Give Us a Chance (16 page)

She doesn't respond, but just gazes down at the floor.

"What are you afraid of, Ivy? That I'll cheat on you? Because I can tell you right now, that's not gonna happen. If I'm with you, it'll only be you. No one else. I promise."

Her eyes dart up. "How can you say that? You have no idea what will happen. You've never dated someone before. After a week or two, you'll get tired of me and want someone new. Or some girl will come up to you at a bar and you won't be able to turn her down."

"Do you really think I'd do that? Especially to someone I care about as much as I care about you?"

She gazes at the floor again. "You don't even know me."

"You sure about that?" I lift her chin up and wait for her to look at me. "I know you like two creams and one sugar in your coffee. I know chocolate-sprinkled donuts are your favorite. I know you won't eat anything with mayonnaise. I know you secretly like Neal Diamond songs and that you hum Sweet Caroline when you're sharpening your tools."

"What? I don't—"

"Yeah. You do. I've heard you humming it. I don't think you even know you're doing it. But
I
do. I also know that you're the best damn carpenter I've ever met. That you're dedicated to your craft, always wanting to learn more and get better. That you love what you do, but that you're frustrated and angry that you have to work a hundred times harder than any guy just to prove yourself, even though it's clear to everyone that you're better than they are."

I could go on all night, but I stop because I think she's got the point.

"How do you know all that?" she asks, her tone now soft, the anger gone. "We didn't talk much when you were my boss."

"We didn't have to. I saw you every day. I listened to you. I paid attention. You can learn a lot about a person without talking."

Her gaze lowers again. "I still can't date you, Jake."

"Why? Because you don't like me? Or because you don't trust me?"

"The last one."

"Then let me earn it. Let me earn your trust. Let me prove to you that you can trust me."

"That'll take time. I'm not going to trust you overnight."

"We have time. I'm not going anywhere." I pause. "So will you go out with me?"

She hesitates. "I don't know."

"You said you liked me. And it's generally best to date people you like."

She smiles for the first time tonight. "I never actually came out and said I liked you."

"It was implied. So what do you say?"

She doesn't answer.

I lean over and put my lips to her ear. "According to you, I still have to improve my skills in the art of kissing. So even if you say no to dating me, I'll still be kissing you. Until I get to that level I told you about last night."

I skim my lips down her neck and hear her say in a breathy voice, "Maybe you should practice right now."

I smile to myself, then move my mouth back to hers and kiss her. A deep, intense, all-consuming kiss that tells her I want this. I want
her
. I want to at least try to make this work. I want to prove to her that I'm not the old Jake. That I can be in a relationship and be faithful to her.

"Jake," she whispers after we've been kissing for several minutes. "We really need to go."

"Only if we can continue this later."

"Deal. But just this. Nothing else."

I kiss her again. "Just this. That's all we'll do."

She laughs because I keep kissing her. "Jake, come on. Let's go."

We leave and go to her dad's house. It's a small house in an older neighborhood. My dad did some repairs on houses around here a few years ago. I helped him on one of them.

"Dad, we're here," Ivy yells as we go in the door.

"In the kitchen," he yells back.

I follow her past the small living room into the eat-in kitchen. It could use a remodel as well. The tile backsplash has some cracks and the linoleum floor is old and dated and dented in a few places.

Ivy's dad is standing at the sink, drying his hands on a towel. He's average height, thin, with fair skin and blond hair that matches Liza's. It's clear Ivy was adopted.

"Hey, Dad." Ivy gives him a quick hug.

"Hi, honey." He puts his eyes on me as they hug, and keeps them there as he lets her go. "You must be Jake." He extends his hand. "Steve Nikols."

I shake his hand. "Jake Wheeler. Nice to meet you."

"I know your father. We did a few projects together back in the day. Mostly home remodels. I hear he isn't doing those anymore."

"He still does them, but not as many. We've shifted the company's focus more to commercial remodels and restoring historic buildings. That doesn't leave us much time to work on private homes, but we still take those jobs when we can. In fact, my brother's working on one right now. I'm going to help him with it this weekend."

"I'm going with him," Ivy says. "I'm going to learn how to lay tile so I can help with the bathroom."

"About that," Steve says. "You need to let me pay you something, Jake. I can't let you do that for free."

"Don't worry about it. You're actually helping me out. I haven't done a bathroom remodel for a while. This will help keep my skills up."

"Jake does a lot of the sales calls now," Ivy says. "He doesn't do as much construction as he used to."

"You miss it?" Steve asks.

"Yeah, I do. But I also like the sales side of things, so I try to do a little of both."

Ivy motions to the hall behind us. "Dad, Jake needs to go take some measurements of the bathroom."

Steve smiles at her. "You could at least let me talk to him for a minute. You didn't even offer him a drink."

Ivy gives him an annoyed stare. She didn't want me meeting her dad, and now that I'm here, he's going to question me and make sure I'm good enough for his daughter. That's another reason I never dated. I didn't want to deal with the protective father thing. I totally get it. I just didn't want to deal with it. But meeting Steve doesn't bother me. He seems like a good guy, and I'm not worried about him questioning me.
 

Ivy sighs. "Would you like something to drink, Jake?"

"I would," I say, smiling at her. "I'll take a pop if you have it. Any kind."

She walks over to the fridge while her dad and I take a seat at the kitchen table.

"So tell me about yourself, Jake," her dad says.

Ivy sighs again as she sets down my can of pop and slumps into the chair next to mine. She's hating this, which makes me want to laugh. I get the feeling she doesn't usually bring guys home to meet her dad.

Steve asks me tons of questions and I answer them, calm and relaxed, taking my time. Then we get on the topic of football and soon we're comparing players, listing out stats, making predictions for next season. We talk for almost an hour and Ivy is bored out of her mind.

"I'm just gonna go watch TV," she says, getting up from the table. "I can't take this anymore."

I chuckle. "Sorry. If you get me started on football, sometimes I can't stop."

"I'm the same way," Steve says. "Although Ivy and Liza never want to talk about it with me."

"I talk about it," Ivy insists, "but not for hours like you two do."

I stand up. "I should get those measurements. Oh, and I also need to know what you're thinking in terms of what you want done in there."

"I'm not really sure," Steve says. "Ivy kind of surprised me with this and I haven't had time to give it much thought."

"I can offer up some ideas once I check it out."

"That'd be great. Thanks."

"No problem."

"It's right down the hall." Steve gets up and walks in front of Ivy and me. His back must hurt because he's walking really slow, hunched over, and putting more weight on his right side.

I glance at Ivy. She's watching her dad with concern on her face. It's the same look I get whenever my dad gets sick, or hurt on the job. I always think something's going to happen to him to take him away from us, just like my mom was. I can see Ivy has that same fear about her dad. Ivy and I both lost our moms way too soon, and after that happens, you always worry you'll lose your other parent too.

I take her hand and gently rub it. She looks over at me and forces out a smile and when our eyes meet, I can tell she knows what I'm thinking. That we have this in common and I know how she feels. I understand. Sometimes a look or a touch can say more than hundreds of words.

"So this is it," Steve says. "As you can see, it's small so you can't do a whole lot."

He's right. It's really small, but I've worked with small spaces before.

"So Ivy said we'd be replacing the tub with a walk-in shower," I say. "You still good with that?"

"Yes, I'd prefer a shower, but with my back, sometimes I need to sit down."

"They have showers with built-in seats. Would something like that work?"

"Yes, that's a good idea. How much does something like that cost?"

"It might not cost you anything. I've already got one in our storage warehouse that this lady decided she didn't want after she ordered it. I can send you a photo and if you like it, you can have it. Let me just measure to make sure it'll fit." I get my pad of paper out and a pen and hand it to Ivy. "Can you write it down?"

"Sure." She's smiling at me, so I smile back. I don't know want she's smiling about, but after the argument we had earlier, I'll take it. I'd much rather see her smile than have her angry with me.

I take measurements of the entire bathroom, then assess the space again, trying to come up with a plan.

"I got some ideas," I say to Steve. "Should we sit down and go over them?"

He agrees, and the three of us go sit in the living room. I lay out my plan for what we should do, which includes replacing the vanity and mirror, which are really old, and installing a cabinet above the toilet to add storage because right now, they have almost none.

"Sounds perfect," Steve says when I'm done. "You sure you want to do all that?"

"I'm happy to. And I'm making my brothers help, so we should be able to get this done in a weekend."

"Jake, I don't want to take up their time," he says. "It's bad enough I'm taking up yours."

"They won't mind. We like working together on projects like this. But I need to check their schedules. It may be a few weeks before we do this."

"There's no rush," he says. "Any estimate on the cost of materials?"

"I've got it covered. Like I said, we have a warehouse full of leftover materials so I'll take what I can from that."

"I'll pay him for the rest," Ivy says to her dad.

I'm about to tell her she doesn't have to, but she gives me a look to keep quiet about it, so instead I just say, "It shouldn't be much."

"Thanks for doing this," Steve says, "and coming over here tonight." He checks the clock. "I didn't realize it was so late. You haven't even had dinner. How about I take you two out somewhere?"

Ivy sits up straighter. "Oh, um, you don't need to, Dad. I'm sure Jake has things to do."

"I'm free for dinner," I say, smiling at her.

"Good." Steve stands up. "Then let's go. We'll go to the pizza place Ivy used to like when she was a kid."

"I'd love to hear what Ivy was like as a kid." I wink at her.

"I've got some good stories," Steve says. "I'll tell you a few as we eat."

"Dad. Please don't," Ivy says. "Jake doesn't want to hear those."

"I just said I did." I keep smiling at her because she's cute when she's annoyed.

We all go out to the car. Ivy's just shaking her head. Going to dinner with her dad? It's the last thing she wanted to do. But I like her dad, so why not have dinner with him? If we don't, the guy will be stuck eating alone. And getting on the good side of her dad may help me win Ivy over. I could use all the help I could get. Ivy isn't making this easy.

I thought it'd be difficult to get her to go out with me, but it turns out that wasn't the hard part. The hard part is convincing her to
keep
going out with me. It's already proven to be difficult, and I have a feeling it'll only get harder.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Ivy

Jake and I just got back from having dinner with my dad. It's now ten o'clock. We spent a couple hours at the pizza place because the two of them wouldn't stop talking.

Who knew my dad would like Jake so much? He never likes anyone I date. Even the guy I went out with my junior year of high school just to please my dad. He kept saying I was going out with boys who were nothing but trouble—which I admit was true—so I went on a date with this smart, studious guy who'd never even kissed a girl, and my dad still didn't like him. But wild, ladies-man Jake, he likes. Go figure.

"That seemed to go well," Jake says as he stands in my lobby.

Maybe I should invite him up to my apartment. Standing in the lobby feels weird. Like people are watching us. No one's here, but there are security cameras everywhere.

"Yeah, my dad really likes you. But I'm sure it's only because you're remodeling his bathroom." I smile.

"You think so? And here I thought he really did like me."

"He does. I'm kidding." I glance at the elevator. "You want to go upstairs?"

He pauses, then shakes his head. "I can't stay."

"Oh. Okay. Then I guess I'll see you on Saturday."

Today is Thursday but I didn't want to assume Jake would take me out tomorrow night too.

"What about tomorrow?" he asks.

"What about it?"

"It's Friday night. That's date night. I need a date. And since we're dating, that means you're my date."

"I guess that's true. All right. See you tomorrow." I reach up and kiss his cheek. "Goodnight."

"Now who's the bad kisser?" He grasps me around the waist and yanks me into him. "Try again."

He leans down and I put my lips to his and kiss him. He kisses me back, but then lets me take the lead again. And we keep taking turns until our kisses become continuous, seamless, sheer perfection. The way all kisses should be, and yet I never knew a kiss could be like this until I kissed Jake. From here on out, I'll judge all other guys' kisses by Jake's and I'm sure that none of them will even come close to being as good as his. Because it's not just the kiss itself, the way Jake's lips move over mine. It's also him, and whatever this is between us that seems to work so incredibly well. Why did this have to happen? Why did we have to be so damn compatible?