Love You Better (Better Love 1)

“I think she’s finishing up. I offered to help, but you know how that goes.” Bailey flashes me a grin and then mimics Ivy’s voice when she says, “I’m good. But thanks!”

I chuckle. “Sounds about right.” Ivy only accepts help when it’s something she absolutely cannot do herself. “So, for real, what are these?” I point at the rows of cookies again, and Bailey smiles, her body vibrating with excitement.

“They’re double chocolate cherry cookies. I used a fudgey brownie recipe but tweaked it so it’s a brownie/cookie hybrid, and then added chopped maraschino cherries. I think they’re going to be very yum.”

“They smell very yum,” Ivy says as she appears around the corner, and I have to work to tame the look of appreciation that takes over my face.

Ivy is wearing tight yoga pants and one of my old soccer t-shirts with the bottom tied up on her hip. When she leans over the island to snatch a cookie, a sliver of her skin shows, and I look away.

“Hey, wait! How come she can take one, but I got attacked?”

“Because she loves me more.” Ivy giggles and takes a bite of her cookie. I turn my pout on her and she rolls her eyes. “Ugh, fine, you big baby. Here,” and she shoves the cookie in my mouth.

I turn to Bailey and flash her a gloating smile while chewing. She snarls at me in return.

She points the spatula at us. “You two are barf.”

“These cookies are not barf, though, B. They’re fucking amazing.”

“Really?” Of course, that turns her mood around. “They’re not too brownie-y?”

“No. They’re the perfect cookie/brownie hybrid,” I say through a mouthful. “They’d be killer if I was high.”

“It’s true!” Ivy sing-songs. “They’re delish! Chef’s kiss!” She kisses her fingers. “Can we have some for the road?”

Ivy turns wide, pleading eyes on Bailey, and I fold my hands in prayer beside her and do my best impersonation of that sad cat from that movie with the ogre.

“Pleeeeease?”

She rolls her eyes and blows out a puff of air.

“Yes, fine. Now go away before you eat them all.”

Ivy puts some cookies in a Tupperware container, then we say our goodbyes and head outside. When we reach the parking lot, she notices that it’s not my Jeep parked on the street, but my soccer buddy’s truck. She turns a wide smile on me, dimple out for all the world to see, and my heart leaps in triumph. Because I am a fucking moron. I toss her the keys, and she fumbles them, letting out a stupidly adorable squeak, and I stifle a laugh.

“You think I’m ready for the interstate?” she asks with a little dance.

“I do. You’ve mastered the streets of campus town. You can handle the one-hour drive back home.”

“Oh yikes,” she says, and raises her hands to the sky. “Please watch over me, Road Goddess, for I am an interstate virgin.” Then she kisses the keys and hops toward the driver’s seat like she isn’t the most fascinating person in the world.

The hour-drive back home is, well, eventful. When Ivy pulls the truck up to the curb in front of her house, she puts it in park and then turns to me with a sheepish look.

“Well, that wasn’t so bad?”

I chuckle. “Are you sure? Because you don’t sound sure.”

“I was doing really well until we got into town. I didn’t realize how much hillier it is here than it is on campus,” she protests. “I haven’t practiced hills yet.”

She’s frustrated because she thinks she failed by being unprepared. Ivy fucking hates being unprepared.

“Honestly, I think you crushed it, all things considered,” I say earnestly. She really did do a fine job. “You were thrown to the sharks and fucking swam, Ives.”

“Yeah? Tell that to the big jerk who honked at me.” She huffs and folds her arms over her chest. She’s probably cursing that stranger in her head.

“To be fair, you did stall at the stop light and start rolling backward toward his car.”

“Inches, Kelley! It was only a few inches, and I would have gotten it started and over the hill faster if he wouldn’t have been making me nervous with his honking. He really should learn some patience.”