HATE ME SLOWER

Chapter Two: The Aftermath

IVY

I don't remember leaving the table.

One moment Ryan is saying something that sounds dangerously close to a confession, and the next I'm standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city, my champagne glass empty, my heart doing something erratic and stupid that I refuse to examine too closely.

You have no idea what I actually think about you, Ivy.

What does that even mean? Is he mocking me? Is this some new, elaborate form of torment say something cryptic, watch her spiral, laugh about it later with Noah over whiskey?

"There you are." Olive slides up beside me, her sharp eyes doing a quick scan of my face like she's reading a receipt. "You left table seven looking like you'd seen a ghost. What did he say?"

"Nothing."

"Ivy."

"He said—" I stop, replaying it, feeling stupid all over again. "He said I have no idea what he actually thinks about me."

Olive goes very still. Too still. Her champagne glass pauses halfway to her lips.

"What?" I ask.

"Nothing." She takes a slow sip, eyes suddenly very interested in the city skyline. "That's just — interesting. That's all."

"Olive."

"What? I can't find things interesting now?"

I narrow my eyes at her. Olive Blackwood does not do subtlety, and right now she's doing an impression of someone trying very hard to be subtle, which is somehow worse.

"You know something," I accuse.

"I know a lot of things. I'm very well-informed."

"About Ryan."

"I decline to answer on the grounds that my brother would actually murder me." She loops her arm through mine, steering me away from the window before I can push further. "Come on. Noah's about to make a toast and if we're not there Ava will never forgive us."

RYAN

I watch her walk away from the table and immediately want to call myself every kind of fool.

You have no idea what I actually think about you, Ivy.

Eleven years of careful, deliberate silence, and I finally crack — at my best friend's engagement party, over rack of lamb, like an amateur.

"Smooth," Noah says, dropping into the seat Ivy vacated, way too pleased with himself. "Whatever you said to my sister, she left looking like she'd seen a UFO."

"I didn't say anything."

"You're a terrible liar. Always have been." He steals a piece of bread off my plate, unbothered. "You know, for a man who claims to feel absolutely nothing about my sister, you sure do watch her leave a room a lot."

"Drop it, Noah."

"I would, except—" He leans forward, voice dropping, all the teasing suddenly gone from it. "Ryan. It's been over a decade. At what point do you actually say something instead of just... simmering?"

I don't answer. I don't have an answer, not one that doesn't sound pathetic out loud.

The truth is uglier and simpler than Noah realizes: I don't get to want Ivy Monroe. She's his sister. She's soft and warm and everything good in a way that I am not, and if I ever let myself actually reach for her, I'm terrified of what I'd ruin in the process.

Better she hates me. Hate is clean. Hate doesn't break when you're not careful with it.

"She's leaving," Noah says, nodding toward the dance floor where Ivy and Olive are weaving through the crowd. "You should go dance with her."

"Absolutely not."

"Coward."

"Realist."

Noah studies me for a long moment, and something in his expression shifts — less teasing now, more searching, like he's trying to read something I'm working very hard to keep hidden.

"You really do love her," he says quietly. Not a question.

My silence answers for me.

"Ryan." Noah's voice is careful now, serious in a way I've rarely heard from him. "She's my little sister. If you're going to keep looking at her like that, you'd better figure out what you're going to do about it. Because I love you like a brother, but I will not watch you break her heart by doing absolutely nothing for another eleven years."

IVY

The toast is beautiful. Noah's voice cracks halfway through, talking about how Ava makes even the worst days feel survivable, and Ava is openly crying into a napkin, and the whole room is soft with secondhand joy.

I should be fully present for this. I should be crying happy tears for my brother like a normal person.

Instead, my eyes keep drifting to the bar, where Ryan stands alone, jaw tight, watching Noah and Ava with an expression I can't quite name. Something almost... wistful.

That can't be right. Ryan Blackwood doesn't do wistful. Ryan Blackwood does controlled and cold and clipped one-word answers.

But there it is again — that flicker. And this time, when his eyes find mine across the room, he doesn't look away first.

Neither do I.

"Okay," Olive murmurs beside me, watching the exchange with poorly disguised interest, "something is definitely happening here, and I need you to explain it to me right now."

"Nothing is happening."

"Ivy. You two just held eye contact across a room for four full seconds. I counted."

"Coincidence."

"Uh-huh." She doesn't believe me. I don't entirely believe myself either.

Across the room, Ryan sets down his glass, and for one terrifying second, it looks like he might actually walk toward us.

My heart does something violent and unfamiliar at the thought.

Then his phone buzzes. He glances at it, something dark passing over his face, and turns instead toward the exit — pausing only once to look back at me before disappearing through the ballroom doors.

"Huh," Olive says softly. "That's new."

I don't answer. I'm too busy trying to figure out why watching him leave feels worse than watching him stay ever did.

To be continued in Chapter Three...