In the hallway, the nurses greeted her. She waved back. They did what she couldn't do full-time. They remembered her mother's pills, her meals, her safety. Ivy provided cookies and sweaters.
Outside, the crisp autumn air kissed her cheeks. She hugged herself and thought about the boxes of expensive wine bottles still stacked in her apartment thanks to Winn Kane. God, what the hell was she going to do with them?
She imagined showing up at Steve's with a bottle of Dom Pérignon. She shook her head, she would save that for when he got the job.
She hailed a cab, the driver giving her a brief glance. "Where to, miss?"
"Long Island. I'll give you the address," she murmured, sliding into the backseat. The city blurred past as she tapped her phone screen, searching for Steve's name. Her thumb hovered before pressing dial.
He deserved a heads-up—boyfriends tended to appreciate knowing when their girlfriend dropped by unannounced.
There was no answer. Ivy frowned and tried again, pressing the phone tight to her ear as if sheer willpower would drag Steve to the screen. The call went to voicemail. She sighed, hung up, and dialed once more, biting her lip this time. Still nothing.
Maybe he was glued to his controller again, headset on, shouting with his friends over the sounds of Call of Duty. Typical Steve—when she visited, half the time she had to pry him away from his beloved PlayStation.
Some minutes later, the cab rolled to a stop in front of his apartment building—a brick structure with iron-railed balconies and potted plants drooping from windowsills. Ivy paid the driver, and climbed the narrow stairwell.
She rapped lightly on Steve's door. Silence. Her brows knit together. With a small sigh, she fished out the spare key from her bag—a key Steve had given her months ago. She had never once used it. She slid it into the lock and turned.
The apartment greeted her with stillness. No music, no TV. Just the hum of the fridge. She set her bag down on the coffee table. "Steve?" she called softly, already heading to the kitchen.
A sound cut through the silence, low at first, almost a groan. She frowned, setting the glass down. It was coming from the hallway. From his bedroom.
She pivoted toward the noise. And then she heard it again—louder this time. A woman's moan.
Ivy stopped dead. For a second, she thought she was imagining it, that maybe the TV was on. But no—there was no mistaking Steve's voice. His low, rough growl of approval.
Her stomach churned. The closer she crept, the clearer it became. Steve wasn't alone. He wasn't with his controller, or his headset, or his friends. He was with someone else.
A someone who clearly wanted the entire damn building to know just how good he was fucking her.
Ivy's breath caught in her throat, her palm pressing flat against the wall to steady herself. Heat burned behind her eyes, but she bit it back.
Her vision clouded until the edges of the world blurred. She wasn't even sure if she was breathing. Her brain shut down completely, every rational thought slipping away. The door to Steve's bedroom was slightly ajar, crooked on its hinges the way it always was.
Through the narrow slit, the scene seared itself into her mind: her boyfriend of two years, Steve—the man who kissed her last night like she was the only thing that mattered, who whispered promises about forever—was bent over another woman, driving into her from behind.
Her knees wobbled. She staggered two steps back, the soft carpet muffling her retreat, and forced herself toward the kitchen. Her hands shook as she gripped a bottle of water.
She quickly unscrewed the cap and took a long swallow, the cold liquid scalding her throat instead of soothing it. Her eyes drifted toward her bag on the coffee table in the living room. She could just grab it, walk out, and leave. Pretend she hadn't seen, hadn't heard.
What reason could he possibly give her? What excuse would ever be enough? She thought of her own double life—the way she danced for strangers and let their eyes feast on her body. She told herself she did it for survival, for money, for her mother's care.
She had a justification ready, a moral shield to protect her from the shame. But Steve? He had no excuse. No one forced him to bury himself inside another woman while Ivy still believed she was his only. Did this make them even?
Or did it only mean their love had been rotting quietly, waiting for this exact moment to split open and bleed?
Her thoughts spun in a vicious cyclone, so many questions twirling and colliding in her head until she could barely breathe. Her heart screamed for confrontation, for an answer, for Steve's face when he realized she knew.
Her pride urged her to storm out and never look back. But her body betrayed her; instead of leaving, she sank into the sofa, the worn cushions swallowing her whole.
The moans from the bedroom drifted out to her, each one stabbing her gut. The sound of flesh slapping against flesh filled the apartment, obscene and violent in its intimacy. Tears stung her eyes. She swallowed them back hard.
She sat there for a whole twenty minutes, clutching her bag on her lap. Her ears had grown numb to the moans from the bedroom; now they were only a cruel background track to the pounding of her heart.
When the creak of footsteps echoed down the short hallway, she straightened, every muscle braced for impact. Steve appeared, his hair damp with sweat, his shirt hastily tugged on but inside out.
The sight of him—so casual, so familiar yet entirely foreign now—made bile sting her throat. His eyes landed on her, and for one glorious moment, he froze.
"Hi, Ivy." He stuffed his hands into his pockets.