“How are you really feeling?” Ivy reached between the top and bottom rail and took Mattie’s hand. She squeezed it, very gently, hoping that her hand wasn’t shaking. He didn’t need to see how upset she really was.
Mattie tried to smile at her. “I don’t feel much of anything, now. Maybe just . . . oddly shaped.” He motioned to his head.
“Well, it looks like a giant potato.” Ivy smiled. “So if that’s the look you’re going for, then you’re golden.” She made the okay sign with her free hand.
Mattie laughed. “I’m glad you stayed.”
She smiled. “Yeah, me too. My parents always get super excited when I’m out of the house. If I stayed out all night and partied, they’d probably give me an award.”
“So I’m basically doing you a favor right now.”
The side of Ivy’s mouth pulled up. “Hey, yeah, I forgot to thank you for getting stalked and almost dying. You did me a real solid there.”
Mattie laughed again, and then winced.
“Hey. You okay?” Ivy’s brow furrowed.
He shrugged. “I’m not great. And I’m . . . I’m scared.”
Ivy nodded. “Want honesty?”
Mattie started to nod, then stopped. “Yeah.”
“I’m scared too. And I really, really don’t want to be alone right now. So thanks for staying here with me.”
Mattie motioned at his hospital bed. “Best choice I’ve made all week.”
Ivy smiled at him. Really smiled. And for the first time since she’d started spending time with Garrett, her heart felt warm.
She could see how pretty, popular, party boy Derrick had ended up with Mattie. He was really cute. He was shorter than her—that part sucked—but he was actually, well, kind of hot. His hair was cut into this stylish, shaggy ’do that accentuated his strong jawline. And he had stubble all over his cheeks for once, which was actually pretty attractive.
He’s not even straight, Ivy reminded herself. And he has a boyfriend. Sort of.
Mattie cleared his throat. She was pulled abruptly out of her reverie and realized Mattie was staring at her, too.
“You know,” Ivy said, “other than the whole Mr. Potato Head look you’re currently rocking, you’re really cute. And if Derrick doesn’t realize that, it’s his loss.”
“I always thought so too!” Mattie said.
Ivy laughed. She really liked Mattie. He was a good friend. He was kind. And maybe the concussion had rattled something loose in him, or maybe that was what getting stalked and nearly killed by a stranger did to a person, but he seemed . . . relaxed.
“Everything’s going to be okay, you know,” she whispered.
“I do?” Mattie tried to smile.
“Sure,” Ivy said. At least she wouldn’t be dragged into the police station again. It would be harder now, since her brother had brought her in without her parents’ knowledge and without a real reason or evidence. That was apparently a Big No-No in the police world, even when it was your little sister.
Especially when it was your little sister.
“You think Tyler’s going to narc on us?” Mattie asked.
Ivy shook her head. “No. He’s not like that. Kinley . . . if she hadn’t actually tripped the guy, I’d be worried about her. But no.” Ivy looked down at him. “Mattie, do you have any idea who was following you? Any guesses at all?”
He shook his head. “No.”
It was then that Ivy finally gave voice to what she’d been thinking all night. “It wasn’t . . . it wasn’t Mrs. Stratford, was it?”
Mattie shrugged. “It wasn’t her car. And if she’s driving that piece of junk, I don’t know where she’d get such a nice truck. It was really, really swank.”
“Oh.” Ivy sat back a little, her only theory deflated. Who else had reason to suspect them? Had someone else been there, watching?
“I’m scared to leave here,” Mattie confessed. He squeezed her hand tighter.
“Me too.”
He shifted. “And I’m afraid . . . I’m afraid we’re going to get caught, Ivy. With people following me, and Tyler’s parole officer saying he knows what happened . . .” Mattie shook his head. “Maybe we should come forward.”
“No.” Ivy shook her head. “No way. If we were going to confess, we should have done it the first night. It’s too late now. And maybe . . . maybe Tyler’s parole officer was just trying to get him to confess to something. Cops do that, you know.”
Her brother did that, at least.
Plus, if she confessed, she couldn’t bear to think of the way her parents would look at her after they had stood up for her before.
What her brother would do after the way she had embarrassed him.
“This isn’t going to turn out well,” Mattie whispered. “One of us is going to turn up dead, Ivy.”
Ivy drew her hands away and crossed them over her stomach. She rocked back and forth, a leftover nervous habit from when she was a little girl.
“What do you think we should do?”
Mattie paused. “What if . . . what if I just took the blame?”
“What?” Ivy’s heart did a funny flip. Like she cared. Really cared. “No, Mattie. No. Why would you do that? You did nothing. You were pulled into the classroom. Pulled.”
“I helped ditch the body, same as everyone else.” He shrugged a shoulder. “I could do it, easy. Besides, I’m the one being followed. Maybe, for whatever reason, whoever did it only suspects me. If I turn myself in, maybe it’ll all go away.”
Ivy stood up. “No, Mattie. I’m not going to let you do it. Out of all of us, you’re the only one who deserves better.”
“Maybe not,” Mattie said very quietly.
“If you confess, I will too.” Ivy stood up and put her hands on her hips.
“No way. I’ll say you weren’t involved.”
“I’ll say you weren’t involved.”
It was then that Ivy did something completely unexpected. She leaned over the railing and kissed Mattie.
She kissed him on the lips.
She kissed him harder than anyone was ever supposed to kiss people who had recently been admitted to the hospital.
And he kissed her back. He kissed her back a lot more passionately than someone in a relationship should have been kissing someone else.
And they most likely would have kept at it—if the door to the hospital room hadn’t swung open, and if Mattie’s aunt hadn’t walked in, tears streaming down her cheeks, her face as red as a ripe strawberry.
She stopped in the middle of the room and gasped, her pudgy hand over her heart.
Ivy jerked away from Mattie. “Sorry, Ms. Byrne,” she said, backing away. “Um, Mattie, I’ll . . . I’ll catch you later, okay? Uh . . . feel better.”
“You don’t have to leave,” Ms. Byrne said kindly, but she was already looking at her nephew. “I see you’re feeling much better, young man.”
Her cheeks burning, Ivy grabbed her handbag off of a chair and rushed out of the hospital room.
It was only when she walked out the emergency room exit to the nearly empty lot that she remembered she was scared to be alone.