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“No, you’re not. You’re all the way the hell in Minnesota.”
Ivy giggles a little. “That’s true. But I’m always a phone call away.”
“I know. And thank you. I guess we’re all just dealing with a lot right now.”
“Has anyone been out to visit Dad?” Ivy asks.
“I don’t think so. Madden talked about heading back to Chicago, but work has picked up for him, so he’s been stuck in San Diego.”
“Is he pissed I didn’t go work for him?”
“I mean…yeah,” she admits. “We talked last week, and he said he could really use you, and I bragged how you picked me. So don’t let me down again. You hear me?”
“I do. Thank you for being so understanding.”
“I love you, Ivy. Talk soon.”
“Love you, too.” They hang up, and Ivy looks up at me.
“That’s it?” I ask.
She nods. “That’s it. We get two whole extra days together.”
I lean over and rest my head on hers, and we both turn our attention back to the movie we were watching.
It’s so simple—sitting here at the house I grew up in, snuggled against this woman, watching a movie. And yet it feels like a glimpse into the sort of future I never thought I wanted but somehow has become everything I need.
CHAPTER 29: Ivy Maddox
Eighty-Five Hours
We spend a family day on Sunday as Cash and his mom take me around Maple Grove. We start with breakfast at their favorite spot, and we walk around town, by a lake, and into a coffee shop, where his mom orders tea and we both get coffee.
If I thought Summerlin was bad when it came to everyone knowing Cash Maddox, well, it had nothing on this place.
It’s a town of over seventy thousand people, not a small town by any stretch, yet I’m pretty sure every single resident here knows who Cash is—either because they grew up with him or because they’re associated with someone who did. It’s like that six degrees of Kevin Bacon game, but where everyone is within one degree of Cash, two tops.
I suppose Chicago was a bit like that for my family, but Chicago itself houses over two million residents, while the greater Chicagoland area is closer to nine million. It was a bit easier to allow my family to get lost in the shuffle there since there were so many more people to deal with.
We stop into school on Monday and help Colleen organize the library and set up the tables and chairs for tomorrow’s teacher in-service, and honestly, all this weekend is doing is driving me closer and closer to Cash as I learn more about how he grew up and as I feel like I fit into his little family.
His mom is so kind, so loving, and she gave her son those same traits. I don’t want to go back to Vegas tomorrow. I just want to stay here and sit out on the back porch with a glass of his mom’s sweet iced tea and look out over the lake. The mosquitos are horrible at night, but her porch is screened in, and we can watch the fireflies.
This place just feels kind of magical, and all I can think about is sex. I want to have sex with my husband again.
The topic hasn’t come up, and I’m not sure if it’s because we’re at his mother’s house or if there’s some other reason. And so on Tuesday morning, when we head down to the kitchen to start breakfast and find his mom’s note that she’s already left for school but will be home around lunchtime, I finally ask the question.
“Have you, um…have you ever had sex in your bed in this house?”
He turns to me, and his eyes are positively burning as they fall upon me. “I have.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Oh.”
“What?”
“I just…I thought maybe sex hasn’t come up because we’re at your mom’s house, but now that I know you’ve had sex here before—”
He holds up a hand. “Don’t finish that sentence. I haven’t brought it up because your first time was just a few nights ago, and I didn’t want to hurt you by going in again too soon.”
