I kept my eyes on my hands, which were busy. “Because it obviously didn’t mean anything, Ivy. Why make a fuss?”

“Because you were hurt. I wouldn’t have ever kissed him again if I’d known—you know I was about as serious about him as he was about me, which is to say not at all. I don’t even think I considered him when he wasn’t in the room. I didn’t even know you had a crush on him, and if I’d known I wouldn’t have ever fooled around with him again. Either I’m the most dense woman on the planet, or you’re better at keeping secrets than Batman.”

I laughed. “Trust me—it was my doing. I didn’t want you to know, Ivy. I didn’t even want to like him, never mind admit it out loud.”

“I could never keep something like that to myself,” she continued, disregarding what I’d said beyond a warming of her eyes. “I think I’d combust from the pressure. And especially if I’d just been through what you’d been through.”

My mom.

Silence stretched between us as we both went back to that time. I’d always been reserved with things that caused me pain, preferring to shoulder the burden on my own. That way, I was in control. Telling someone else … well, that was harder. To open up and expose my softest places, my deepest bruises also left me open to getting hurt.

Like that night with Luke. When he’d somehow coaxed the truth out of me—the loss, the depth of my pain, the crushing weight of responsibility. When I lost myself in his arms, cried until the well dried. When I looked up at him and was cursed with the kiss of my lifetime, heavy and deep with emotion.

When he’d told me he was mine and asked me to be his.

And forgotten he’d ever uttered the words.

This was my most guarded secret, the one I’d never spoken to a soul. The humiliation was just too much to bear. And like I’d told Ivy—that night was the blasting of the iron curtain. The boy I had seen post-kiss was not the same one I’d thought I knew pre-kiss.

Ivy broke the silence, snipping off another hydrangea. “Really, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t tell anybody. Why would I?”

“I don’t know. To get it off your chest?”

“I’d rather everyone not know exactly how I feel all the time.”

“And I say exactly what I feel, when I feel it,” she said. “It’s how I form bonds. I hate being alone.”

“I love it.”

“Think Luke will leave you alone?” Ivy asked with a brow up.

“I’m not that lucky.” I looked around the shop, feeling the sharp edges of change in every corner. “It’s been you and me for so long. Having anyone in our space, interrupting our routine, will be hard. When that someone is Luke Bennet, we should just prepare for anarchy.”

She chuckled. “Oh, he’s not so bad.”