Free Get a Grip (Hollywood Nights) by Cara North

in the sun as she did now. “What are you doing? I thought you wanted to live in your house. It is like the size of three of mine.”
    “And there is like two of us.” Bo pointed out the obvious. “I bought that house for the wrong reason. I don’t have any emotional attachment to it. You obviously enjoy this place. I like it too. I could see myself here.”
    “You could?” She laughed. “How long?”
    “Maybe forever.”
    “That’s a long time.” She fidgeted with her shirt hem.
    “You’re closer to the beach which means closer to the waves.” He tried to put her at ease any way he could.
    “So the surfing is what you really want?” She tried to kid back but it wasn’t quite genuine. He needed to let her know he was serious.
    “Come here.” He held out his arm and she moved to stand with him. “Look at that porch. You already have a swing hanging from it. Now all we need are a few grandkids running around and we’d be happy old people.”
    “Grandkids?” She laughed again. “I think you may be missing a few steps along the way.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like the fact that you don’t love me, and we would need kids to have…”
    “Wait, back up. What did you say?” He turned to face her. He looked down and she looked up.
    “You don’t love me.” Her eyes showed a hint of fear mixed with hope.
    “Says who?” Bo could feel his heart thumping in his chest. His pulse ran wild, his fingers itched to tremble. His mouth was on autopilot and he couldn’t seem to stop it.
    “Says…”
    “What is love, Ivy?” he asked. “Isn’t it just the feeling of acceptance? It’s held together with forgiveness, threaded with doubt and worry, sewn into our minds by the feelings we get. It’s chemistry, and we have that. If I don’t love you, then I guess I don’t know how I feel.”
    “You love me?” Her eyes widened.
    “Either that or I am bat-shit crazy.” Bo was wondering if he had stumbled upon a bit of both the emotion and a loss of sanity.
    She tiptoed up to kiss him. He wrapped his arms around her and admitted to himself that he was in fact in love with Ivy. He had been for years. The real question remained, did she or would she love him?
     
     
    ***
    Ivy was happy that Bo loved her. She was sure she could love him too. She hadn’t been in love before so she didn’t know when it would hit her and she would know for sure. She knew for sure she was in lust with him, that she wanted to rip the hair out of that assistant’s head when she touched his arm that day. She had never felt violent before. Bo stirred something in her that made her both excited by and afraid of it.
    She craved his touch more than she needed oxygen. She didn’t think that emotions in bed were enough to say she loved him. She wanted to know more about him first. She wanted some surge of emotion to possess her and shake her through and through with undeniable proof of love. She wanted to feel it the way she had imagined it in her roles in the movies.
    Bo followed her to the bedroom and looked at what Mathis had prepared for her. “That’s surprising.”
    “What is?” she asked.
    “Well, Dale is pretty consistent. He’s loud. His clothes are loud, even when he is not dressed as Barbie. He buys loud gifts for everyone else. For my birthday last year he sent me a pink polo shirt and a note that read, real men wear pink.” Bo laughed.
    “Did you wear it?”
    “I am a real man.” He winked at her. “I could hardly focus on that little dude because he was so bright against the sun outside. I half expected to find a similar outfit for you.”
    Ivy laughed. “No, he doesn’t push his fashion on anyone else. Though I will say sometimes we do borrow from one another . He is like family to me. Except, unlike the rest of my family, my nephews and nieces excluded, Mathis actually does work to earn what I give him.”
    She looked at Bo and asked, “Which do you like best?”
    “You could put on a paper bag and I’d think