FIGHT FOR ME (4 page)

“Seven.” She nodded.

He walked away. Before he started down the stairs he turned to her and smiled.

Oh.

Oh my.

Ivy collapsed into the armchair again and took a few deep breaths.

Chapter Six

She left the library right away. She could always go back there later –and she didn’t feel like reading right this moment.

When Ivy got back to the apartment she found Jess and Emma playing a board game on the coffee table. Emma was moving her piece over the board and counting loudly.

“One, two, three, four…”

“Hi guys!”

Jess looked up at Ivy. “Hey! How was your adventure?”

Ivy laughed. It kind of was an adventure. “I had fun. I went to the park and the library. Oh, and I ate brunch at that cute place… I think it was named after a flower?”

“Hyacinth’s,” Jess guessed. “Sounds nice.”

“It was.” Ivy paused. She considered mentioning what had happened with Lucas but ultimately decided not to, at least not then. Emma would be confused to hear that her teacher wanted to see her aunt later that night. Maybe Ivy would tell Jess later.

She watched her sister and niece finish the game and played with them afterward. When Jess asked what she wanted for dinner, Ivy said she was thinking about going out that night. Jess seemed a little confused but didn’t ask any questions.

Around six, when Jess and Emma were eating pizza and watching cartoons, Ivy started to find herself glued to the clock. She kept looking at her phone. Should she start getting ready now? Did she need an hour to get ready? Not really, but why not?

She excused herself from the living room and went to Jess’s room –where all her stuff was –to pick out an outfit.

She hadn’t packed for this trip with a hot date in mind. After almost ten minutes of frustration, she settled on a flower print dress, denim jacket, and blue flats. Still casual, but a step up from the sweat pants and jeans she had worn every day since she’d got to Paisley.

She wondered where Lucas wanted to take her to dinner. According to her phone, there were a total of five restaurants in Paisley that weren’t downtown. Only two of them weren’t chain junk food places.

Ivy took a deep breath.

Makeup. She should put on a little makeup.

She went to the bathroom. As she put on mascara and lip gloss she realized just how unusual it was for her to get this excited and nervous over a date. She felt sixteen again, unsure and inexperienced though that really wasn’t the case.

Would he still like her after spending more than a few minutes with her?

She reminded herself of the kiss they had shared in the library. The way he had kissed her… She wondered what might happen after dinner.

Whatever happened, she wanted to be prepared. Feeling her cheeks get hot even though there was no one to witness, Ivy took a pair of black lace panties out of her suitcase and slipped them on.

* * * *

When Lucas texted her to say he was there to pick her up, Ivy told Jess she was going out to dinner but still withheld exactly who she was going with. She was pretty sure that Jess knew exactly what was happening, even if she didn’t know the specifics.

Jess looked like she was about to ask why Ivy had put on a dress and makeup if she was going out to dinner by herself, but instead asked an easier question. Ivy sighed in relief.

“When do you think you’ll be back?”

“I’m not sure. Probably a… a few hours.” She really didn’t know what to say.

“Okay. Have fun.”

She gave Jess a quick kiss on the cheek and nearly ran down the steps to the street.

Idling next to Ivy’s decade old Honda Accord that she hadn’t touched since she got here was a glinting red vintage convertible Mustang, probably from the sixties or seventies. Lucas was sitting in the front with the top down. He was wearing a black button up shirt and had slicked his hair back.

He didn’t look like a kindergarten teacher come to pick up his date in a small town. He looked like some international European model.

Lucas got out of the car and opened the door on the passenger side for her. “Hey.”

“Hi. Nice ride. How did you afford this?” The question came out before Ivy realized it was inappropriate. She just couldn’t imagine a vintage muscle car in mint condition being on a kindergarten teacher’s salary.

He laughed.

“I can’t really afford it. It was a… gift. About half my paycheck goes to keeping it running and the gas tank full.”

“I can imagine.” Ivy sat down in the passenger seat, smoothing her skirt over her lap. She felt her nervousness melting away.

Lucas let the door swing shut and got behind the wheel.

“Are you in the mood for Indian? There’s a nice place a few minutes away.”

“Sounds good.”

“Nice” was an understatement. The restaurant was a cloth napkin and tablecloth with a candle type deal. The simple curry Ivy ordered cost fifteen dollars. The bottle of champagne Lucas ordered cost forty.

“This is… amazing. I wasn’t expecting much more than a decent Italian place or something.” Ivy smiled across the table at Lucas.

He shrugged. “I want to impress you.”

“You definitely have.” Ivy took a sip of wine. “So… tell me about yourself?”

He looked up at her, appearing a little put off.

“I’m mostly curious about how you ended up in Paisley. You said at the park that you came from the city?”

“Yeah,” he said. “But it’s really not an interesting story at all. I want to know about you, Ivy.”

“What do you want to know?” She decided not to ask why he’d moved again. He obviously really didn’t want to talk about it.

“Hm.” He leaned back in his chair. A strand of black hair fell into his eyes. “Did you grow up in the city?”

“Yep. This is my first time spending so much consecutive time in a small town.”

“But you like it.”

“I do.”

He cocked his head and looked at her for a moment. She breathed carefully. She felt like he could tell much more about her by looking than from whatever answers she gave to his questions.

“What do you do? For a living.”

“I edit a real estate magazine.”

“Sounds… interesting.”

“It really isn’t. I grew up loving words and writing and wanted to be a writer. I got to college, majored in English, realized I had no talent for writing but had a good intuition for the English language, and ended up editing a magazine that barely has any writing in it at all.”

“Well. You don’t sound too satisfied.”

“I’m not. I’m really not.” Ivy had barely admitted this to herself, let alone anyone else. “Did you always want to be a teacher?”

Lucas shook his head. “No. But I enjoy it. More than I thought I would.”

“What did you major in?”

He blinked. “Don’t judge –but, uh, I didn’t go to college. Not until I moved here. I got a teaching certification. Actually, I’m still getting certified. This job is part of the whole process.”

“Hey, everyone has their own path. Why not go to college?”

“I just felt like what I wanted to do in life didn’t require a college degree.”

“What did you do instead?”

A pause. “Travel. I took odd jobs and traveled around the world.”

“Seriously? I’ve always wanted to travel but the farthest I’ve been is across the country. Where have you been?”

“It’s not that long of a list. A few countries in Europe. I spent the most time in Italy and France. Then India, and Australia, and most of South America.”

“Lucas. That’s a pretty long list.”

He shrugged, smiling. “Longer than yours.” He scraped up a last bite from his entrée of chicken tikka masala. “It was a while ago.”

There was a comfortable silence. Ivy could barely imagine that earlier that day they’d had that awkward encounter in the park. The atmosphere was completely different now.

She poured herself another glass of wine. The meal was coming to an end but it felt like it had just begun. She felt like she could banter with Lucas forever.

“After this,” he began, as if he was feeling the same as she was. “I was thinking about going to a gallery. You might have seen it earlier today when you were downtown. It’s called the Tilt. There’s some modern art show that I thought you might like.”

Ivy raised an eyebrow. “Do I look like I like modern art?”

He shrugged. “You seem like you’d like classy stuff.”

“Classy? I like that.” She laughed. “Sure. I’m down. Are you ready to go now?”

Lucas nodded and hailed the waiter.

* * * *

A few minutes later they pulled up in front of the gallery. The building had large glass windows that gave a preview of the show inside. It also showed that the gallery was empty except for an elderly man with a thin face sitting at a little counter looking at his phone.

They got out of the car waved to the man inside. It took a few moments before he noticed them. The man opened the door and let them in.

“Welcome to Tilt. Our current show is of the work of artist Michael Huntington. Enjoy.” The man sat down again and pulled out his smart phone.

Lucas and Ivy shared an amused glance. They had both noticed the man’s lack of enthusiasm.

After spending a little over an hour consecutively with Lucas, Ivy was familiar with his sheepish smile. He smiled often, but as if he shouldn’t be or was surprised to be doing so. It made her want to kiss his lips and see him smile without noticing.

The art was very strange.

Ivy had never heard of Michael Huntington, and she never wanted to know more about him. The gallery was filled with statues that seemed basically like blobs of shaped plastic, often in phallic shapes.

“What do you think?” Lucas asked after they had made their way about half way through the gallery.

“Well… I’ve never seen anything like these, uh, statues.” Lucas nodded, agreeing. “Though I have to say, they’re a little…” Ivy really didn’t want to say the word phallic on their first date.

“They look like cocks,” he said in a matter of fact tone, stating the obvious.

They both burst into laughter. “Yeah,” Ivy said, “That’s exactly it.”

They continued walking through the gallery, now making joking comments about the art. “That one’s huge,” Lucas said, nodding toward a large blue blob in the corner of the room they were in.

Ivy nodded. “I can’t believe this guy is making money off of these. I mean, who would buy one?”

Lucas laughed. “I wouldn’t.”

When they were nearing the front of the gallery again, Lucas stopped walking. Ivy stopped as well. “What is it?”

He looked uncomfortable. “Well, I wanted to say…”

Ivy felt a little cold. Here it was. Honestly, she had felt a big reveal coming from Lucas since the moment she saw him and here it was.

He was gay. He was married. He was a figment of her imagination. He was
something
he shouldn’t be if they were to be together.

He seemed to realize he had been silent for a little too long, thinking. “Sorry, I haven’t done anything like this for a really long time.” He let out a breath. “I wanted to say that you’re really interesting… and beautiful… and I wanted to make sure you had a great time on this date so I brought you to this place, but it turned out to be a pretty big disappointment. So, I’m sorry if you’re… disappointed. I really haven’t done this in a while.”

Oh.

The reality of what he had to say was both relieving and worse than what she had imagined. Ivy tried to think of how to respond.

“Lucas,” she said, taking one of his hands in hers. “I’ve had so much fun tonight. This weird exhibit is hilarious, not disappointing at all. And just spending time with you has been awesome. Not disappointing at all.”

He looked at their hands, then up at her. Ivy smiled.

“I’m not as used to this kind of stuff,” he said, gesturing around to what Ivy could only interpret as meaning “galleries” or “dates.” “I really just want to fuck you,” he said, completely serious.

After he said it he looked away, as if he had surprised himself.

Ivy blinked. Well. Lucas was full of surprises.

Usually she would see this kind of talk as a major red flag, but… it seemed less like he was trying to lure her into bed and more like he was just used to being honest about what he wanted.

And… she wanted him so bad.

She stood still as he removed his hand from hers and took her wrists in his hands, roughly pulling her close to him. He leaned down and brushed his lips over her forehead, nose, cheeks, before pressing his lips against hers.

Unlike their first kiss, this one was slow and soft –yet somehow all the more sensual. He tasted like spices and good wine. Ivy’s lips tingled.

A cough brought them apart. Ivy glanced over to the front of the building and saw the elderly curator staring at them.

Lucas grabbed her hand and led her to the exit. They fell against the door of his car, now kissing with intention.

Ivy’s heart was beating so fast she wondered if Lucas could feel it. She had never been kissed like this. Even Lucas’s very words were more erotic, straightforward, and arousing than any lovemaking she had ever experienced.

He opened the car door behind them with one hand and they fell into the front seat. She could feel him against her thigh, hard, not hiding it.

“I… Shouldn’t we go to your place?”

He answered without lifting his head, his breath against her ear. “But I want you right now.”

Ivy heard a group of people walk by. The combination of the unusual car and their physical actions must have been attracting a lot of attention. No one was just going to walk by a scene like that.

She sat up, flustered and flushed. “I do too.” But when he leaned forward to kiss her, she moved to the passenger seat and sat up. “I’d rather be in private, though.”

Lucas looked at her for a moment, then nodded and started the car.

Chapter Seven

The drive seemed to take forever.

Ivy couldn’t take her eyes off the way Lucas’s clothes clung to his body; the subtle bulge in his dark jeans, his determined gaze as he drove up to his building and pressed on the brakes.