Brothers of Paradise Series

Things unspoken.

“I’m proud of you for quitting.”

Her gaze returns to mine. Surprise burns there, together with a deep-seated mistrust that shames me.

“Ivy, I-”

She shakes her head, cutting me off. “Please thank your sister for driving me to the train station. I didn’t mean to take up part of her Sunday.”

“She didn’t mind.” The cold hand of fear grips my insides, that she won’t want to hear me out. That the open, trusting look in her eyes is lost forever to me.

“She’s nice. Your entire family is, Rhys.”

“They are. Thank you.”Content protected by Nôv/el(D)rama.Org.

She nods, looking past me. “I told your father that your photography is amazing. Perhaps it’ll help.”

She’d stood up for me. The knowledge sharpens the pain in my chest at her distance. I don’t want to say the words.

I don’t want to hear her say them.

But I start the conversation anyway. “Let me explain what you saw on my computer, Ivy.”

“Do we have to?” she whispers. “It won’t change what they proved.”

“They didn’t prove anything. Only that I’ve worked on and off as a photographer for a decade, and that has included professional models, some of whom asked me to photograph them nude. But there is no other meaning to them, Ivy.”

Something breaks inside me when her eyes line with silver, as she refuses to look at me.

“Ivy, trust me on that.”

“I feel so foolish,” she whispers. “About the whole thing. Like I’ve been playing out an alternate reality in my mind, and all of a sudden it broke.”

Pain grips its claws in my chest. “You haven’t been foolish, Ives. Not the least.”

But she just nods. “The things we’ve done… I’d never done them before. And to realize they meant so little to you? I was part of a bet. Thrown in for good measure as a joke between two guys.”

“The things we did meant a lot to me.”

She runs fingers underneath her eyes, turning them heavenward. Her shoulders curve inwards. “Perhaps not nothing, then. But not the same as to me. The women I saw… have you slept with them?”

I won’t lie to her, not ever again. “A couple, yes.”

Her breath turns shaky. “Right. And you never promised me anything, either. I’m the one who was stupid enough to expect them anyway.”

“Please,” I tell her, “expect things from me. I want the chance to live up to them.”

She looks down at her feet, her throat swallowing. “We had fun, at least.”

“Being with you was never just about having fun. It was never something I took lightly. And it wasn’t planned by Ben.”

“He said he chose me because I’m your type.”

“He doesn’t know my fucking type. We see each other every now and then, and I once had a blonde girlfriend. He extrapolated. Incorrectly, too.”

“So what is your type?”

“You,” I say. “Just you.”

Her mouth curls into a self-deprecating smile. “He chose me because I annoyed you at a party in the Hamptons.”

“He’s an idiot.”

She closes her eyes, like she can’t face me. Like it’s easier to pull away.

I understand the impulse. For so long, I’ve thrown myself into what’s new and risky and easy, instead of what’s challenging. Running into new battles instead of staying and fighting the ones I’m in.

But not again.

“Ivy, do you know the real reason why I didn’t tell you about the bet right away? Why I couldn’t bring myself to it?” I take a deep breath, and then I tell her the truth, no bullshit. “Because it shamed me. It only took me a couple of days to realize you were nothing like what I’d described you as at that party. I made those remarks to shut the other men up, but I didn’t think twice about how they’d sound to you. And then you dove in after your friend… right away, no hesitation.”

Summer days spent in Paradise Shores flit through my mind, the days my brothers and I had been taught how to rescue people from the water. “And you were so honest, Ivy, in all of your reactions to the places we saw. So earnest and excited and you trusted me.”

She looks down at her hands, but I keep going. “Hey, I’m saying that as a good thing. I haven’t had people be that open with me, you might say, for longer than I can remember. There’s always a motive or an end goal.”

Ivy worries her lower lip, her eyes narrowed. “Perhaps you surround yourself with the wrong people.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to realize that too. And when I thought of how I’d behaved at that party, and the inane fucking bet with Ben… it looked small and petty in comparison to you, to your goodness and humor. I didn’t tell you because I was scared.”

Her eyes flash on mine. “You were scared? That’s the big reveal?”

“Yes.” I reach out to steady myself against the brick wall. “You told my sister that you didn’t think we were on the same page, regarding us. You and me. But Ivy, this feels like the most serious thing I’ve experienced. I don’t want to stop being around you. Not now, and not ever.”

She shakes her head, uncertainty sketched on her features. The features that had so often been open and honest and determined and curious.

“Rhys… I don’t know how to do this,” she says. “How to trust, how to be together with someone. I’ve never done any of it before. Even if I forgive you, how would we do it?”

“I’m not an expert, either,” I admit. But nothing has ever felt like being with her. No one has made me question everything I know and still made me feel more certain than ever before.

“What would we do, then?”

“We’ll make it up as we go along,” I suggest, crooking my smile the way I know she likes. “Isn’t that how life works? It’ll be an adventure, at least, traveling that road with you.”

Ivy takes another deep breath, stepping back toward the door. “I’ll need time, Rhys. I need to think.”

“Of course. Take as long as you want. But if you’re wondering something, please ask me. Let me explain it. I promise you’ll hear nothing but truth from me from here on out.”

“Okay,” she breathes.