I Wish

Chapter 39

The dress she’d left out was princess like, and pretty. Short solid fabric in a dark wine colour formed the main base of the dress, with a strapless sweetheart neckline and a skirt that flared out at the hips. Going straight over the top of that is a soft grey gauzy and flowery lace that would cover my back and shoulders before adding another layer to the dress. When the light hit it a rainbow of other colours sparked off the sheer fabric. It tickled, like the bubbles in a vodka cruiser, sparking everywhere it connected with skin. The shoes looked like matching ballet flats, with ribbons winding up my legs like actual ballerina slippers and dotted with sparkles. They had the weirdest bottoms, it was like they had used the same material on the soles as they had on the rest. Literally, I had seen retread tires less bald than these things. What was even the point of them? Was this just what passed as a dumb thing to make someone feel pretty?  I couldn’t help it, as pretty as they were, it felt like a waste. Still, what was the point of shoes that didn’t work? I also had other concerns. Mostly with the fact that there was no bra with it, and I wasn’t sure how comfortable I was with that, but it suddenly didn’t seem so bad when I realised that Ivy had left her underwear out for me. She stood in the corner running a brush through her tangled hair. The tangles I created, I thought satisfied by that in ways I couldn’t possibly imagine. She was biting her lower lip, trying very hard to appear smug instead of hopeful. Once again, I knew it was a dumb idea, I wasn’t that stupid. I was just dumb enough to do it anyway, because I really wanted to. Even before I’d looked at her facial expression, and the overwhelming desire to validate that hope kicked in.

“Here,” she said, stepping into my space before I could do much more than put on her panties. Goosebumps rose on my skin. There was something about her standing there fully clothed while I wasn’t that did something to me, regardless of the fact that I’d just… ahem, well. I sighed internally, I could beat around the bush all I liked, the shakiness of my legs wasn’t going to let me forget any time soon. Even if it wasn’t seared into my brain. “Put some of this on,” She requested, but if it was optional my brain wasn’t picking up on that as she walked towards me with something in her hands.

“What is it?” I asked dazedly, attempting to focus on the fancy golden decorated class container she was holding but the long fingers holding it shielded most of the details. It looked like the most expensive version you’ve ever seen of the air tight jars with the metal clasps on them, the kind that mum used to keep lollies in when I was a kid. I’m fairly sure this one was decorated with actual gold and I was fairly sure that those weren’t groupings of cubic zirconia. Ivy struck me as the kind of queen that demanded diamonds on her swag.

“Decoration,” Ivy said with a bright smile, whisking the lid off. This would have been the time to ask questions, but from the bell-like sound of the lid leaving the container, to my very first impression it made on me, I was distracted. The first thing that popped into my head was the smell. Wet dust after rain, sunshine, and something like campfire smoke but sweet. Inside rested iridescent glitter, that shone a rainbow of different colours depending on the angle that the light hit it. The kind of thing that matched the top layer of my dress perfectly. “Let me,” she offered, a brush appearing in her hand somehow while I hadn’t been paying attention. She dipped it in the powder and ran it up my cheek bones, over my eyelids, and over my chest as body glitter. It shimmered metallically and shined like jewels, and left behind a static tingling feeling. The tiny little strokes of the brush that made me flush. “That’s adorable, you do realise we’ve already had s*x?” she asked me, and I froze.

“Nope, that doesn't count,” I told her resolutely. My heart clenched as I rejected the possibility, because that wasn’t possible. It just wasn’t possible. Her eyes widened, and I commanded myself not to be as sappy as to fall into them instead of listening to whatever probably important thing was going to come out of her mouth in response to that.

“Yeah… Little one, it kind of does,” she said suddenly looking like she was hedging. I stalked over to the bed and started roughly pulling on my clothes.

“No. That was making out with one of us, only one of us, slightly less dressed than usual,” I replied immediately. I did not cave that easy, and I certainly wasn’t dumb enough to have s*x with her without realising. 

“I hate to tell you this but if you orgasm it’s s*x,” Ivy informed me gently, booping me on the nose. Great, now we’re back at being angry. I wasn’t even angry at Ivy, which was the dumbest thing. No, I was mad at myself. Again. For a minute I debate about blasting her anyway, then decide that I knew what I was doing was stupid. I told her so myself. As far as I was concerned that meant I didn’t have the right to get pissy about it. I huffed in frustration, just because I accepted the truth doesn’t mean that I had to like it.

“It still doesn’t count,” I argued somewhat pettily. Yes, I’m aware it counts. I know that, but I made threats damn it. Threat’s that I have now completely welshed on, and I had hoped that they might have worked… eventually… okay, so it was so I could say I was still trying. A girl had to have something.

“It totally counts,” she said with a grin, and I shook my head. Nuh-ugh, I wasn't that easy. Nope. I refuse to accept it. I had to at least put a fight up about this part.

“I said I wasn’t putting out, and just because nobody told me where the line on that was doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t have followed through if I’d known,” I huffed, attempting to do something with my hair.

“It still happened,” she pointed out, and by this part of the conversation she was looking so pleased with herself that it was not helping in the pissing me off department, and it was ruining a perfectly nice afterglow. 

“Yes it did, and if you want it to happen again it doesn’t count,” I said, placing my hands on my hips and staring up at her. Her grin widened for a split second, like she was actively trying to avoid it, before she turned and started to put on a lilac dress that was almost worth covering up the flashes of skin that Ivy was casually revealing without a care that I was most definitely watching her. “You seem way too happy with yourself,” I said suspiciously as I watched her, “Out with it. What did you do?”

“I don’t want to answer that question,” Ivy answered immediately, leaning down to put her shoes on. Well that didn’t sound good, you know, at all.

“Oh god, what did you do?” I repeated with a groan. It was both comforting and terrifying that she laughed at that. The things she thinks are funny are usually the most traumatizing. Why did I ask? Oh s**t, what if she answers and it wasn’t good. 

“It’s not what I did, it’s how I feel about what you did,” she answered choosing her words carefully, “I’m not sure if it’s a human thing or not though, and if it’s not you usually get angry.” I opened my mouth to shut that down, and then closed it rather quickly when I realised that I couldn’t do it honestly. Although I won’t lie, my first instinct was to get angry.

“Yeah, okay. So that’s fair, I hadn’t realised how that looked. You know, from the outside,” I admitted, and swallowed as I did so, because hindsight didn’t paint a pretty picture. No matter how understandable it was. “Free pass,” I told her suddenly, “My feelings are valid, yours are too. I will attempt to get over myself.” Nodding along as I do so. I wasn’t sure how long that was going to last, and I didn’t have high hopes, but I was gonna try.

“It really doesn’t matter who you’ve had s*x with in the past, they clearly haven’t gotten you there. I don’t even think you’ve managed to get yourself there. Which means I got the first one,” she said, unable to meet my eyes, fidgeting with her dress, and blushing redder than I had been while checking her out getting changed. “Nobody else has seen you like that, nobody else has ever been privileged enough to help you like that, and you couldn’t do it yourself. You need me, for this one tiny thing at least… and if you need me I’ve got a shot.” It wasn’t a human thing, and I was fighting a lot of anger. Thanking god that Ivy was a girl, because if that was coming out of the mouth of a man I would scream misogyny so fast that their head would spin. It still felt like a speech out of some medieval mans time capsule, but I’d given her a pass and thought about what it might feel like to know that about her… and now I really couldn’t yell at her, because the idea of her needing me for something, that I actually knew how to give, sounded pretty f*****g amazing.

“You know, even with the mystic bond, I still can’t figure out why you’re so one hundred and twenty percent behind this,” I said with a small smile of my own. It was baffling, and curious, but also kind of wonderful. Her eyes snapped straight to mine, and I began to feel dizzy as she stared. Like the world around us was melting.

“DO you know how stubborn you are when you set your mind to something,” she asked, in awed disbelief, leaning forward and whispering, “One day… one day you’re going to pick me. You’re going to pick me, and we are going to be so happy it’s ridiculous.” It sounded nice, I’d give her that. Unfortunately she was calling certainty on fifty-fifty odds. There was also a chance that it could go the other way.

“We could always end up making each other miserable,” I threw out, because it at least needed to be something that was acknowledged out loud, and I felt like such a s**t for doing it. I was literally poking the bear, just to see if she’d bite.

“Yeah we could, but that’s only how it goes if we screw it up. I don’t see either one of us letting something screw this up,” she laughed, and grabbed my arm, “Now come on. We’re going to be late.” 

She was full of s**t about that, because as queen nothing started until she’d arrived. Not in this court.