HATE ME SLOWER

IVY I hate him. I don't mean the polite kind of hate the "oh he's a little annoying" hate people throw around when someone chews too loud or cuts them off in traffic. I mean the real thing. Bone-deep, decade-old, the kind that settles into your chest and just... stays. Ryan Blackwood has been a permanent fixture in my life since I was fifteen years old, glued to my brother's side like an expensive shadow, and in all that time, he has never once looked at me like I was worth the air I was breathing. Cold. Clipped. Barely a "hello, Ivy" before his eyes slide past me to whatever or whoever actually matters to him. So of course, of course, fate decides tonight is the night to sit me directly across from him. "You're kidding," I mutter, staring down at the little gold place card with my name curling in calligraphy. Ivy Monroe. Right next to it: Ryan Blackwood. "Table seven," Olive says cheerfully, appearing at my elbow with two flutes of champagne, handing me one before I can protest. "Isn't it perfect? Bestie and brother's bestie, together again." "Perfect is not the word I'd use." Olive grins that sharp, knowing grin that means she's about to say something she finds hilarious and I will not. "Come on, Ivy. You've survived worse. Remember the boat trip?" I shudder. I do remember the boat trip. Ryan spent four hours pretending I didn't exist while I nursed a sunburn and a growing desire to push him overboard. The ballroom is already filling string quartet in the corner, waiters gliding between marble pillars with trays of things I can't pronounce, my parents' business associates air-kissing each other under crystal chandeliers the size of small cars. Noah and Ava's engagement party. My brother, glowing, hand never leaving Ava's waist, looking at her like she personally hung the moon and then polished it for his benefit. It's sweet. It's genuinely, nauseatingly sweet. And it means Ryan Blackwood best man, best friend, permanent thorn in my side will be at this party until the very last champagne flute is drained. "There he is," Olive says under her breath, and I don't even need to follow her gaze to know. I feel him before I see him. That's the annoying thing about Ryan he doesn't walk into a room so much as claim it. Conversations dip a fraction when he passes. People straighten up like he's checking their posture. And when I finally do look up, there he is in a black suit that probably costs more than my apartment, dark hair pushed back like he ran his hand through it once and gave up, jaw set in that permanent almost-scowl he's worn since we were teenagers. His eyes find mine across the room. I expect the usual that flat, indifferent flicker before he looks away like I'm furniture. Instead, he holds my gaze. Just a beat too long. My stomach does something traitorous and stupid, and I hate it immediately. "Did you see that?" Olive whispers, delighted. "See what?" "Nothing," she says, far too innocently, and takes a long sip of her champagne. RYAN She's wearing blue. Of course she is. Of course tonight, of all nights, Ivy Monroe decided to wear a dress the exact color of a sky I've spent eleven years trying not to think about. I look away first. I always look away first. It's a rule I made for myself a long time ago and I intend to keep breaking it as little as humanly possible. "You're staring," Noah says beside me, adjusting his cufflinks, entirely too pleased with himself for a man who's about to be legally bound to another human being. "I'm not staring." "You were staring at my sister." "I was looking in her general direction. There's a difference." Noah huffs out a laugh that tells me exactly how much he believes that. "Careful, man. Ivy still thinks you hung the moon just to block her view of it." That's not an exaggeration. If Ivy Monroe had a shrine, it would be dedicated to everything she believes is wrong with me. Cold. Arrogant. Incapable of a real conversation that doesn't end in her rolling her eyes and walking away. She's not wrong, exactly. She just doesn't know why. Nobody does. "Table seven," Noah says, clapping a hand on my shoulder as we make our way toward the reception. "You're sitting with Ivy." I stop walking. "You did that on purpose." "I have literally no idea what you're talking about." He's grinning like an i***t. My best friend, ladies and gentlemen a man who thinks matchmaking his own sister with the person she despises most in the world counts as a wedding gift to himself. "Noah—" "Table seven," he says again, already walking away, already laughing. "Try not to make her cry before dessert." I exhale slowly, straighten my jacket, and walk toward the one person in this entire glittering room I have spent over a decade trying and failing not to want. IVY He sits down across from me like it's nothing. Like my pulse isn't doing something erratic and embarrassing just from the proximity of him pulling out his chair. "Ivy," he says. Flat. Clipped. Exactly as expected. "Ryan." I match his tone, maybe sharper. Two can play at cold. Silence. The kind that stretches, thick and uncomfortable, while waiters swirl around us with plates of something that smells expensive. "You look" he starts, then stops himself, jaw tightening like he physically bit the sentence in half. "I look what?" "Nothing." His eyes drop to the table. "Never mind." I stare at him. In eleven years, Ryan Blackwood has never once almost-complimented me and then swallowed it like it choked him. My chest does something complicated and unwanted. "That's new," I say, unable to help myself. "You, almost saying something nice." "Don't get used to it." "Trust me, I won't." I take a sip of champagne, mostly to have somewhere to put my hands. "Wouldn't want to disturb the natural order of things. You ignore me, I hate you, everyone's happy." Something flickers across his face too fast for me to name, gone before I can catch it. "Is that what you think this is?" he asks quietly. "That I ignore you?" "Isn't it?" He doesn't answer right away. The band starts a slow song. Somewhere across the ballroom, Noah spins Ava under the lights, and she's laughing so hard she nearly trips, and he catches her like it's the easiest thing in the world. Ryan watches them too, for a moment. Then his eyes come back to me, dark and unreadable in the low light. "You have no idea," he says, low enough that I almost don't catch it, "what I actually think about you, Ivy." My breath catches somewhere in my throat, and for the first time in eleven years, I don't have a single sharp thing to say back. To be continued in Chapter Two...