Marry Me By Midnight

Chapter 6: Two Lines

Ivy sat on the edge of the tub for what felt like an hour but was, according to the timer on her phone, ninety seconds. Ninety seconds had never lasted so long in her life.

When she finally looked, she already knew. Some part of her had known since the second morning she’d woken up nauseous and blamed it on hotel coffee. Two lines, clear and undeniable, sat in the little plastic window like they’d been waiting for her to catch up.

She didn’t cry. She’d expected to cry. Instead she felt strangely, terrifyingly calm — the same calm she used to talk down a bride having a panic attack twenty minutes before walking down the aisle, except this time there was no bride to talk down. Just her, and a bathroom counter, and a fact that wasn’t going to un-become true no matter how long she sat with it.

She was still sitting there, test in hand, blazer discarded somewhere on the bedroom floor, when the knock came.

Three knocks, familiar in a way she hated. She knew his knock by now. She’d know it anywhere.

“Ivy?” Grant’s voice, muffled through the door, careful. “I know it’s late. Sophie mentioned you left the dinner early and looked off — I wanted to check you’re okay before I let myself sleep on it.”

For a moment she considered not answering. Pretending to already be asleep. Buying one more night of not having to say the thing out loud to the one person who needed to hear it most.

But she was so tired of buying time.

She opened the door still holding the test, hadn’t thought to hide it, hadn’t thought about much of anything except the fact that she couldn’t keep standing in this hallway of a life pretending everything was fine when it so plainly, undeniably wasn’t.

Grant’s eyes went to her face first, the way they always did, and then down — to her hand, to the small plastic stick she was holding like she’d forgotten it was there.

She watched him read it. Watched the exact moment understanding landed, his whole body going still in the doorway, every trace of the polished, careful corporate risk consultant draining out of his face until there was nothing left but a man looking at something he hadn’t let himself hope for or dread, not really, not out loud.

“Ivy.” Her name came out rough, barely a whisper. “Is that—”

“Yes.” She didn’t make him ask the rest of it. “It’s positive. I found out four minutes ago. You’re the first person I’ve told, not counting Sophie, who’s known for about six hours and has been dying to be the one to tell you herself.”

He didn’t move for a long moment. Then he stepped into the room, slow, like he was afraid of startling something, and gently took the test from her fingers — not to look at it again, just to have somewhere to put his hands that wasn’t reaching for her, not yet, not until he knew if that was allowed.

“Six months,” he said quietly. “I’ve spent six months telling myself Vegas was one perfect, contained thing. One night that didn’t have to mean anything else.”

“I know. Me too.”

“I don’t think I believed it, even then.” He finally looked up from the test, and whatever she’d braced herself to see in his face — panic, retreat, the careful distance he’d been rebuilding since the hallway outside the fitting room — wasn’t there. What was there instead looked almost like relief, fierce and unguarded, the same thing she’d seen flicker across his face during the toast before he’d caught himself. “I don’t want it to be contained anymore.”

“Grant, your brother gets married in five days. Whatever this is — we can’t make it about us, not this week. Sophie needs everyone’s attention on her, not on the best man and the wedding planner having a crisis in a hotel hallway.”

“I’m not asking to make it a scene.” He set the test carefully on the dresser, like it deserved gentleness, and took a step closer, close enough that she could see he was as unsteady as she felt, just better at hiding it under six years of practiced composure. “I’m asking if I get to be here. Not performing distance for an audience. Not pretending I don’t think about you every time you walk into a room. Just — here, with you, while we figure out what happens next.”

Ivy felt something in her chest give way, some wall she’d been holding up all week finally too tired to keep standing.

“Five days,” she said. “Get Michael married. Get Sophie down the aisle without anyone finding out what’s happening between us before her wedding is even over. And then—”

“And then we figure it out. Together.” He reached for her hand, tentative, giving her every chance to pull away, and when she didn’t, his fingers closed around hers like something settling finally into place. “I’m not going anywhere, Ivy. Not this time.”

She let herself lean into him, just for a moment, forehead against his shoulder the way she’d wanted to since the rehearsal dinner and told herself she couldn’t afford. Five days. She could hold this together for five more days.

She just wasn’t sure anymore whether she wanted to.