Ivy's Twisted Vine Redux (11 page)

“Aren’t you going to help me?” he asked kissing on her neck.

“Nope,” she whispered. “If you want it bad enough, you’ll figure a way to get it.”

As if challenging him, Ivy put her hands behind her back. Nicola raised both brows at her enjoying how much she had come out of her shell. Pulling his pants off, he threw them across the room and returned to her grinning like a chess cat. She giggled again feeling as though she could float away in happiness. He tore the covers off of her leaving her naked and pulled her long legs to him. She tried to cover herself, belting a heavy laugh as he bit her sides. She screamed, wiggled her nose at him and tried to clamp her legs tight. He held her hands down against the bed, now naked on top of her and kissed her slowly. Then for no reason at all he stopped.

“What’s wrong?” she asked only inches from his face.

“Nothing is wrong. I just that that I’m…I think I’m…” he thought about what he was about to say. “…going to need a condom.” To afraid to dare speak his feelings aloud, he settled for reaching for the drawer of the nightstand.

Chapter Four: Someone’s Blues

Chapter 4

SOMEONE’S BLUES

“
I think that I’ve been a fool,”
Grey said staring at himself blankly in his bathroom mirror still sweating from his late night sex session. Running water into his black marble sink, he grabbed a large terrycloth towel and covered his naked body.

It had been over a month since he had spoken to Ivy and nearly a month and a half since he had held her in his arms. At first, he thought it was the right thing to do…break up and move on. His bachelor friends who were now at home with their girlfriends making love on this unusually cold autumn night had frequently shared this advice with him. Now, he was alone. The very thought infuriated him.

Where is Ivy right now?
He began to feel jealously overtaking him. What if there was someone else in the picture? It had been a while and their last words to each other would have made anyone seek love in other places. What was he thinking when he said that shit to her? His father had always told him to never let his sexual indiscretions get in the way of true progression and that was exactly what had happened. He had been a damned fool.

“Grey, I’m about to head out of here,” a woman said zipping up her skirt. “Are you alright?” She noticed the troubled look on his face through his reflection in the mirror.

“I’m fine.” He turned around and smiled at her reassuringly. “Thanks for your company tonight. I enjoyed you.”

“Are you sure you’re okay? You seem different all of a sudden.” She could instantly sense the change.

“Honestly, I’m not okay, but don’t worry. It’s not because of anything that you did. I’m just feeling a little guilty right now.” In his heart, he knew that there was no better word than guilt. The guilt that he deserved. He was sure that those were not the words that she needed to hear, but it was all that he could say.

“
Guilty?
Oh. Well, don’t you think that it’s a little late for that?” Her eyebrow raised in contempt.

“Better late than never,” Grey said leaning against his sink feeling a little light headed.

“Grey, I have known you since you were in diapers, and the one thing that has remained ever constant about you is that you are indecisive. One minute you do and the next minute…you just don’t.” The older woman smiled at him and turned around. “Now come snap me up in the back.”

“Sure,” he said coming to her side. “I thought that I was doing the right thing by pushing Ivy away, because of the way that I am…the way that I’ve been. But it kills me to know that she’s alone.” He paused for a minute. “She doesn’t deserve to be.” As Grey snapped her corset, he kissed the older woman’s shoulder. “There you go.”

“Thank you, honey. Who said that she was alone? As pretty as that little girl is, you can’t bet if she is alone, it’s only for a moment.”

“Ivy would never sleep with someone else this quick.” Grey shrugged off the idiotic notion and walked away from the silly woman.
What did she know about Ivy? What did she know about anything?

“Take my advice. If you left her in the state that you said that you did, she isn’t alone.”

“Everyone doesn’t give in so quickly, Elaine,” Grey said condescendingly.

“Well with the swift kick in the ass you gave her over a month ago, I think that hardly qualifies as quickly or easily for that matter.” Grabbing her black clutch purse off of Grey’s bed, Elaine headed out of the room a little miffed by his quick temper.

“Wait, Elaine.” Grey didn’t want her to leave upset. Walking up to the short, perfectly shaped woman, he took her aging hand. He wouldn’t allow her to bolt out of his door like Ivy had done.

“I didn’t mean to offend you.” He rubbed through her graying perfectly cut bobbed hair. “I’m sorry.”

Elaine smiled at the young man, feeling sympathy for his immature state of mind. “Look, I knew what I was coming over here for and so did you. Anyway, I’m going to give you a bit of advice that most people wouldn’t. And you aren’t going to like the way that it’s said, but if you’re smart, you’ll listen.” Taking Grey’s face in her hands, she smiled at the clueless young man. “Stop thinking with your dick. It’s not the brightest head on you. You’ve been using it for too long, and it’s done you no good.”

Grey was taken aback by her blatant honesty and acid sharp tongue. He was used to Ivy, who was always a far more gentile creature and quite careful with her words and mindful of his feelings. But that was one of the luxuries of being with a woman that came from a
proper stock
.

“Speak your mind then,” he said letting go of her hand.
What a bitch!

“I will, but only because you need to hear from someone that has nothing to gain or lose from your situation. You’ve been running around here planning this wedding with this girl for months now. She’s been nothing but good to you and then all of a sudden just because you get scared, you break off the wedding. That’s wrong, and you know it. Now you feel bad, but it’s your fault entirely. Just go back to her before it’s too late, because I guarantee that she won’t be on the market for too long. Guys like you, however, stay on the market, because you’re so full of shit until real women can see straight through you.”

“Well, if I’m so full of shit then why did you break your neck to be with me?” Grey sat on the bed in his towel revealing his large chocolate thighs.

“Are you kidding? Look at you. You’re a young virile man full of vigor and surprise, and even if for just one evening you wanted to be with me, even if it’s only because I’m your boss and capable of giving you that much needed raise. Don’t think that I don’t know how your mind works. But I don’t mind. I got what I wanted out of the deal. Besides that you’ve got one of the longest tongues I have ever seen.” Laughing, she tapped Grey on his head. She thought her little crack was funny, but Grey didn’t seem the least amused.

Elaine became serious with him again. “It’s okay to make a mistake as long as you intend to rectify it immediately. We are all fallible, but it comes to a point when
I’m sorry
just isn’t enough. Now, has it come to that point for you and Ivy? I don’t know. You’ll just have to see for yourself, if you’re man enough.”

“Man enough for what?”

“For her.”

“Most of me understands that, but still a part of me doesn’t want to be tied down.” Grey tried desperately to reason with his own feelings. His mind told him that Ivy was a good woman, but his body begged to be free of inhibition and able to seek out all of those things that seemed hidden and so fascinating to him.

“Is being in a relationship really being tied down?” She lifted his chin and stared him in his wide almond eyes. It was a thought that now lingered on her mind daily now that she was ready for a relationship and longing to be married. Not to mention that her biological clock was definitely ticking, and she had nearly missed all hope of having her own children.

“I don’t know.” Grey went into deep thought. There was no smart reply to give.

“I didn’t think that you did, which is why you should call her, apologize, and try to make things right.” Smiling, she turned and walked out of the door leaving Grey standing confused in his bedroom.

“You’re a smart boy. I’m sure that you’ll figure it out. Now, I’ll see you tomorrow at the office, and make sure that you have that report on my desk by ten. I need to look over it before I submit it to the board.” Elaine sighed.

“Will do,” Grey said noting her request. With Elaine, it was always about work. She was one of the finest women that he had ever seen. In fact, he had had a crush on her since he was a preteen, but so did ever prepubescent and grown man in Memphis. She was a diva in the true since of the word. She was gorgeous, smart and successful and had been so for over twenty years. Now at forty something, she was still like a fine wine and yet unattainable by any man in Memphis. Most people said it was because she was like most men in Memphis… strictly about business.

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.”