Page 135 of An Investigator For Ivy

“Maybe,” she said. “But I can’t play games either. If he’s not ready to be all in, I can’t do it.”

“Good for you,” Lily said. “Don’t accept anything less than one hundred percent. You deserve it.”

Lily left a few minutes after that. It wasn’t ten minutes later there was another knock at her door. This time Rose.

“Wow. Are you coming to see how I’m doing too?”

Rose smiled. “I just wanted to come to offer some suggestions of places to stick a needle in the voodoo doll that Poppy was going to make. You can thank me for stopping her. But she’ll gladly make one if you want her to.”

Ivy laughed. She didn’t realize how much she needed all this support.

Rose didn’t stick around and she was fine with that. She needed to get some work done anyway. There was no way she was letting her personal life affect her job.

No more. She was over the drama. She boasted she’d matured and she felt she had. That meant being responsible too.

Hours later, when her phone rang, she reached for it quickly hoping it was Brooks and hating herself for that response.

She wished she could control her reactions, but her body just did what it wanted.

The bigger surprise came when she saw it was her father calling. Not her mother’s cell phone, but her father for Facetime.

“Dad,” she said. “How come you’re not in bed?”

“I’m going to bed soon,” her father said. His thinning hair was a mess as if he’d been running his hands through it. He looked tired like normal but aging more than she remembered. “Your mother is sleeping and I was just finishing up some work. I thought I’d check in with you.”

“You know what is going on, don’t you?”

“Dahlia has kept your mother posted,” her father said.

“I talked to Mom yesterday,” she said. It seemed her mother was keeping in more contact with her too. Guess her sisters must have given the impression her relationship with Brooks was more than the relationships she’d had in the past with other men.

“She told me,” her father said. “She said you sound good.”

“I am,” she said.

“That’s why I’m calling,” her father said.

“Because I sound good?” she asked. She didn’t understand this.

“Yes,” her father said. “Ivy. You’ve always been the emotional one.”

“I’ve heard it before,” she said, her shoulders dropping. She didn’t need another hit right now.

“You can’t help being who you are. Maybe we shouldn’t have always focused on all that was wrong and should have paid more attention to what was right.”

It seemed like it was a little late to be hearing this in life, but it still felt good.

“You can’t go back and change things,” she said. She’d thought of that the past few weeks.

What could she have done differently with Brooks?

Then she told herself to stop. She was starting to realize it wasn’t her.It was him.

“That’s a very mature thing to say,” her father said.

“I’m not a kid anymore.”

“No,” her father said. “You aren’t. Do you wear your tiger necklace much?”

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