Page 84 of An Investigator For Ivy

“If you think so, in a way. But here’s the funniest thing I heard that I was clueless about and made a bunch of people laugh. It was so embarrassing, but I was at a college party. Someone commented about drinking the Kool-Aid. I asked where it was, saying I’d try it.”

“Oh God,” he said. “You didn’t?”

“Yep,” she said. “I wanted to fit in. We were drinking and I thought that it was there and I was going to prove that I’d drink it. I had no idea that it meant only idiots were drinking the Kool-Aid. To follow along and be manipulated.”

She’d been trying to catch the eye of a guy that night. She did, all right. Not in a good way.

Nope, he said she should be a blonde and then busted on her the rest of the night.

Her feelings had been so hurt, but she’d refused to let anyone know how much it bothered her.

She battled her tears back and then left the party and went to her grandparents' house rather than her dorm. No one knew where she’d gone that weekend, but she needed to be alone.

She’d called Jasmine that night crying. Woke her up, but her sister understood and was a good ear for her.

They’d laughed and compared notes on the things they’d both been exposed to that everyone knew but them.

Her grandmother coddled her that weekend and spoiled her with ice cream and her favorite foods, took her shopping and then sent her back to college on Sunday night with her feeling better.

Maybe that was why she needed so much help. She should have just squared her shoulders and tackled it like her sisters did, but she didn’t.

“Sounds like everyone was immature,” he said. “But then I get that is what happens in college. Now you are an adult and should do what you just did. Ask what it means. If someone laughs at you, you explain calmly that you didn’t grow up in America and you’d like to know.”

“And if they laugh, they can go pound salt, right?” she asked, smiling. “They aren’t worth my time.”

“Exactly,” he said. “We can go in now.”

“Because finding out I got picked on pissed you off and stopped the fact of you thinking of me naked?”

“Ivy!” he all but growled. “Yes. Stop talking about seeing you naked.”

“Okay,” she said, laughing. “I feel better now too. We can get some food.”

She opened the door and got out of his truck. He held the door to the restaurant open for her and she bit back saying no man had done that for her other than family.

She really did have shitty taste in guys in the past.

Maybe she did need someone older.

Someone raised right.

He said he didn’t come from much, but he came from all the right things.

Brooks Scarsdale had a moral code and values a mile long and, as Raine had said, he didn’t show it to many, but when he did, you knew.

Ivy knew and she was going to feel special, but she sure the hell wasn’t going to let him know what she was thinking.

It could be her little secret to get her through the times he might not be around as much as she’d like.

In her mind, maybe it was a fair trade.

Yep, that was the mature thought to have and she was going to remind herself that time and again. That on her twenty-seventh birthday she was treated with respect. Finally!

25

Our Thing

“Hope I’m not too early,” Ivy said when he opened the door for her on Saturday afternoon.

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