Page 13 of My Sweetest Agony

She is on her break, so I guess I can’t give her too much shit, even though I want to—badly. Because being around Marlo helps. At least, temporarily. Her sharp tongue and good humor are about the only things that haven’t sent me into tears over the last several weeks. For a few brief seconds when I’m with her, I can almost forget how much has changed, how my life crumbled without explanation.

The way this soil is falling away from the roots as I clean them and get them ready for the new, bigger home that will hopefully help Gladys live happily for many years to come.

Marlo’s rocking stills, and all four legs of the chair drop with a thunk against the concrete floor. Her hazel eyes widen at something behind me, and her jaw slides open. “Hooooooly shit.”

“What?”

She glances at me, then back to whatever waits at the front of the greenhouse.

I quickly peek over my shoulder, expecting to find an unruly customer or someone trying to steal, but all the air rushes from my lungs.

My spine stiffens, my entire body seizing up completely.

Camden stands just inside the door of the greenhouse. Another black T-shirt pulls taut across his heavily muscled chest and biceps, showing off an intricate tattoo of one dark and one light snake entwined on his left arm that I never got a good look at last week. The same gray jeans hang perfectly from his trim hips as he saunters closer in black biker boots. Each step he takes echoes off the glass walls and ceiling, seeming to fill the space the same way his energy does. He swings his leather jacket over his shoulder and hooks it on his right thumb, making his bicep bulge as he approaches, his piercing gaze locked squarely on me.

“Jesus, Ivy…” Marlo gapes. “You told me he looked like Drew, but not that he looked like Drew if he went to prison instead of medical school.”

I whip my head toward her. “Oh, my God. Will you shut up?”

She smirks, never taking her eyes off him as he approaches—and looking like she wants to devour every inch of him. “No, I won’t. He’s fucking scary hot.”

“Marlo!” I hiss at her as quietly as I can. “Stop. It.”

Shrugging, she leans back in her chair again. “What? He is. What’s he doing here?”

Messing with my ability to think.

My brain spins wildly, the same way it did that night he appeared on my doorstep.

Why is he here?

That all-too-familiar vise tightens around my chest, and I try to breathe through it, clenching my gloved hands tightly at my sides and squeezing my eyes closed.

Remember the differences.

The hair.

The nose ring.

The earrings.

The tattoos.

The eyes.

Don’t think about how much he looks like him or how much you begged God to see Drew just one more time.

It never occurred to me what seeing Drew’s face—again—might actually do to me after asking for it every day through strangled sobs. I never imagined being granted that gift would become such a source of agony.

Which is what it has been for the past week.

Worrying that he’d show up on my doorstep again.

Thinking about calling Nancy to let her know he’s back.

Questioning why he’s in Philadelphia at all when he has no intention of letting his mother know about his return.

Picturing his face and those tortured eyes.