Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
“What’s this?” Nora eyed two plates of chocolate chip pancakes—her childhood favorite.
“I know you’re nervous about your meeting with the big music producer today. I could see it on your face all weekend.”
The weekend had gone by in a flash. While Gram sorted through her drawers for clothes she planned to donate to a secondhand shop, Nora poured herself into mapping out the final weeks of school and getting ready for her meeting with Blaze.
But also she’d worried about what Ivy had said outside the library: that she didn’t want school to end. That worry and her preparation for her meeting with Blaze had prompted Nora to use the weekend to try to secure a family therapist for the Rymans. She’d found one who seemed promising named Emma Simpson, and she’d sent the woman an email. She planned to bring up Ms. Simpson’s name in today’s meeting.
“Sit,” Gram said lovingly.
With twenty minutes to spare before she needed to leave for school, Nora took a seat at the table, and Gram poured her a glass of milk.
“Ivy is all-consuming. I don’t really know how to help her in my capacity, but she seems to connect with me.” Nora picked up the syrup and drizzled it over the steaming pancakes.
“You might not have been expecting Ivy, but you know firsthand what it’s like to lose a parent. You’re in the unique position to help her through something similar while encouraging a stronger relationship between her and her dad. I’d focus on that with her father today.”
Nora cut a piece of pancake. “It’s not really ethical to spill the beans about my past, but maybe it wouldn’t hurt to give Ivy a little bit about myself if it’ll help in some way.”
“You’ll know just what to do when the time comes.” Gram patted her shoulder.
“Thank you for breakfast.”
“You’re welcome, dear.”
Two weeks to go and then two weeks of paradise. She could do this.
* * *
Over the weekend, Nora had completed all the end-of-year documents that she could, put in her recommendations for classes for a few on her caseload, and even made herself a ten-day check-off sheet with a picture of the beach cottage at the top to mark the days she had left. When she’d got to school she’d posted it by her desk and immediately marked off day one with a red marker.
The morning went on without incident, until it was time to prepare for Blaze Ryman’s arrival. The reality of who she was meeting with set in, and her nerves got the better of her. She walked around her office, breathing in deeply for three, holding for three, and exhaling for four in an attempt to slow her pulse. The calming strategy worked just as he knocked on the doorframe.
“Miss Jenkins?”
Nora spun around to find the uber handsome and impeccably dressed Blaze Ryman in the flesh. His shoulders were broader in real life, and his eyes more vivid. He came in with the kind of smile that only a model could offer, and she swallowed then cleared her throat to remind herself that she was still there, standing in front of him and not floating around in some dream. Behind him, two teachers in the hall craned their necks to get a glimpse of him. She forced herself out of her starstruck daze and shook his hand.
“Nice to meet you.” She offered him a chair at her therapy table and shut her door, closing off more discreet onlookers. “Please, have a seat.” She sat down across from him, in front of her paperwork about Ivy.
“I’m sorry again that it took me so long to meet with you. Trying to rearrange my schedule is a nightmare. I usually need a six-month lead.”
He flashed that smile that sent her pulse rising. He probably used his charm on everyone, but it wouldn’t have the same impact today.
“I’ve been working around the clock to keep things going while attempting to clear out my schedule to have more time with Ivy,” he said. “It probably doesn’t look like it, but I’m trying.”
She cleared her throat again. Why did she keep doing that? “Well, I wanted to meet with you to talk about some of the behaviors we’ve seen from Ivy and our suggestions for how to best meet her needs in the time we have before summer break.” Nora slid the conduct report toward him. “I’ve been actively trying to support Ivy, but she has shown aggression toward other students, and she’s been accused of destruction of property…”
The million-dollar smile melted away, and lines of stress formed on Blaze’s forehead. In that moment, he looked like any other parent who’d just viewed a long list of behavior issues from his child.
“I don’t think this list is indicative of who Ivy is,” Nora added, wanting to stand up for the girl. “If I might be candid, personally, I see her actions as less to do with defiant behavior and more as a cry for help. I think she misses her mom, and she wants the company of her father—it’s as simple as that.”
He rubbed his forehead, the weight clear. Air filled his chest. “I’m not very good at this. I’m better at putting in eighteen-hour days, on the phone to agents, flying back and forth across the country to scout talent, or working in the studio.” He shook his head. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes that I can’t undo…”
“I understand.” But she didn’t. She had no idea what it took to do what Blaze did or the mistakes he might be referencing. She didn’t want to know. Her goal was to secure a stable environment for Ivy before the end of the school year.
Those gray eyes landed on her, full of remorse.
“I don’t know how to be a dad,” he said. “I tried to get her nannies, but she runs them off. I’m hoping this family counselor will be helpful.”
A pinch formed in Nora’s neck. “On the topic of the family counselor,” she said, her mouth completely dry from the turn in conversation. “I’ve met with the one you chose several times, and I really don’t think she’s a good fit for Ivy.”
His gaze met hers with near desperation.
“Not to worry,” she said, pulling out the list of counselors she’d made. “I’ve found a few who I think would be more suitable and one in particular I’d like to try first. I emailed her to find out if we could fit into her schedule for an initial meeting to see if she connects with Ivy. Her name is Emma Simpson.”
His shoulders relaxed. “Okay.”
He seemed completely relieved that she’d done the legwork for him in finding another counselor. While Janine’s departure had been Nora’s fault, Blaze didn’t know that. Did he expect someone else to do all the work for him? Did he even care who Ivy’s counselor was? Did he realize what Ivy was going through at all?
“You know, I lost my parents in my twenties. I can’t imagine what it would be like to go through that kind of loss at seventeen.”
A palpable shame fell upon him, down-turning his features.
It wasn’t Nora’s place to judge him, and she shouldn’t have offered up such a personal bit of information anyway. She needed to focus on Ivy and the school setting. She passed him the document she and Principal Coleman had built for in-school support.
“Ivy seems to respond to visits to my office. It’s a quiet place away from the pressure of school and her peers, and she trusts me. So until the end of the school year, we’re building in time with me as a reward for good conduct.”
She tapped the goals she’d listed for Ivy. Blaze looked down at them, but he seemed miles away.
“We’d like to see her engage in less destructive behavior and begin to apply more appropriate coping strategies. I’ve listed the ones I plan to use with her here.” Nora uncapped her highlighter and drew over the strategies she’d included. “If you can support her at home by suggesting she use these coping strategies, that would be great.”
“All right.” He chewed on the edge of his lip, his gaze still on the paper. “I’ve got to finish these few big projects that were already planned. There are millions riding on them—I can’t let them go. After that, I’ve cleared some of my schedule, and I can spend more time with Ivy in the evenings.”
Nora leaned on the table, trying to find some spark of parenting ability in this man. She wasn’t supposed to offer child-rearing advice, but he wasn’t getting it.
“She might need more than evenings,” she said as kindly as she could, but still directly.
He stared at her, vulnerability swimming in his eyes. That confident man she’d seen on social media was nowhere to be found. He was regarded by so many as a powerhouse in his industry, but right now, he just seemed broken.
“I know,” he whispered, the words pained.
An uncomfortable silence sat between them.
Then, he pulled out his phone and opened a calendar app. “I’ll wrap up the last one this week.” He scrolled a bit, dragging little boxes around with his finger. “Can you hold on a second?”
“Of course.”
He dialed a number and put the phone to his ear. “Hey, Monique. Could you check with Bianca and see if she can do the Chip Morgan run?” He nodded, his gaze roaming around as he listened. “Great. And then move the Mike Richards project over to Susannah’s schedule. I’ll explain to Mike.”
He said his goodbyes and ended the call, setting the phone down on the table. “When I finish this current project, I’ll have a gap in my schedule.”
“That’s wonderful.”
“I don’t know how to… comfort her,” he admitted.
“I’m not your family counselor, so you might want to speak with her for strategies once you get someone offering regular therapy. But I can say that I’m hopeful that with the right interventions, we can get Ivy to a more stable emotional state. She’s a good kid.”
He nodded.
“She’s going to need some fatherly support this summer, though.”
“Yeah.” He stacked the papers and looked into her eyes again. “Thank you for all you do for Ivy. I know she’s been a handful.”
She offered him a consoling smile. “We’ll get there.”
His gray eyes met hers once more. She could get lost in those eyes. Couldn’t everyone?
When the class bell rang, she stood up to break the spell. “Ivy should be heading down at any minute.”
He rose and there was an uncomfortable air between them as they waited in silence for Ivy to arrive. Blaze wandered the room and began leafing through a copy of The Great Gatsby that one of her students in Mrs. Ellison’s fifth period had left accidentally.
“Would you believe I’ve never read this?” He held up the book. “What’s it about?”
“It’s about a man named Nick who intermingles with a millionaire named Jay Gatsby.”
Blaze turned the book over and scrutinized the back copy. “So it’s about a rich guy?”
“Well, kind of. And his fixation on reuniting with his lover.”
“Millionaires and lovers…” Blaze said with a huff of disbelieving laughter.
Nora’s cheeks heated up when he made the little joke. While the word “lovers” was absolutely not something she thought would filter into the conversation; his comment made her wonder how many lovers he’d probably had, which was not a thought she wanted to entertain. But given her ex-fiancé’s infidelity, her mind just went there.
Blaze didn’t seem as affected. He set down the book. “So Ivy tells me you two stayed after school last week.”
“Yes. I’m doing what I can to help her fill her afternoons.”
He peered over at her. “Thank you.”
Whenever he answered her, he looked directly into her eyes with absolute attention, making her feel as if she was the most important person in his world. She wanted to like how he did that, but she also didn’t trust it.
“Ivy tells me the two of you have some interests in common,” Nora said.
“Oh?”
“Hey.” Ivy came into the room. She lumped her bag onto one of the desks and gave her dad a flippant salute.
“I was telling your dad that you two have some similarities,” Nora said.
Ivy went over to her favorite beanbag. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Want to tell him about your… instrument?”
Ivy’s gaze bore into Nora. “Maybe later.”
Fearing she’d crossed some sort of imaginary line that would create a divide in her carefully curated connection to Ivy, Nora let it go.
“What instrument?” Blaze asked.
“It’s just something I used to do with Mom. It’s not important.” Ivy folded her arms. “So what are we here to talk about—the locker incident or my computer-hacking skills?”
“Neither,” Nora replied. “Your dad and I were talking about the counselor, his schedule in the next few weeks, and your plans for summer.”
“There’s a creative camp I thought you might like,” Blaze interjected. “It’s for young adults who have an interest in the arts.”
Ivy’s face glazed over in boredom.
“It might be fun,” Nora said.
Ivy tapped her heavy boot on the floor. “Then you go.”
“I also found a place you can do mission work,” Blaze said, coming over to her.
To Nora’s surprise, he sat down on the floor cross-legged, and she worried for an instant about the state of his designer trousers.
“You can stay in the city or fly to different countries to help dig wells, build schools, teach kids—whatever you like, they have lots of options.”
Ivy brightened just a little at that, but decided to pick at her nail instead of responding.
“And until the summer, we can work with the family therapist together to make sure we’ve found one that fits you.”
“Why can’t you just be my counselor for the summer?” Ivy asked Nora.
“Because that’s not what I do for a living.”
Ivy squinted at her. “But what if it’s off school grounds? You don’t work in the summer, right? Lots of teachers have other summer jobs.”
Nora sat on the sofa opposite Ivy and her dad. “I’m going to be on vacation for two weeks, so even if I could do it, I couldn’t offer consistency. But I’ll be here until school gets out.”
Ivy didn’t look convinced. “We’re not going to find a counselor who’s worth anything.”
“How do you know?”
“I just want you to do it.”
Blaze looked between Ivy and Nora. Nora eyed him helplessly. Why wasn’t he stepping in for support? He’d admitted he didn’t know how to be a parent, and from what she could see now, he wasn’t far off. Shouldn’t he back up Nora and tell Ivy his plans for the summer? But it was obvious that apart from clearing his schedule and considering a few activities, he hadn’t devised a strategy at all.
The bell for the end of class rang.
“Well, you’re free,” she said to Ivy with a smile.
Blaze stood up and brushed off his trousers.
“I’ll walk you all to the front office so your dad can sign out.”
Nora was deflated after having seen the look on Ivy’s face, but she was doing the right thing—after all, she was a high-school counselor, not a family therapist.
* * *
Nora lifted another heavy box of Gram’s clothes into the trunk of her car to take them to the secondhand shop that afternoon. When they’d gotten them all loaded, Gram buckled herself into the passenger’s seat of Nora’s car, and they drove into town to donate them.
“So how did the meeting go with Mr. Music Producer?” Gram asked.
“It was interesting,” Nora said, turning onto Hillsboro Pike as Blaze’s stormy eyes came to mind. She gripped the steering wheel and focused on the road.
But Gram’s laugh distracted her.
“What?” She glanced at her grandmother.
Gram chewed on a smile. “That good, huh?”
“I didn’t say it was good or bad.”
“The fire in your cheeks says another thing entirely.”
“Oh, please.” She willed the flush from her face. Why was her body reacting to the mention of Blaze?
“Is he as handsome in reality as he is on screen?”
She peered at her grandmother. “When have you ever seen Blaze Ryman on screen?”
“I might have peeked over your shoulder while you stalked him online.”
“Stop it,” she said with a laugh as she made a turn at the stoplight. “I wasn’t stalking him.”
“Call it what you like,” Gram said with another laugh. “You didn’t answer my question. Please tell me seeing him in real life wasn’t a letdown, and he’s actually short and pasty.”
Nora tried to block the memory of Blaze’s chiseled face and broad shoulders. “He’s more handsome, actually. No photo doctoring at all going on…”
Gram sucked in a breath. “Oh, to be young and fit again… You should make up an excuse to get him back into your office. Tell him you’d like weekly check-ins about his daughter or something. Maybe there could be fireworks.” Her eyebrows bounced suggestively.
Nora laughed. “One, I doubt that very much. And two, I’d never date a student’s parent. I’ve dated someone in the workplace, and you know how that turned out.”
“Carson wasn’t right for you anyway.”
“You could’ve told me that before I got engaged to him.”
Nora had been in a three-year relationship with Carson Jennings, one of the counselors at her last job, and they were only engaged for a few months before he called it off. He’d told her he’d fallen for another of the counselors, a new colleague by the name of Molly Davis. Nora had asked him how he could possibly know already that he cared for her enough to call off his and Nora’s engagement. By the shifty look in his eyes and his ghostly white face, it became clear something had already happened between them. In a matter of months, they were engaged. Even though everyone at the office had wanted Nora to stay, she couldn’t bear the thought.
“It wasn’t my place,” Gram said, pulling her back to the conversation, “but now the relationship has irrevocably fallen to pieces, I can tell you my true feelings.”
Nora turned into the parking lot of the secondhand shop and got out. She popped the trunk, and she and Gram each pulled out a box.
“You’d never date a student’s father? Even if he was Blaze Ryman?” Gram pressed.
“I would absolutely never cross that line,” said Nora. “And although this school year turned out to be more challenging than I anticipated, I’m loving the staff and the location of the school, and I want to stay there for as long as they’ll have me. I’m not going to jeopardize my job, and I only want what’s best for Ivy. Which would certainly not be dating her dad.”