After seeing Elaine out, Grey sat down on his living room sofa and planted his face in his hands. What was he going to do? Ivy really wouldn’t be on the market long. Suddenly, being a free man did not sound very liberating at all. In fact, being a free man sounded more like a trap. Was that what he had done, voluntarily trapped himself out of his own happiness?
“I have to get Ivy back,” he said aloud recalling Elaine’s advice, as he smelled her perfume on his body.
Picking up the phone, Grey contemplated what he would say to Ivy after all of the time he had spent torturing her with agonizing silence. Maybe he should just grovel his way back into her heart? Considering that he was so stubborn, she would probably enjoy watching him wallow in his self-pity. He could also just put his foot down and demand that she give him one more chance, but based on the way that she slapped him when they argued, he would do better groveling.
The phone rang several times and then Ivy’s voicemail picked up. Damn it! Where was she? Hanging the phone up, he tried to remember her work schedule. She was off today. There were one hundred places she could be? Pacing the room, he called her cell phone. What if he had waited too long? What if she had told her parents! Her father had already warned him in advance. “Don’t fuck this up, boy.” Those were her old man’s exact words. Thinking about the middle-aged Marine who indulged his daughter’s every wish, Grey grabbed his car keys. He would simply drive around until he found her.
*
“Oh my God! I can’t believe I missed his call,” Ivy said looking at her cell phone in total surprise.
Ivy had been in the shower nearly twenty minutes thinking about Nicola as the steam crowded around her like a thick translucent cloud. Now, it was a total shock to see that Grey had finally called. It only took a month for him to come to his senses, well after she had lost all of hers. His stubbornness baffled her. Dropping her towel on the ground, she lay nude on her bed and closed her eyes.
Three days had gone by since Ivy had been with Nicola, but she still felt sore and tired from the long hours of intense lovemaking. She thought by now she would feel some guilt for her actions, but still there was absolutely nothing but amazement. She smiled as she recalled portions of the longest night of her life. This would be her special little secret. And when the days ahead became too much to bear, she would think back to Nicola’s brown eyes and gentle touch and feel alive the way she did with him that night.
“I’ll probably never see him again,” she said as she shifted to her side in the bed and pulled the covers around her body.
The thought actually comforted Ivy. Nicola had been more than a one-night stand, yet, he hadn’t. She would never forget his name. She would never forget his face. She would never forget his touch or smell. She would never forget his advice or his confessions. And she would never forget the tears that she felt on her shoulder as he embraced her in the darkness of his room or the pain that she felt in his kiss.
Nicola had given Ivy the gift of resolve. She knew the next evening when he dropped her off that she would be able to return to Grey with open arms, and maybe save him from becoming another Nicola. God save him. One day when he settled down, he would make a woman very happy.
*
Grey slipped on a pair of jeans and a comfortable pullover and jumped into his car. He was determined to find Ivy tonight and make her realize that he was truly worthy of a relationship with her. It was strange how just a few hours ago, he was so sure that he wanted to be alone. And only after a short conversation with Elaine, he was quite sure of the opposite. All he could do was remember the stream of tears flowing down her precious cheeks as she ran from his place over a month ago. He knew that he had caused her a great deal of pain, and for everything that he had done, he was now truly sorry. His thoughts were scattered to the wind. Too scattered. He needed to confide in someone that could help him pinpoint the right things to say to her. Then it came to him. He would call his square-peg of a friend, Mattock. He would know what he should say to get Ivy back.
Checking the time, he stopped at the corner of his street and speed dialed his friend on his cell phone.
“Hello,” Mattock said sounding preoccupied.
“Mattock, it’s Grey.”
“What’s up with you. I didn’t see you at the lodge meeting the other night.”
“I was in Chicago on business. Look, I’m trying to find Ivy. Listening to that bull you said the other day has gotten me in a serious bind. You had me all messed up in the head feeling like my only release was sending her on her own. And now look at me. Among other things, I’ve slept with a woman old enough to be my mother and possibly risked pissing off Ivy’s psychotic father; and God only knows what else has happened that I don’t know about.” Grey exhaled.
“Stop whining. You get what you pay for my friend,” Mattock said cutting Grey off. “Anyway, I never told you to break up with Ivy. I told you that you couldn’t have your cake and eat it too, meaning that you were going
