He nods his chin at the place beneath my breast to the side, and I blush.
“No.”
He arches a single brow, and suddenly I’m caving.
“Yes,” I grumble out. “Yes, I still have it.”
His lips pull into a white grin. “Me too.”
He reaches down and snags the hem of his t-shirt, lifting it over that chiseled body. Sure enough, it’s right there, in the same place it was drawn nine years before at the place in Cambridge that only glanced at my ID.
It was my first that night, his fourth or fifth. He’s added more since that night, it appears - much more, in swirls and images and lines of text across his skin. But it’s still there. The tiny outline of a key, with plenty of space around it from the other, newer tattoos.
I shake my head. “We were young, and stupid.”
He grins. “Young, yeah.” Silas shakes his head as he drops his shirt back down. “Not stupid, though.”
“What are you doing here, Silas?”
The question comes tumbling out yet again. Because past all this banter, past this little sugar-coated jaunt down memory lane, it’s the only question that matters right now.
He shrugs again - that same effortless easy and easing motion that hasn’t changed at all as he’s gotten older.
“Told you, Rowan invited me to see your dad’s-”
“Yeah, that’s actually another thing,” I say coolly. “ You and Rowan all buddy-buddy.”
“The guy’s my best friend, Ivy, despite what happened.”
“Well he’s my brother, Silas. Even after what happened.”
I hold his gaze another second before the words come tumbling out.
“He doesn’t know, does he.”
Silas frowns.
I shake my head, raking my fingers through my hair. “No, he doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t. I’d have heard about it.”
“Doesn’t know about what?”
“About us.”
Silas raises a brow but I shake my head. “No, not about us being together, I mean…” I take a big gulp of air before looking up into his eyes, my own narrowed. “Your best friend doesn’t know you fucking married his little sister before you ran out on her does he.”
His mouth goes tight, and I bark out a small laugh. “Yeah, he doesn’t know about this, does he?”
I suddenly reach into my loose beach shirt and yank out the thin silver chain, with the pendant that was once my wedding ring hanging from the end.
Silas stares at it, his mouth hanging open.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” I mutter. I’m the idiot who kept it.”
“Ivy-”
“Stupid, I know.” My gaze darts from his bare finger to his eyes. “I’m sure yours is long fucking gone.”
Slowly, Silas shakes his head, his eyes never leaving mine as he swallows. “Eight years later and you still don’t know me, huh?”
Before I can say anything, he suddenly reaches down, grabs his shirt, and whips it off his body.
“There.”
And suddenly he’s right in front of me, the manly smell of him invading my senses, and his bare, chiseled and inked body right in front of my eyes. And right there, laying against his chest on a small silver chain…
The silver ring.
The one I slipped onto his finger eight years ago in the back rectory of the church in Stoborough.
He kept it. It’s not tossed into the ocean, or flushed down a toilet, or hocked, or whatever I imagined he did with it after he left. It’s right there, laying across his heart on a chain that practically matches mine.
“It’s not long fucking gone, Ivy,” he growls, so close to me, his words a warm tease across my upturned lips.
“It’s been right here,” he growls, tapping his chest as his eyes pierce right into mine. “For eight. Fucking. Long. Years.”
I nod, my eyes dropping again to the little silver band dangling from his neck.
“Did it hurt?” I say quietly. “All those years?”
He nods, his jaw fighting. “Yeah, it fucking hurt, Ivy.”
I take a deep breath as I look him full in the face.
“Good.”
Somehow, I manage to pull myself out of the gravity of him, taking a step back from the proximity of him.
“Now multiply that by a hundred, and you can get a taste for what I went through not even knowing if you were alive or dead.”
He shakes his head. “Ivy, hang on.”
But I don’t hang on. I don’t “wait” - not anymore.