“From what it sounds like,” Jason said, carefully edging off the barstool, putting a little space between the two of them, “I think I signed you up for a sex hotline and introduced you to your girlfriend at the same time.”
“You are unbelievable.” Cole was starting to get concerned that he wasn’t going to be able to stop laughing anytime soon. “I literally am having trouble believing any of this right now.”
“You could start by thanking me.”
“I’ll thank you with this fist,” Cole said, shaking his closed hand at his friend. “Whisper Line? Is that really what it’s called?”
“Yeah, it is.” Jason took a seat at a stool farther down the bar. “Look it up. Hell, look in your bank account. They probably charged you an arm and a leg for that first text.”
Cole fumbled with his phone, swiping at the display. His fingers felt way too big and awkward for this. “Shit. You do it. I can’t type anything.”
“You are pathetic.” But Jason took his phone without further comment and found the Whisper Line website for Cole, who clumsily explored it. Success stories. Increases in intimacy. Real operators standing by. A photo gallery of the girls potential clients could look forward to chatting with.
And right there, for all the world to see, was Ivy. It was just plain Ivy—no surname—but it was her blond hair, her green eyes. Her smile, which brightened her entire face. There was a link to click, and an agreement that, if he filled it out and submitted it, promised to connect Cole to Ivy’s direct line.
“I thought she was the prettiest one,” Jason said, peering over Cole’s shoulder at the other thumbnails on the website. “The one who would push you the most out of your comfort zone.”
God, had it really been as random as that? The girl Jason thought was hot ending up being the one he’d fall in love with?
“I really am wavering in between hugging you and strangling you,” he informed Jason. His friend put his hands up and slowly backed away.
“Let me know when you veer more toward hugging,” Jason said.
“I have to talk to her,” Cole said.
“So talk. You probably have a lot of apologies to make.”
Cole nodded. “A lot. I ruined dinner this evening. A special one. She had something important she wanted to tell me.”
“Do you have any idea what that something might’ve been?”
“No.”
“Well, you could reconnect with her over that. Tell her you’re ready to hear whatever she was going to tell you. And that of course you’re sorry for ruining the dinner she’d made. What’d she make you?”
“There was steak.”
“You jackass.”
“I know.”
Cole had a sudden brainwave, and quickly—or as quickly as his too-thick fingers allowed—punched in the requisite information on the Whisper Line form and submitted it. He’d tell Ivy he was sorry through here. That he’d figured out the reason behind all the sexts on her phone. That he was okay with it. That he was an absolute idiot for making her feel bad, and for walking out on her like that.
But an error message popped up on his phone. “User not active,” it read. “Try another operator.”
“What does this mean?” Cole asked, showing his phone to Jason.
“I don’t know. Maybe she quit.”
Cole frowned. “Because of me?” He didn’t like the way that felt, that his reaction to that portion of Ivy’s life had pushed her into making a rash decision. He wondered just how lucrative the job was.
“You can’t know for certain unless you actually talk to her.” Jason stopped Cole from punching in Ivy’s number on his phone. “In person would probably work best for this.”
“I’ll go right now,” Cole said, standing up a little too fast from his seat and swaying a bit.
“Easy.” Jason was right there at his side. “You’re going to want to do this sober. I sincerely doubt Ivy would want to talk to you right now, in this condition. Especially with the way you smell—Christ!”
“I don’t smell bad.”
“You smell like the bottom of a mop pail, but only if someone had been mopping with stale beer.”
Cole spluttered. “That doesn’t even make any sense.”
“And neither do you right now. Go home. Sober up. And go in there first thing in the morning and get that girl back. She’s good for you.”
“Thanks, man.” Cole nearly crashed into Jason, wrapping him up in a powerful embrace. “You’re a good friend.”
“I know I am. Doing all this matchmaking and advice-giving. Maybe I should retire from the Navy, too. Be a life coach. Get rich.”
“Maybe…” Cole said, but his dubious tone just made Jason laugh so hard the bartender glared at them.
Chapter 15
Ivy
Ivy opened her eyes and squinted at the bright, early morning light filtering in through her windows. She glanced at the alarm clock on her bedside table and groaned. It was so early. She should be sleeping in. More time asleep meant less time awake, and less time agonizing over Cole and the way everything had happened.
What had woken her up?
A frantic banging sounded on the door, and she had her answer. What in the world was someone doing at her apartment this early? Where was the emergency?
Ivy heaved herself out of bed and shrugged on a robe, barely able to keep her eyes open. The knocking continued, peppered with short blasts from her doorbell.
“I’m coming!” Ivy yelled, besieged by the noise. “Jesus!”
She unlocked and threw open the door without checking the peephole, because she didn’t care who was on the other side of it. They were getting an earful of exactly how Ivy felt about unexpected and incessant early-morning wakeup calls. Especially if it was someone trying to sell her something. Ivy was fully prepared to make groups of little girls selling fundraising cookies weep because of how early it was.
All of the insults she’d prepared, however, died in her throat when she saw Cole standing there, rumpled, dressed in the same clothes he’d been wearing yesterday. His eyes were a little bloodshot and bordered with deep circles, like he’d had as much trouble sleeping as she had, and the attractive stubble he always seemed to sport was leaning a little more toward the beginnings of a beard. It looked good on him. Made him look more accessible, somehow. Softer. Something she wouldn’t mind rubbing her cheek against amid all those hard muscles.
Ivy opened her mouth to comment, then closed it again. She wasn’t sure where they stood with each other. Whether they were in a place where she could compliment him on the shadow of a beard.
Cole took a deep breath and held up a rumpled bouquet of flowers that looked like they had seen better days.
“Would you believe that there isn’t a single flower shop open in the city at this hour?” he asked.
“It is a very early hour,” she said slowly. “Most people aren’t even awake.”
He studied her for a moment, then winced minutely, his face falling a little. “You were asleep.”
“I was. Finally.”
She took the bouquet of flowers from Cole if only to stop him from holding them out for her to take. They were nice flowers, really—or at least they would’ve been a day or two ago. The petals were just a little too dry in some places, and a little too wilted in others. The bouquet of roses had been nicer, even if thinking about them made her stomach heave.
“So, if every flower shop in D.C. is closed this morning, where’d you come up with the flowers?”
“I picked and chose the best ones from the trash behind the flower shops,” Cole explained. “I thought they were worth saving. Maybe people wouldn’t pay money for them, but they didn’t deserve to be thrown away.”
“They’re very pretty.” They still smelled nice, anyway. She hesitated, part of her wanting to get the flowers in the water they were lacking, the rest of her needing to get to the bottom of whatever was going on here. “Cole, what are you doing here?” Because Ivy wasn’t sure she could
take this uncertainty. He’d left her apartment yesterday in a way that made her not so sure she’d ever see him again.
“Jason told me I should wait until the morning,” Cole said. “Or else I would’ve been here last night. Well, technically this morning, still. But a lot earlier.”
“It’s not even seven yet,” Ivy said. “In case you didn’t realize.”
“It was as late as I could wait, Ivy.” His blue eyes burned into her. “I had to tell you that I need you. I can’t be without you. I don’t want to be, and I can’t. I need you, and I love you.”
Ivy felt like if she didn’t sit down, she’d fall down. “You’d better come inside if we’re going to have this discussion.”
She waited for Cole to get settled on the couch—the same couch they’d been having amazing sex on just hours before—and busied herself with finding a vase for the battered bouquet of flowers.
Try as she might, though, Ivy couldn’t turn up another vase. She hadn’t ever considered the possibility that she would need two of them at the same time. She paused for a moment more—it just felt wrong—before sticking the latest flowers in with the roses from yesterday. It made for a riotous, mismatched bouquet. Imperfect, but still beautiful.
She turned, fully expecting Cole to be fast asleep for how quiet he was, but he was just sitting there. Watching her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have run out of here like that. It was a cowardly thing to do. I should’ve stayed and heard what you were going to say.”
“Do you want to hear it?”
“Yes,” he said, nodding eagerly. “I want to hear anything you have to say to me. Everything. But I should warn you that I’m in love with you. And that nothing you can say will change that for me.”
“Cole…” He was almost manic with eager energy. Was he drunk? Was that what was going on here? Dumpster diving for day-old flowers seemed like a drunken activity. She couldn’t blame him, though. She’d cracked open one of the bottles of wine during her reality TV binge.
“What can I say to prove it to you?” he asked her. “What can I do?”
“You don’t have to do or say anything,” Ivy said. “I’m just happy to see you, honestly.” It was true. Even with the uncertainty that was going on—the slow, seeping shock of his presence—something about his broad frame and heavy muscles making her couch dip in the middle warmed Ivy’s heart.
He shook his head, adamant. Stubborn. “I need something. To show you I really mean it.”
Ivy couldn’t help a small, incredulous laugh. “Cole, you went dumpster diving in the wee hours of the morning to bring me a bouquet. Another bouquet. Did you forget about the roses you brought me yesterday? You’re golden. I promise.”
His face lit up. “The Silver Star.”
“What?”
“The reason I got the Silver Star. I told you I didn’t like to talk about it, and I don’t. But you should know. I was in… Well, that part really is classified, but I can skirt around the details.”
“Cole, I’m going to stop you right there.” Ivy took his big hands in hers. For a single, surreal moment, she wished she was bigger than he was just so she could take him in her arms. Use brute strength to convince him that everything was going to be okay. “I love you.”
“You don’t understand—”
“Maybe I don’t.” She cut him off again, hoping she wasn’t being too brutal. “But I will. And Cole? We have all the time in the world for that. Don’t you want to take your time? Don’t you want to know about those texts you saw on my phone?”
“I don’t care,” Cole blurted out. “I overreacted. I understand, now, and I’m sorry.”
“You haven’t even heard what I was going to say,” Ivy said slowly. “What I need to say.”
“My friend, Jason. He signed me up for Whisper Line on a bar crawl. That’s why I didn’t remember.”
Ivy breathed out a laugh, shocked and amused in the same exhalation. “I hope I get to meet him someday.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. So I can kick him right in the balls.”
Cole laughed, and it was music to her ears. “You’re going to have to get in line. Though he did bring up a pretty good point, when I called him on it.”
“Which was?”
“That we wouldn’t have met without him.”
“Oh.” Ivy smiled. “Then I’ll have to give him a hug after I kick him in the balls.”
“I tried to contact you last night on Whisper Line.”
Her smile faltered. “You did? Why?”
“To tell you everything was all right. Or that everything was going to be all right. If you wanted it to be, that is.”
“I do want everything to be all right. To iron out all these wrinkles. To have a future with you.”
“It didn’t go through, though.”
“What didn’t?”
“The direct line to you. With Whisper Line.”
“None of the texts yesterday should’ve,” Ivy said glumly. “I can set working hours and time off on the website, but there must’ve been a glitch. I wasn’t supposed to work yesterday. I was supposed to have dinner with you—and tell you about Whisper Line.”
Cole stared at her, recognition dawning over his face. “The important thing you wanted to tell me.”
“Yep.” She smiled ruefully. “And I would’ve, too, if not for that pesky couch sex.”
“There was nothing pesky about that couch sex.” He leaned closer. “And if you think there was, I would gladly try to convince you otherwise. Right here, right now.”
Ivy gave him a playful push. “Not right now. We’re having serious talk.”
“We are.” Cole nodded carefully. “You shouldn’t quit Whisper Line.”
Ivy faltered. “What?”
“It’s your job,” he said with a small shrug. “I ran out of here thinking you had twenty different boyfriends, judging from those texts I saw, and I thought I was number 21. I was jealous, and stupid, and hurt. Whisper Line is just a job. I’m not going to fault you for earning money.”
“It’s paying my way through medical school,” Ivy said.
“Damn, it is good money,” Cole said with a low whistle. “I don’t want you to think you have to change for me. That’s not what this is about at all. I fully support you in whatever you do, but I want you to know that if you don’t want to work for Whisper Line anymore, you don’t have to.”
Ivy was so confused. “What do you mean?”
Cole reached out, tentative, evidently unsure of how she would take physical contact from him right now. Ivy closed her eyes and put her cheek in the palm of his hand, marveling at the roughness of his skin, the callouses earned from hard, physical work.
“I mean that I’d gladly support you during your last year of med school if you wanted to quit,” Cole explained, his voice soft, his thumb rubbing her skin. “I have a job offer from Curtis Prime.”
Ivy’s breath caught in her throat. So Cole had been waiting to tell her news that evening, too. If only her phone hadn’t ruined everything. Pesky couch sex, indeed.
“Cole, that’s amazing, and so, so generous of you, but do you know how much med school costs? Just a semester of it?”
“I can handle it. I know I can. But I’m not forcing you to make a decision based on me and what I want you to do, okay? You know what I want you to do? Be happy. That’s all. And if it’s working at Whisper Line that makes you happy, you do that. If it’s kicking me off your couch and out of your apartment and telling me to go to hell, go for it. Just be happy. It’s all I want for you, Ivy.”
She shook her head slowly. It was so hard to believe that this was happening. That everything in the last 24 hours had happened at all.
“I’m happiest with you,” she said. That was the easy part. Cole lifted parts of her heart that Ivy didn’t fully understand. “I didn’t think you’d come back, and now you’re here.”
“I’ll be here for as long as you’ll have me,” h
e said. “I promise. I won’t be stupid like this ever again.”
“And I’d get a lot more studying done if I didn’t have to devote so much time to Whisper Line,” Ivy said. “I’d probably get to fit in more shadowing time at the hospital, and that’s worth its weight in gold.”
“Whatever you need. I’m here for you.”
Ivy expelled a long breath and rested her hand on Cole’s shoulder. “There’s only one problem with all of this, though.”
She almost hated herself for the way his face fell, for the way the light went out a little in those blue eyes. Almost.
“What’s the problem?” Cole asked, voice dull.
Ivy allowed a wicked grin to creep across her face. “Who in this wide world is going to benefit from my superior sexting skills? I’ve been told that I have a gift.”
Cole laughed, his matching grin delighted. “You can focus all of those on me.”
She clucked her tongue. “I don’t know, Cole. I’m not sure that the full force and attention of my sexting is something you can handle.”
“It is something I will devote the rest of my life to handling,” he vowed. “Bring on the sexting.”
“What if I bring on the real thing, seeing as how we’re together, on this couch.”
“Couch is good,” Cole said, nodding thoughtfully, petting the cushion. “Bed might be better.”
“You think so?”
He nodded gravely. “Last time I had you on this couch, I almost fucked it through the wall.”
Ivy laughed as she pressed her legs together in anticipation. “The bed it is, then.”
“Ivy?”
“Hm?”
She turned and he kissed her, the full brunt of his love on display. He loved her, and she loved him. There had never been anything as clear as that in her entire life. Just the fact that there was so much love there.
Cole stood from the couch and instead of pulling Ivy to her feet, like she expected him to do, he simply gathered her up in his arms and carried her to the bedroom. She landed on the bed with a bounce, but Cole was right behind her, lips locking with hers again, looking like he was both unwilling and unable to come up for air anytime soon.
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