Young Writers Society

A/N: I realize that I’m skipping quite a few days where Grey and Ivy probably interact. But I kinda don’t want them to interact at all between when Grey asks her out and when he picks her up for the date. I’ll have to get the logistics of this down in future revisions. ALSO: and this is somewhat important to future revising me to remember, this book is sort of historical fiction. Which means that, although I’m taking some liberties with certain things like speaking patterns etc., I think I really should make this courtship much more formal and socially-acceptable to the Victorian era. Right now, it’s basically modern-day dating rules, but Victorian England had crazy rules regarding male and female relations. Even for the middle/lower class. I will definitely have to revise that heavily later, after a ton of research.

Grey

~1176 words

Grey took a deep breath to calm himself. He stood right outside the front door to the flower shop, his fist raised, about to knock. His stomach felt queasy and his heart rate was out of control. He found he simultaneously didn’t have the guts to go through with this and couldn’t wait another second to knock, so instead, he took another deep breath. Then he imagined Ivy peeking through a window at him. What would she think if she’d seen him standing in front of her door, halfway to knocking, for a full minute? Grey steeled himself, and then knocked.

He could hear a door close and footsteps crossing to the door. So she hadn’t been watching him through a window after all. Grey let out a breath of relief, but as the door whipped open, Ivy’s sudden beauty took his breath away. Ivy always wore dresses or skirts, but today the dress was especially fine. It was a pretty green color that seemed to make her dark olive skin glow. She was also wearing some kind of substance on her lips that was pale and pink and made her lips glossy. She was absolutely stunning. Not in the way that Ruby was stunning, but in a quiet, self-assured but still shy way. It was hard to explain.

“Hi Grey,” Ivy said with a smile.

Grey realized he’d been looking at her for half a breath too long. He cleared his throat. “Hey Ivy. You look… amazing.”

Ivy looked away and flushed. “Thank you. You don’t look to bad yourself.”

Grey’s head jerked back slightly in surprise. The only other woman who had ever said something like that to Grey had been Ruby, and Grey didn’t think she’d really meant it. He surreptitiously glanced down to check his outfit to see what he might be wearing that would make Ivy say something like that. He was wearing what he usually wore. Sure, the shirt was the nicest one he owned, but it could hardly be considered a nice shirt. He’d taken extra effort to try to make his hair lay down flat, but it just wouldn’t. Maybe it was that he’d gotten every last speck of dirt and soot off his face. But still, his face was always covered in acne, and there was nothing he could do for that. He concluded that Ivy was just being polite. He smiled anyway. “Thanks. So, are you ready?”

“Yeah!” Ivy bounced on the balls of her feet. “Where are we going?”

“Well I was thinking for dinner we could just go to The Silver Crane Inn. I know it’s nothing fancy, but it’s all I can really afford.” Grey could feel his face growing hot. It wasn’t easy to admit how broke he really was. Buying the scrying sphere from Jack had depleted most of his pocket money. He’d had to borrow some money from Alder. But thankfully, Alder just seemed to be glad Grey was doing on a date at all, and seemed more than happy to lend him the price of a dinner.

“Are you kidding?” Ivy asked.

Grey’s heart sank immediately. She didn’t want to go on the date. He was too poor and her tastes were too highbrow as befit a beautiful woman like her.

“The Silver Crane has my favorite potato soup of all time! Even my dad’s couldn’t compare!” She was grinning ear to ear now. “Not to mention their fresh cheese scones. That’s a great choice, Grey!”

Grey breathed another relieved sigh. He was getting too wound up about this. Ivy was too polite to refuse a date she’d accepted just because she suddenly didn’t like the restaurant. It was the real part of the date, testing out his new machine that he should be worried she wouldn’t like. That’d been what had kept Grey up all the night before worrying about. One thing at a time, Grey thought. He took a deep breath and offered Ivy his arm. She took it, and they walked through the streets he had recently lit.

Grey felt like he was floating, with the prettiest girl in town next to him. He couldn’t believe she would actually agree to go on a date with a loser like him, but now that she had, he was walking on air. They soon reached The Silver Crane Inn and took a seat at a table set into a little alcove. There was a moment of awkward silence after that took their seats where it seemed neither knew what to say.

“So I’ve never come here before,” Grey began. “Anything you suggest?”

“The potato soup of course! And the cheese scones! You’re just going to love them. I know it,” Ivy burbled.

Grey was in awe of her enthusiasm and beauty again. She looked especially pretty in the half-light of the candle-lit tavern. The flickering light reflected off her glossy black hair and in her dark eyes. “I guess that’s what I’ll order then.”

There were a few more seconds of silence where Grey frantically tried to think up some ice-breaking questions, but thankfully he was saved by the appearance of a disgruntled waitress.

“What’ll it be?” she asked, setting down two glasses of water.

“Two bowls of your potato soup and a platter of cheese scones, please,” Grey said.

“Sure thing.” The waitress jotted something down with chalk on a piece of slate she carried, then looked at Ivy and Grey for what seemed like the first time. “Ivy!” she said, her voice dropping its brusqueness. “I haven’t seen you in a while. I should’ve figured it was you from the order.” She laughed

“Hi Claire! It’s good to see you too!” Ivy said with a bright smile. “This is Grey!”

Claire gave Grey a once-over and seemed to be somewhat dissatisfied with what she saw. “You treat Ivy right, mind you Grey. Or you’ll have me to reckon with.” She turned back to Ivy, “I’ll have your soups and scones right out.” And the waitress was right. They must have had some pre-made and ready to go in the back because she was back in just a matter of minutes, just enough time for Ivy to have apologized for Claire’s behavior.

“Thanks, Claire,” said Ivy, after the steaming bowls had been placed before them.

“No problem, kiddo. And if he give you any problems,” she leaned down, lowered her voice, and cut her eyes over to where Grey sat, “you just come to me, okay?” She straightened up and said, more lightly, “And do come back soon, Ivy. I swear I perish when I don’t see your face for months and months like this.” With that, Clair finally left them alone.

Ivy had been absolutely right. The potato soup was amazing, and warmed not only Grey’s stomach, but also his heart. But perhaps that was just a side-effect of sharing a meal with Ivy. Now that they had something to do with their hands, conversation began to flow easily, and they talk about everything and nothing.