Page 47 of Rule Number One
CHAPTER TEN
IVY
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“Wow, you weren’t kidding. The colors are incredible!” I said as Ethan wound the car along the gorgeous Door County roads. “It looks like someone painted everything.”
“Yeah. Fall in Door County is really gorgeous. It’s been a few years since I’ve been in town to see the leaves change, so I’m pretty psyched actually to be back for peak season.”
“I just want to run through the woods and leap into an enormous pile of leaves.”
He laughed. “Well, that can be arranged quite easily if you want. Hell, I’ll join you. Been a long time since I dove into a leaf pile.”
“I’m doing it. I’m adding it to my list of things I want to do. You know, to be more spontaneous.”
“You have alistto be more spontaneous?” He snorted. “Isn’t making a list kind of going against being spontaneous? Like, the idea of spontaneity is to just do without thinking or planning.”
“Okay, fine.” I glared over at him. “So not a list to be more spontaneous, but like a bucket list. Better?”
“Yes. Better. So, what else is on this bucket list of yours?”
“I don’t really know yet. I just started thinking about it last night when I went to bed.”
“Well, please do keep me apprised as to what you end up putting on this list besides jumping into a pile of leaves.”
“I will.” I smiled over at him, and when he smiled back, I felt my resolve to hang onto rule number one slipping farther away. We’d spent an entire evening in my apartment eating Chinese and watching our favorite movies. We’d ended up spending more time talking than watching, and I’d started to feel so relaxed and natural with him. It seemed we had more in common than I’d expected, and our conversations flowed so easily. Not to mention how exciting it was listening to all his crazy stories.
He was only twenty-eight to my twenty-six, but he’d already done about a thousand more things in his life than I had. Me? I’d gone to school, then college, got a job, and basically spent every day doing the same damn thing. Get up, make coffee, go to work, come home, make dinner, binge watch my favorite shows, and go to bed. Paired with almost always being in a relationship, I had never really stretched my wings and lived. Not like Iris did and not like Ethan did. This trip had been incredibly eye-opening for me, and I knew that when I got back to Chicago, I was going to make some big changes in my life.
But for now, I was going to enjoy every minute that I could of this new adventure with Ethan ... and I was going to do everything I could to keep my damn tongue out of his mouth and go catching feelings again. Falling for a guy right when I’d vowed to be single and free for the first time in my life would be the opposite of my best intentions.
Didn’t matter how hot he was or that he could make me belly laugh until I almost peed. Didn’t matter that every time I looked at him, my pulse revved up like an Indy car at the starting line. Didn’t matter thatallI could think about was the kiss that had spun my world upside down and lit up a fire inside me I didn’t know how I’d ever put out.
None of that mattered now. I just had to enjoy spending time with him as a friend, learn more from him about how to live a life free from boundaries, and somehow make it back to Chicago without falling head over heels for him like I so desperately wanted to do.
Stay the course, Ivy. Single and free. That’s the goal.
We turned another corner, and the most incredible clear, blue water sprawled out in front of us.
“Oh, wow! That’s gorgeous! It’s so blue, and with all the colorful trees surrounding it, that looks like a freaking postcard.”
“Too bad it’s not summer. We could get out on the water while you’re here. This place is called the Door County peninsula, but technically, since some guys made a canal many years ago that cut it in half, it’s actually an island since we have to cross a bridge to get here. Like going to Paradise Isles, although those were always islands and they just built bridges to connect them to the mainland and each other. But both are a water lover’s dream. And since I detail boats up here, I always have access to a ton to get out and enjoy it. Waterskiing, fishing, meeting friends, and tying up to make a big flotilla and spending a full day bobbing away, drinking cocktails, and jumping off the bow. It’s heaven.”
“Yeah. Sounds like it.” I blew out a breath. “And then in the winter, you just head south and do the same thing in Paradise Isles?”
“Yep. The way my job works is that I pull all the boats out of storage up here, usually at the beginning of May. I detail them, clean them, tune them up and get them in the water for my clients. By the middle of June, I’m pretty much done, so I just get to enjoy the rest of the summer off with only an occasional call if someone dings something and needs a little work done. Then I stick around here until mid-September when all the boats get pulled off the water again. By October, they are all cleaned up and stored, and I head down to Paradise Isles to repeat the whole process, just backward. I detail boats from October through November and then put them away in March before all the snowbirds head back up again.”
“So, really, you only work like four months out of the year?”
He grinned. “Yep. I bust my ass those four months, and then the rest of the time is freed up to go do all the crazy shit I get up to.”
“Ah! So that’s how you do it! Working forty hours a week, fifty-plus weeks a year certainly doesn’t allow for things like jumping on a catamaran and sailing to the Bahamas.”
“Nope. And that’s exactly why you’ll never catch me in an office. I finally have things exactly how I want them.”
“That’s awesome. I need to figure out what I want to do too.”
“And it’s not risk management? Isn’t that what you do now?”