Chapter 1
Hello, my hearts. I’m going to try something new. I hope you’ll enjoy this leap of faith I’m taking.
As quickly as I finish them, I’ll be posting chapters of my new novel. I’m calling it When Ivy Met Adam: A second chance, forced proximity, sexy, queer love-triangle romance. Your feedback is everything. Please post comments here or email me.
My goal is to post new chapters every Tuesday and Friday. I’ll be so excited to hear what you think.
In case you missed it, read the Prologue here.
Chapter 1 - Ivy
four years later
“Ali, where are my black heels?” I’ve been digging through the obscene pile of shoeboxes in our shared closet for at least ten minutes. These are all Ali’s. I’m barely exaggerating when I say I have one pair of sandals, one pair of sneakers, and one pair of heels. Ali has at least thirty pairs of each. Well, not heels. I’ve never seen her in heels. Can’t even picture it. I giggle to myself at the thought of my five-foot eleven-inch goddess in any kind of high-heeled shoe. She already towers over me as it is.
“These black heels?” She’s holding them like they’re snakes—far from her body, like they’re poisonous or something.
“Yes! Where were they?” I take them and kiss her firmly on her perfect, beautiful mouth.
*
Every kiss with this woman is like our first kiss. Our first kiss was magical—after our final dorm meeting wrapped up at nearly ten at night at the end of a very long move-in day, Ali and I headed to our respective rooms. Our assigned spaces were directly across the hall from each other. Luck of the Irish, indeed.
“It was nice to meet your folks,” she said. My parents were mortifying. All “who’s your friend?” and “Oh, Alejandra, what is your major?” and shit. It was awful.
“Yeah, yours too.” Which was actually true. Dr. Narvaez-Hinojosa and Mickey (he refused to let me call him Mr. Lopez) were gorgeous, young, well-dressed, funny. They were all “we’ll get out of your hair” and “so glad you two found each other” when they handed Ali some money and told her to take me someplace nice for dinner soon. What I wouldn’t have done to have cool parents like hers.
There were girls walking back and forth to their rooms, each other’s rooms, laughing and talking. I was leaning against the door to my room, she was leaning against the door to hers. “Want to come in?” she asked.
“Just for a second?” I asked back. I followed her into the room.
She closed the door behind us, then she leaned on the interior of it—a sexy mirror of the innocent girl on the outside of the door just seconds ago. “It was nice to meet you, Ivy,” she said as she stepped up to me, towering over me, in fact. She reached out and tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear. Her touch sent all the pent up shivers from the day down my spine at once. Instinctively, I leaned into her hand. She was so close now I could smell her minty gum mixing with her invigorating fresh scent of lime and ozone and woods. Her wide, beautiful mouth was just a breath away from my lips and I wanted to kiss her so desperately. What was she waiting for? Why wasn’t she kissing me?
“Nice to meet you, too, Al—” apparently that’s what she was waiting for because she moved her hand from my ear to the back of my neck and pulled me firmly into her kiss. My lips parted and her delicious mint-gum tongue dipped into my mouth. Warm honey waves washed over me and pooled between my legs. I slid my hands around her slim hips and held her body, her perfect athletic hot body, as close to mine as I could. And then she just as suddenly broke away from me. I blinked rapidly—what?
She opened the door to her room and said, as though we’d be discussing our class schedules and not playing tonsil hockey, “Good night, Ivy.” Cool as moose.
Still blinking, I stumbled to the door. Just as I passed her, she whispered in my ear, “Catch you tomorrow.”
Uh, no. You caught me today. Hook, line, sinker. Reel. The whole boat. Caught.
*
“Thanks, babe,” I say after the all too brief kiss.
“Your shoes were by your purse and jacket. Almost as though at an earlier point in the day you had some kind of plan.” She raises a single, skeptical eyebrow.
“Ha! You’re right. I was trying to be organized.” I pull on my heels and look over to see her restacking shoe boxes in the closet. “Oof. Sorry, hon. I didn’t mean to upset your precious babies.”
“No need to apologize. I’m just setting everyone to rights.” I was being sarcastic, but she is dead serious. Every pair has a story, a purpose, and a name. I’d be embarrassed for my girlfriend if I didn’t think she was adorable.
“I don’t think we have time for you to re-alphabetize them, Al,” I tease her. “My parents will be here any minute.”
Ali is dressed and ready, looking hotter than fire in her black suit with a black shirt and black boots. My parents are going to love this look on her. I preemptively roll my eyes at my so-supportive-they-come-off-as-homophobic parents’ reaction to Ali in a “man’s” suit. Sigh.
“What are you sighing about?” she asks, getting up from her shoe sorting position on the floor.
“Not a thing,” I lie. “Just breathing.”
“They will be fine,” she says. She always sees right through me. “And then they will be gone. Back to Colorado on the first flight tomorrow.” She leans down to kiss me lightly on my lips. Like every kiss in the last four years, it leaves me wanting more. I lean into her and up on my tiptoes, trying to get that little bit of more. And then there’s a knock at the door.
“Coming, mom,” I shout over my shoulder, then go back to kissing my woman. The door opens. I whip around lightning fast to see my parents, dressed like they’re going to meet the Pope—not dinner at South Bend’s most popular Parents Weekend steakhouse. “What the–” I stop myself.
“You said ‘Come in, Mom’,” my mother says. “So I did.” She looks innocent, but I have a feeling she is not. I cannot pin a crime on her (yet), but the night is young. My father looks mortified. They obviously saw us kissing when they barged in.
“Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, hello.” Ali is all poise and grace as she walks over to shake hands with my father and hug my mother. God, I really won the girlfriend lottery with this one. “How was your flight?”
“Easy,” my father says with a smile and his County Cork accent. “As always. Are you girls ready for some dinner? Your mother is starting to get hangry, Ivy.” This is his routine. When he’s hungry or thirsty—or in need of a drink (those are two different things, of course)—he blames my mother. It’s more adorable than misogynistic, I promise. Just years of being together, I think.
“Look at them, love, they’re more than ready. Alejandra, this suit is stunning on you. Absolutely gorgeous. Michael, I think Alejandra looks better in a suit even than you do. Don’t you think?”
My father lifts an unironic eyebrow.
“We’re ready, Daddy.” I hug him and soak up as much of his strong arms around me as I can. He’s my favorite person in the world and I can never get enough of his company. He smells like whiskey and green fields—which is hilarious because I know he hasn’t had a drink (yet) nor has he been anywhere near an open space. My father has many rules, the most important of which is that no liquor will pass his lips before five o’clock in the evening. It’s more endearing than alcoholic, I promise. “Let me grab my purse and jacket.”
“You might want to run a brush through your hair and check your lipstick, too, dear,” my mother says to my retreating back. Of course.
My parents are here to take us to dinner to celebrate my winning an award from my department. They’re only acting like it’s a big deal because my father won it when he went here. He came to America on his own at fifteen years old and pulled together enough money to attend the University by the time he was eighteen. He met my mother here—she’s old money from a Boston Irish Catholic (don’t say mob) family. They were married at the Basilica with nearly three hundred guests at their seated-dinner reception at the Morris Inn. So, to them, this award is a big deal. But honestly, I could not care less.
Dinner, though? That, I’m excited about. A meal with my parents is all about cocktails and starters, mains with good wine, dessert with Irish coffee. The four of us will be in much better spirits after all that.
