“Ivy, it’s Grey on the phone,” Trina said sticking her head out of the bedroom door.
“Tell him that I will call him back,” Ivy said too afraid to hear his voice. She could not bear to speak to him now. She didn’t know if she could ever bear it.
“He says that he’s pulling up outside, so get your things.”
Laying her head back on the couch, Ivy took a deep breath. With all the sudden commotion, she had forgotten that he was picking her up tonight to spend the night. If there was ever a night that she needed to be alone, it was tonight. However, Grey wouldn’t understand if she cancelled, especially since it had been her idea to spend more time together.
Grabbing her bags from her bedroom and her books from the common area, she pulled a coat over her now shivering body and headed out into the snow to Grey’s car. Whatever she did tonight, she wouldn’t tell him, not until she had time to think things through and come up with a plan.
Greeting Grey with kiss, Ivy closed the door to his car and tried to hide her new distractions, but automatically he noticed the hint of melancholy and worry in her face.
“Something wrong,” he said pulling out of the parking lot into the streets.
“No, I’m just tired. I’ve been with Madison all day.”
“He’s here?” Grey asked concerned. The very mention of that man’s name sent chills down his spine. He would never tell Ivy, but he thought Madison was a raving psychotic with a chokehold on Ivy’s life.
“Yeah, he’s here, but he’s leaving out tomorrow.”
“Oh, well I guess I won’t get a chance to see him. I have a hundred things to do tomorrow. Pity.” Grey automatically knew that would get a rise out of Ivy.
“It’s okay,” Ivy said totally unconcerned as she looked out the window.
“Are you sure that you’re okay? You don’t seem yourself.”
“I’m fine, baby,” Ivy said turning and giving him a reassuring smile.
*
Later that evening after Ivy had taken a shower and crawled into the bed overly exhausted and unusually quiet, Grey finished his Wall Street Journal and turned off the lights. Like an old married couple they cuddled the darkness, seemingly relaxed and at ease.
Reflecting on their relationship, Grey was somewhat at peace. For the moment, his sexual inhibitions had subsided leaving him sober enough to focus on Ivy. And he had to admit that he had seen a dramatic change in her behavior since they had gotten back together. She was going out of the way to make him happy and yet still giving him space to breathe.
It was odd, but when Ivy felt good about them, he somehow was able to get more work done at the office and in the classroom. Finishing his MBA wasn’t an easy task, especially when he had such a high maintenance relationship and career, but with a little more than a semester left before graduation, he had no complaints.
It was now clear to Grey what he had to do in order to keep control over the situation with Ivy. The issue wasn’t so much that he had to choose between temporary pleasure with other women or the long-term benefits of his fiancée. Rather, he simply had to keep them miles apart from each other and still at only arms length from him.
Men had a cheap thrill from time-to-time and some men like him had them often. However, Grey had seen over the last month that every man did not have an exceptional young woman willing to stand by his side through thick and thin. He now realized what made Ivy different and special, and he was not about to loose her again. As his father once told him, “Only bring your wife home to your house; leave your whore at the hotel.”
There were a few times that Grey had gone against better judgment and brought someone home with him, because the encounter was going to be so quick it didn’t require a hotel room, or she could be trusted never to return afterwards. But mostly, he followed the rules. No house calls. No unprotected sex. No intimate words of endearment. No virgins. No gifts. No voice messages or written correspondents, and absolutely no calls the next day. He had always made it clear that he was a taken man just bowing down to the dirty temptations. The sad thing was that women accepted his pathetic excuses and allowed him to use them.
“Oh well,” he said aloud as he pondered his thoughts while Ivy lay on his chest resting. He looked down at her angelic face calm and unconcerned and felt a welcomed calm. Life was good.
Chapter Seven: Happy Birthday
Chapter 7
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
“One month and not one word from Ivy?” Brooks asked probing Nicola for the hundredth time about his elusive evening. After not being able to get the information he was looking for from Trina, he decided to continue to hound Nicola in hopes that eventually he would break.
“When are you ever going to give up?” Nicola asked while setting down the eighty-pound free weights to rest on an empty bench. “We didn’t exactly hit it off. So, we went our separate ways.” He wiped the sweat from his eyes with his hand towel.
“I’m going to keep asking until I get the right answer, or are you forgetting that’s what I do for a living?”
“I’m not a perp, Brooks. I’m your best friend, and as your best friend, I’m telling you to back off of the subject. Ivy is a dead issue.”
By now, Brooks had come to conclusion that something had happened between Nicola and Ivy because for nearly
