved.

With a smile, she changed venues, moving to her office desk—which was really her bed. She fluffed her pillows behind her and stretched out her legs. She considered going to sleep. It was late, midnight, and she had to be up at five a.m. for kickboxing class.

Ugh.

Well-known secret: Ivy hated kickboxing class. She hated the gym. She hated to work out at all, but she hated the way her clothes fit when she didn’t do it even more. And yet she still might’ve taken the extra hour to sleep if her exercise app hadn’t texted her a notification with a picture of a guy working out, captioned: This is Jack. Jack got up on time for his workout. Be more like Jack . . .

Yes, her exercise app had shamed her into getting up. So here she was, being beaten up and paying for the pleasure. When she’d first come to the city, she’d been oddly lonely and sad. She’d gone to Google instead of a therapist she couldn’t afford, and had learned that moving your body helped with depression. She still hated the gym. Hated. But she was a whole lot less sad.

But because she knew herself, she’d doubled downed and bought a gym pass knowing she was far too cheap to not go. So she tried to get to sleep, but couldn’t. Something was niggling at her. Had she left something on in her truck? Had she left something plugged in? Had Jenny locked it up properly? She’d swear the answers to those questions were no, no, and yes, but . . . she couldn’t shake the feeling.

There’d been many times in her life when her instincts had been all she had, and they’d never failed her. The first time they’d kicked in, she’d been fourteen years old, Brandon sixteen. Since their mom had worked nights, Brandon had been in charge. He’d had some new friends over to play darts in the yard—a hustle, of course. On a good night, Brandon could earn several hundred in cash.

But halfway through the evening, Ivy’s instincts had kicked in, the hair on the back of her neck standing straight up. Not questioning it, she’d climbed out a back window of the trailer and huddled in the bushes, listening as some of the guys who’d become bored with losing money to Brandon had come inside to “have some fun with the hottie little sister . . .”

Brandon had been furious when he’d found out, and had promised not to bring them around again. And he hadn’t. But that didn’t mean the trouble stopped. A year later, this time in a seedy motel in Florida, Brandon had been selling pot out of their single room, using the bathroom as his “office.” He’d been open for business when Ivy had gotten the same hinky feeling, complete with the hair standing straight up on the back of her neck. Again, she’d sneaked out a window. She’d gotten across the yard when the police had come, sirens screaming, into the lot and confiscated all their possessions and Brandon.

Lesson learned. She never ignored her instincts now, never. Which meant she shut off her laptop, locked up, and headed down the stairs. It was only two miles to her truck. Normally, she’d just hoof it over there like she did every morning, because calling a Lyft was a luxury she’d given up for her savings account’s sake.

But no matter how badass she liked to think she was, she wasn’t stupid. No way was she going to risk walking that far alone this late at night. So though it killed her, she opened her Lyft app.

Fifteen minutes later, she got out of the Lyft at the southeast corner of the building,