“Good luck on that,” Jeffrey told him. Then he stuck his hand out to Ivan’s to shake. He said, “I’ll definitely be calling you, Ivan. But let me get back to my lady before she starts to complain.”

Ivan laughed back and said, “Yeah, you don’t want that to happen. So just call me up, man, we’ll talk. You need another business card?”

At first Jeffrey hesitated. Then he said, “Yeah, give me a couple of them.”

Ivan pulled out his business cards and handed a few over.

When it was just him and Lucina again, she immediately asked her partner, “So, what did he want to talk to you about?”

“Business,” Ivan told her.

“Did he mention any parties?”

Ivan looked at her, confused. Obviously she had had a different kind of discussion with Jeffrey. Ivan hadn’t talked about a party with him at all. And since he didn’t want to say the wrong thing at the wrong time, he figured that maybe the middle of a party was not the right place or time to talk about it.

He asked her, “Can we talk about it later?”

Lucina stared at him and didn’t have a choice. They had other people to meet and talk to there. So she nodded and agreed. “Okay. We’ll talk about it later.”

Ivan continued going through the motions of meeting and greeting for the rest of the evening. When the clock had fallen on the other side of midnight, he was more than ready to pack it up and ship it in. Nevertheless, Lucina still wanted to talk to him about his business conversation with Jeffrey Morefield.

“You told me later, and now it’s later,” she reminded Ivan at the end of the party. They had collected another three thousand dollars just from showing up and bringing a crowd. But after Lucina had sent her girls home, she was not willing to let Ivan off the hook so easily.

Ivan told her, “When I said later, I meant like tomorrow or the next day. Because I’m tired right now, Lucina.”

He realized she was used to having her way, but so was he.

“Well, do you need a ride home?” she asked him.

Ivan paused. He could use a ride. It was only up the street and around a few corners, but it beat having to walk.

“Yeah, that would be nice of you,” he told her.

Ivan walked with Lucina to her parked car, and she drove him to his apartment building in near silence. But once they arrived, she parked in a no-parking area instead of dropping him off out front.

Ivan asked her, “What are you doing?”

She looked him in his eyes and said, “I’m coming up with you.”

Ivan hesitated. Okay, what does that mean? he asked himself. He was tempted to ask her why. But he didn’t. He was curious.