Your Ivy Grows

Chapter 33

After two minutes of frantically searching for his keys, he's about ready to leave without them when there's a knock at the door. He lets out a loud sigh as he tries to decide whether he should ignore it and hope whoever it is leaves. It's most likely Mrs Wiseman from across the hall again and he doesn't have time to deal with her attempts at neighbourly conversation. There's always the risk she'll catch him as he leaves though.

Throwing open the door, he's planning out what he can say to get rid of the harmless old woman when he stops dead in his tracks. She's here—Alexis. What the fuck? Did he somehow magic her here through thought alone? Or has he discovered a new super power he didn't realise he possessed? Both seem more likely than her willingly coming to see him.

After days of wanting nothing more than to see her, it feels like he might be hallucinating her here on his doorstep. She's as stunning as ever, but this is the first time he's got to see her dressed down in nothing but jeans and a sweater. Her cheeks are rosy, the very tip of her nose has reddened thanks to the biting cold. His eyes fall to her pouty mouth, noting her bottom lip looks ever so slightly swollen. It's obvious she's been anxiously chewing on it on the walk over here.

It dawns on him that he's staring at her, saying absolutely nothing. He's fucking dancing on the inside, but his face has remained a blank mask. Great¸ he's already fucking this up. Unsure what to say, he opens the door as wide as he can and she puts him out of his misery by walking inside. His heart is a thumping mess as he stands watching her, slightly terrified to find out why she's here.

She hesitates in the middle of the room, making no attempt to sit down. That tells him she hopes to get this over with quickly and then leave. Fuck that! He closes the door, leaning back against it as he watches her. Before he opens his mouth and makes a bigger mess of this, he needs to find out why she's come. The last time she showed up at his door, it was to tell him that sleeping with him was a mistake she didn't plan to repeat. He's not sure he can handle her calling him a mistake again. Not right now.

"I mind."

She finally breaks the silence with those two words. Two words that may as well have been in a foreign language for all the sense they make to him. It's like she answered a question, but he's certain he didn't ask one. He's been staring mutely at her since she got here.

"You asked me if I'd mind if you fuck other people. Well I would, I'd mind, okay?"

"Okay." He draws the word out, his brows pinching together as he casts his mind back to that night and everything he said to her.

"And just so we're clear here—I don't go to bed with John on any night. Sorry to destroy that image you've built up of me that has you believing I'd be sleeping with you and him at the same time."

The part of him that was dancing for joy at the sight of her at his door—It's doing a whole song and dance number at that revelation. But there's the bigger part of him that just feels like an absolute fucking asshole for ever saying that shit to her. He pushes off from the door, needing to apologise for that and everything else he's done that she didn't deserve. But she holds her hand up to stop him. She's clearly here to say her piece, and he needs to let her. But if she thinks he's going to let her walk out that door after she does, she's wrong.

"I just think if we're going to continue this—whatever the fuck this is—then neither of us should sleep with other people."

"I thought this was nothing, Alexis." Bucky pushes off from the door and this time she doesn't stop him. If he was smart, he'd shut the fuck up. He wouldn't push her on this, but he can't stop himself. She cares. She has to care, otherwise she wouldn't be here saying this. "I thought we were nothing."