Chapter 3
IVY
Ian gave me a twisty smile before turning to face his accuser, a young woman about my age, prime Five2Go fanbase. The blonde clutched the arm of her goggle-eyed friend as they shimmied in front of Ian expectantly.
“I am.”
Ian flashed a smile. The effect was instantaneous. The women blushed and fluttered and tittered.
“Can we get you to sign something? Can we get a picture with you?”
“Absolutely.”
I studied the interaction through narrowed eyes as the women produced a few flyers from their book bags and shoved them toward Ian, along with a pen. It was as if the presence of the women had flicked a switch hidden somewhere on his body—and I wouldn’t mind doing a thorough search for the switch’s location.
He chatted easily with them, the smile never leaving his face. He accommodated them in every way—signing a few items and even using their phones to take selfies. He hugged them and assured them new music was on the horizon.
My gaze darted among the other people in the sculpture garden, almost expecting a stampede, but after a flurry of interest, everyone had turned their attention back to their own affairs. Even if they did recognize Ian, spotting a celebrity in LA had lost its luster for most residents...except the Five2Go fandom.
When he sat back down on the bench, he shrugged and said, “Sorry.”
“No, I mean, whatever. Does it bother you? You were so nice. I’m not so sure I could be that friendly to people interrupting my private time.”
I snapped the lid onto my half-eaten bowl of noodles, the feeding session lost, and shoved them into the plastic bag at my feet.
Leaning back, Ian folded his hands behind his head. “It doesn’t bother me. Not really. It’s part of the pact.”
“There’s a pact?”
I tugged on a lock of my hair and wound it around my finger.
“Of course. The fans buy your music, your merch, go to your concerts, and make you rich beyond your wildest dreams. In exchange, you have to give up an expectation of privacy, your...”
“Soul?”
His gaze jumped to my face, and he rubbed the scruff on his chin with his knuckles. “Something like that.”
“Ugh.”
I brushed off my skirt and nudged the bag in his direction for his trash. “Not for me.”
“I really don’t mind. You never know what someone else is going through. A fan could be having a bad day or a bad week. As a celebrity, you have an opportunity to cheer someone up. I couldn’t live with myself if I thought I had contributed to someone’s sadness by turning down an autograph.”
He sat forward on the bench, warming to his topic. “It reminds me of the story I read about a guy who jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge and survived. He had bi-polar disorder and was having an episode. He had gone to the bridge to jump. As he walked along in the fog, he told himself if just one person reached out to him, he wouldn’t jump. A couple, German, I think, approached him to ask him to take their picture. With tears streaming down his face, he snapped their photo, but they never asked him why he was crying. He jumped.”
My hand covered my mouth and tears pricked my eyes. “That’s a true story?”
“It is.”
“But he survived to tell it.”
“He was one of less than one percent of Golden Gate Bridge jumpers to survive. He said that a sea lion kept him afloat when he surfaced with all his broken bones.”
Ian shrugged. “So, a sea lion cared more than another human.”
“That’s an incredible story. You want to be the sea lion.”
“I do.”
He crumpled up a pile of napkins and tossed them into the bag. “I know it’s Saturday, and you’re probably busy, but if you’re not, you wanna hang out for a while? My manager, Jack, is probably going to do something with his friends, and I don’t feel like tagging along. I also don’t wanna be stuck in the hotel by myself for the rest of the day. I mean...if you’re free.”
Ian Pope didn’t have anything better to do on a Saturday night in LA than spend it with a clumsy romance author? Should I pretend I had a hot date? A fabulous party to attend? A book signing with a thousand fans?
“I’m not busy. I was just going to do a little writing.”
He aimed a finger at the books he’d stuffed into my bag earlier. “A continuation of the randy air marshals?”
“Actually, yeah, the fourth and last book of the series. Book three is already done.”
I pushed up from the bench and eyed the tree behind us, on the lookout for that rogue squirrel. “What did you have in mind?”
He quirked his eyebrows up and down. “Surprise me.”
***
An hour later, I wheeled my compact SUV up to the curb in front of a small group of one-story, fifties-era bungalows. I loved my little place in Santa Monica, just north of Wilshire Boulevard, a detached house built on a large lot with three other houses. I’d bought it just over a year ago with my share of the life insurance money and still needed a roommate to make my mortgage payments, but it beat renting.
Ian tapped the window with his knuckle. “You brought me back to your place? Bold move, ain’t it.”
I poked him in the arm. “Just for a minute. I’m going to change out of this skirt and these shoes. I-I thought we’d go down to the pier...if that’s okay with you.”
“That’s a great idea. Never been there.”
I did a double take before grasping the door handle. He’d lived in LA and hadn’t been to the Santa Monica Pier? “You can wait in the car, if you like. I’ll be right back.”
“I’d rather come in, unless you don’t want me to.”
He took off his hat, and ran a hand through his wavy hair, longer than I’d remembered from the last pictures I’d seen of him.
When had I last seen pictures or video of Ian Pope? I couldn’t recall, but his hair had decidedly been shorter and more styled. I liked his messy brown mop that brushed his collarbone and framed his handsome face. Yikes! The cute boy had become a hot man with a hot body.
“Sure, c’mon.”
I stumbled out of the car, suddenly nervous. Had I cleaned up the kitchen before I left? Put away my vibrator? Made my bed? Not that he’d be in my bed—or anywhere near it—unless some magical transfer of romance power had occurred when we’d both wrestled Fabio.
I practically skipped down the walkway that led to my snug bungalow that had once been part of a small single-story apartment complex of four detached units. I’d snapped up the last unit shortly after the conversion to single-family.
I waved to Janet, my elderly neighbor across from me, watering her potted plants that separated her unit from the shared courtyard. No chance Janet would recognize Ian, even without his hat and sunglasses. Jim Morrison of The Doors, maybe, whom she’d claimed to have seen—and blown—at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go on Sunset back in the day, but not Ian Pope.
On the way to my place, I led Ian between two rows of plants and flowering bushes that culminated in a riot of pink bougainvillea climbing a trellis next to my door. The jasmine in the pot on the other side of the door provided the sweet fragrance, but the bougainvillea provided the color and Southern California vibe.
It didn’t escape Ian’s notice, as he closed his eyes and made a show of inhaling the scent. “That’s sweet.”
Despite my trembling fingers, I unlocked the front door on the first try. “C’mon in. I’ll just be a minute.”
I dropped my bag on the floor and tossed my keys into the basket on the small table in the entryway.
Shoving his hands in his pockets, Ian strolled into my living room. “Cozy.”
“Yeah, I know that’s another word for small, but it’s big enough for us.”
“Us?”
He spun around.
“My roommate, Chloe, and I. She rents from me and helps me pay my mortgage.”
I waved my hands. “Oh, she’s not here right now. Her boyfriend lives in San Diego, and she spends a lot of time down there. I don’t know why she doesn’t just move in with him, but she’s also my best friend, and she vowed to stay with me.”
He picked up Loki’s dog tags from the basket and jingled them. “You have a dog?”
“I did have a dog—a Great Dane named Loki.”
I rubbed my nose. “He died a few years ago, but I keep his tags.”
His face softened, and he dropped the tags. “Aw, I’m sorry. That always hurts.”
I took a deep breath, dizzy from all the personal information I was revealing to a stranger—one known the world over, but still a stranger. “I’ll be right back. Do you want something to drink? I have some bottles of water in the fridge, no beer, I’m afraid, but Chloe loves her wine, so I’m sure there’s an open bottle of white in there.”
“Uh, water’s good.”
“Help yourself.”
I traipsed down the short hallway and ducked into my bedroom. I shut the door behind me and leaned against it, placing one hand against my chest, measuring my galloping heart.
Was I just imagining this electricity between us? Did he feel it too, or was he just bored? Hard to believe he didn’t have celebrity friends in LA he could hang with.
I sat on the edge of my bed and slipped off my high, wedge sandals. Then I unbuttoned my floral skirt and stood up, letting it fall in a heap around my legs. I stepped out of it and grabbed a pair of denim cut-offs from my dresser. I shoved my feet into a pair of flipflops, traded my pink blouse for a green T-shirt and yanked a striped hoodie from a hanger in the closet.
A little out of breath, I emerged from the hallway to find Ian with a framed photo in his hands. My heart skipped a beat when I recognized the picture.
Turning at my approach, he held up the photo. “This is nice. You and your father at your graduation from UCLA?”
“Yeah.”
I pointed at the two bottles of water on the kitchen table. “I see you found the water.”
He nodded. “Did your mum take the picture?”
“She was long gone by then.”
Placing the photo back on the bookshelf, he said, “I’m so sorry.”
I looked up from transferring items from my tote to the cross-body bag pinned to my side with my elbow. “Oh, she’s not dead. She abandoned us years before I went to college.”
“Still sorry.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Does your father live nearby?”
“He’s the dead one.”
As I slipped the strap over my head, I saw his confused and slightly stricken face. He must think I’m cold as ice. “I mean, yeah, my father passed away not long after that picture was taken.”
“I-I’m...”
he thought better of saying sorry again and sputtered, “...th-that’s too bad.”
I turned my back on him and adjusted my cross-body bag. His words floated over my shoulder, but I had no intention of getting into my past or explaining myself. I’d already revealed too much. I asked, “Are you ready?”
“I could use the loo.”
I pointed to the first door on the right-hand side of the hallway. “You can use Chloe’s. Hers is the public one. Mine’s attached to my bedroom—perks of owning the place. Chloe won’t mind, as long as you put down the toilet seat.”
He crossed his heart with the tip of his finger. “I promise. I grew up with three sisters, so I’ve been trained.”
As he shut the door behind him, I grabbed the waters and leaned against the wall by the front door, arms folded. Should I text Chloe and tell her what was happening? Chloe would probably just confuse me even more, but maybe my best friend had a better idea about what was going on with him right now.
Didn’t Ian have a girlfriend? I knew he had a daughter. Oh, God, yes, he had a daughter with that beautiful English soap actress Sasha. I’d almost forgotten about that. He’d been quite young at the time, and Sasha had about ten years on him. Did he like cougars?
I jumped when he swung open the bathroom door and stepped into the hallway.
He approached me and took the water bottles from where I’d tucked them against my body, his thumb brushing my under-boob. Had he done that on purpose? He said, “I’ve got those.”
The boobs or the water?
He also got the door, opening it for me. As I skirted past him, he patted the top of my head. “Did you shrink?”
Kicking up one of my flipflop-clad feet behind me, I said, “Just swapped out the heels for flats. I know. It’s a shock.”
Once outside, I leaned my forehead against the door as I locked the deadbolt. Ugh, he probably dated leggy models with a good seven inches on me.
“I’d call it a nice surprise. No matter how high your heels, you’ll never be taller than me.”
He flipped one of the water bottles into the air, catching it and grinning at me.
I doubted I’d ever have the chance to wear heels with him again. He’d already mentioned he was leaving the day after tomorrow. Knowing this would be my first and last time with Ian Pope freed me.
Might as well enjoy it and go out with a bang—with any luck.