Chapter 17
IVY
About a month after Ian’s departure, actually thirty-two days, seven hours, eighteen minutes, and a smattering of seconds, after his departure, I sat on the sofa in Ian’s spot, one leg curled beneath me, and my laptop heating up my thighs.
I stared at the screen and the nonsensical words I’d written. Had I typed those words on the page? My finger hovered over the delete button, but I reconsidered. Better to have bad words on the screen than no words at all. I could always fix bad words. Too bad I couldn’t fix my bad life.
Leaving the words, I plunged a spoon into my pralines and cream ice cream, making sure to hit that vein of caramel.
Keys scraped in the lock, and Chloe blew into the house like a Santa Ana wind, hot and fierce. “I cannot believe this client. He didn’t like any of my proposals. I wish I could cancel our contract. I’m sick of wasting my time.”
Chloe ended her tirade in the middle of the living room, and shoved her sunglasses into her sleek, black hair. She seemed to notice me for the first time. “What are you doing?”
“Writing and eating some ice cream.”
I waved my spoon in the air.
“That’s not just some ice cream—that’s a pint.”
I looked at the carton in my hand, studying the nutrition information printed on the side. “Ooh, that’s a lot of fat and calories.”
“Exactly.”
Chloe wedged a hand on her hip.
“Eh, it’s Friday night. I deserve it after working so hard all week.”
I dipped my spoon into the creamy goodness, aiming for a couple of pralines this time.
“You call what you’re doing working hard? I read it. It’s crap, Ivy. You’re writing crap.”
Chloe leveled a finger at me. “You need to get your head out of your ass.”
“It’s a work in progress.”
I side-eyed the ridiculous words on the screen, and my stomach churned. I put down the ice cream.
“You’re really staying in again tonight? I’d drag you out myself, except I have a date.”
“Another date?”
Chloe had been going hard after she’d decided, once again, that she and Trent had hit a wall. “Hinge?”
“That’s right, baby. It’s wall-to-wall dicks over there, and I mean that in a good way. You should take a look. Although...”
She kicked off her heels “...there’s another dating app I’m going to try. More exclusive.”
“An exclusive dating app?”
I sucked some caramel off the end of my finger. “For real?”
“It’s called Bluefin. You have to be approved. I think they check your bank statement or something.”
“Yours should pass.”
Chloe excelled at what she did, and she had a solid reputation. The money had started rolling in for her last year.
“It should, right? I heard Austin Butler’s on that app.”
I said, “Oh, well, then. You’d better get right on that.”
“In the meantime, I have a date tonight with Ryan. He’s a cryptobro, but in a good way.”
She picked up her shoes from the floor and hooked the straps around her finger.
“You mean, he actually makes money buying and selling crypto instead of just talking about it?”
“Sounds like it.”
She dangled her shoes in the air. “I have a favor to ask. Can I borrow those strappy gold sandals of yours? The ones with the three-inch heels, not the flats.”
I chewed my bottom lip, sweet with traces of praline. The sandals I’d worn the night of the concert when the paparazzi had surprised us—or at least had surprised me.
“I’ll take good care of them. Please.”
Chloe held her hands together in prayer.
“Yeah, of course. They won’t be too small? Aren’t you a size eight?”
“They’re sandals. I’ll make it work.”
Shooing her with my hands, I said, “Go ahead. They’re in my closet.”
When Chloe traipsed into the back, I said goodbye to the awful words and deleted them. I’d never had such debilitating writer’s block. The suspense part of the book didn’t pose a problem. The romance part had proved to be the sticking point. How could I make my characters happy in love when I couldn’t manage it for myself?
“What the hell is this?”
Chloe had stormed back into the living room, pinching Ian’s face and shaking it in the air.
“It’s an Ian Pope pillow.”
“What are you doing with a pillow sporting Ian Pope’s face? Where did you get this thing?”
I defended my pillow. “It’s cute, and I got it on eBay. Quite popular, too. Fourteen sold in the week before I bought mine.”
“And what are you doing with it?”
She shook him again.
“What does one do with Ian Pope pillows? I put it on my bed and rest my back against it.”
Chloe turned Ian’s face toward her and narrowed her eyes. “This is a very young Ian Pope, maybe seventeen. I think it’s illegal what you’re doing.”
I hiccupped a laugh. “I’m not doing anything dirty with my Ian Pope pillow.”
“Are you sure?”
Chloe brought the pillow to her face and started kissing it. “Oh, Ian, give it to me. Harder. Faster.”
Shaking my head, I said, “Give me the fuckin’ pillow, Chloe.”
“You’re not putting it between your legs and humping it, are you? Because that would just be wrong.”
She hugged the pillow to her ample chest. “He’s just a baby here.”
“Give me the fuckin’ pillow, Chloe.”
Chloe fired it at me, and I reached up to catch it. I smoothed out Ian’s young face. Hugging his pillow and wearing Ian’s T-shirt, which I still hadn’t washed, eased my pain and loneliness just a little at night.
“Ivy, why don’t you just call him? Go over to England and explain everything to him about your past and your dirtbag brother. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“Uh...”
I put a finger on my chin and raised my eyes to the ceiling “...I could go to prison for thirty years.”
“Do you really think the Feds are gonna be all over some seven-year-old case involving a crime family and a conman who’s deceased.”
She crossed herself. “God rest your father’s soul.”
“I don’t know. That’s the point, isn’t it? I don’t want to risk it. And it’s not just me, I’m protecting. I’m trying to protect Ian, too. Matt is still pressuring me to reconnect with Ian and accuse him of sexually assaulting me in the limo.”
“Matt’s a disgusting human being. If you just tell Ian everything, he might end it, anyway, but at least he’d understand your motivation.”
“Oh my God, that would be worse. Knowing my past, he might believe our whole relationship was a setup. Do you know what that might do to him?”
“Or he might just forgive you. He’s no angel, himself. It would be hard for someone like him to judge you.”
“Which brings up another horrible scenario. What if he does forgive me and tells Matt to do his worst—and Matt does his worst. Ian’s just getting his reputation back on track. He doesn’t need to be linked with a scammer in the press, someone who might land in prison. Social media would rip him to shreds.”
I hugged the pillow. “I’m not doing that to him. I’m not putting him in that position. He’s probably forgotten all about me by now. He hasn’t called once.”
“You expected him to?”
She raised her dark eyebrows. “Girlie, he’s a nice guy, but he doesn’t strike me as the groveling type. You said the night you broke it off, he barely spoke to you. Didn’t plead his case. Didn’t try to understand once you’d made it clear you weren’t going with him. Didn’t even capitulate to your demands to...”
Chloe pumped her hips back and forth “...you know.”
“I did not demand sex from him.”
I pushed up from the sofa and stamped the tingles from my sleeping leg. “He just held me.”
“Exactly. When a man holds you instead of fucking you, he’s done. He’s not going to call you—period.”
Chloe snapped her fingers. “I know what we should do.”
“What?”
I carried the half-empty ice cream container to the sink and dumped the contents down the garbage disposal.
“We need to neutralize your scumbag brother. We need to get that footage from the warehouse that implicates you. Once we destroy it, Matt has nothing on you.”
“I don’t even know where he keeps it.”
“You said it’s on a flash drive, and he showed it to you at his apartment.”
Chloe tapped a long fingernail on the table. “Does he still live in that crappy bachelor in West Hollywood?”
“Yep. He already had the thumb drive out when I got there, and he plugged it into his laptop to show me the footage.”
I shivered and gripped my arms. “When he removed it, he shoved it into his pocket. I don’t think I’m going to be getting my hands on it.”
“The dumbass probably hasn’t made any copies. We could break into his place and steal it.”
“He’s not that dumb. He probably doesn’t have it sitting on his kitchen table. All these years, and I never knew he had it. He must’ve been waiting for the right time to spring it on me.”
I crushed the ice cream carton in my hand. “And I gave it to him.”
“You got Matt out of your life, for now, but you also lost Ian. I don’t see how that’s a win for either of you.”
“It beats the consequences of fessing up.”
Turning around, I leaned my back against the kitchen counter. “Did you find the shoes while you were snooping around my bedroom?”
“I did. Thank you, babe.”
Chloe blew me a kiss and scurried off to get ready for her date.
I sat back down with my date for the night—my laptop—and did a search for Ian. Holding my breath, I scanned the results, releasing it slowly when I saw that most of the new articles showcased his upcoming music and not any drunken antics. I’d peeked at his social media, which focused on his new album and the first single scheduled from that album, “Muse.”
I snarled at the computer. “Ha, surprised he hadn’t changed the name of that song yet to ‘Betrayed’ or ‘Sucker Punched.’”
“Talking to yourself now?”
Chole twirled around the living room in a pair of black, leather pants, a black corset top, and my gold sandals.
Tilting my head to the side, I said, “You look hot. Does Cryptobro deserve all this effort?”
“I guess I’ll find out.”
Chloe hovered over my shoulder. “Spying on Ian again? I can already tell you he hasn’t been up to any shenanigans. Never posts anything personal on his socials. His fans went nuts for his first post after about seven months. He didn’t address his rehab at all and just made a series of professional posts about his music.”
I cranked my head around to stare at my roommate. “You’ve been stalking him online?”
“Yeah, I’ve been keeping an eye on him. The Duke Hammer controversy reversed course and worked to his advantage.”
Chloe shrugged her bare shoulders. “He’s a de facto client and my messy bestie’s loverboy. I’m gonna follow up on him.”
“Thanks, Chloe.”
I sniffled. “Am I going to have to prepare for an overnight guest?”
“We’ll see how things work out.”
She widened her icy blue eyes, the black eyeliner enhancing their drama. “You’re not complaining, are you? Not after you met a guy at a book festival and proceeded to install him in your bed for the next two weeks.”
“Just want to make sure you’re not inviting any Night Stalkers, Hillside Stranglers, or Golden State Killers into our home.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you have an unhealthy fascination with serial killers?”
“It’s research.”
I pinged my laptop with my finger. “Seriously, leave me this guy’s name and his socials before you go—just in case I never hear from you again.”
“You really are a buzzkill, lately.”
She patted my head. “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll text you all that stuff and let you know whether to expect me...or us, later.”
Once Chloe left for her date, the silence in the house overwhelmed me and beat me down, so I scrolled through my phone and blasted some frothy pop music. I usually couldn’t write with music playing, but who was I kidding? I hadn’t gotten any good writing done for days—maybe weeks, maybe thirty-two days, eight hours—I glanced at the time on my computer—fifty-two minutes, and a smattering of seconds.
By the time I decided to turn in, I’d listened to probably all 40 of today’s top 40 hits, with a few Five2Go songs thrown in there just to torture myself. I tucked my laptop under my arm and turned out all the lights. Chloe had already texted me with the news that she was spending the night with Ryan and had even sent a pin to the location of his apartment in downtown LA—suitably trendy for a cryptobro.
I brushed my teeth, undressed, and pulled Ian’s dirty T-shirt over my head. I inhaled his scent, still distinguishable but fading fast. If I washed the shirt, I feared I’d lose him forever. If I didn’t wash it, I’d probably start growing a bacterial fungus on my skin.
As I passed the squishy barrel chair on my way to the bed, I patted the belly of the stuffed koala bear Ian had bought me during our visit to the LA Zoo. The bear sported Ian’s LA Dodger cap—the one I’d bought him. The one he’d left behind. I’d already sniffed the inside of the cap for a trace of Ian, but figured if I started wearing that to bed, Chloe would have me committed.
Slipping between the sheets, I propped up my Ian Pope pillow behind me as a backrest and settled my computer on my lap to watch a podcast on YouTube. I must’ve dozed off because the ringing of my phone, charging on the nightstand beside me, startled me awake.
I felt for the phone and held it in front of my blurry eyes. The UK number on the display shot a stream of adrenaline to my bloodstream, and I jerked my head up, fully revived. It wasn’t Ian’s number, and that knowledge caused my heart to pound even more furiously. “Hello?”
“Ivy? It’s Jack Davies. We met in LA. Ian’s manager.”
The blood roared in my ears, and I could barely hear my own frantic response. “Is it Ian? Is he okay? Did something happen to him?”
“Ian’s okay.”
Jack coughed. “He’s not fine, but he’s okay.”
Jack’s words had done nothing to calm the thoughts racing around my brain. “What does that mean? Is he hurt? In the hospital?”
“What? No. Nothing like that. He’s not injured, but he’s not doing great right now. He misses you.”
Relief coursed through my body, and my head dropped back and banged against the wall. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath through my nose, but Ian wasn’t out of the woods, yet. “What’s going on, Jack? How do you know he misses me?”
“He’s starting to spiral.”
“How? Did he relapse?”
I chewed the inside of my mouth until I tasted the metallic tang of blood on my tongue.
“I’m not sure, but if he hasn’t, he’s close.”
I put a hand to my throat. “How’s the music going?”
“So far, so good. He’s laid down four tracks already, and they’re stellar. His vocals are out-of-this-world brilliant, so much depth and emotion. He’s wowing everyone in the studio.”
“That sounds good.”
My knees had started shaking so much, my laptop slid off my legs. “What’s the problem?”
“Things are not so good in his personal life. His daughter’s mother got married last year, and his daughter has really bonded with Sasha’s husband. It gutted Ian.”
“But he’s been able to see Thea on his own?”
“Yeah, yeah. He just feels like he’s missed so much, and Thea has this other daddy figure in her life. Just hit him hard.”
My hands had gotten so clammy, I couldn’t hold the phone anymore. I put it on Speaker and set it down on my lap. “You said you don’t know if he fell off the wagon, so how’s he spiraling?”
Jack took a sip of something. As it was eight o’clock in the morning in his time zone, I hoped it was coffee or tea. “He started blowing off a couple of the recording sessions. Just not showing up. He had some...uh...friends over at his place the other night. Friends from his party days. Not good people.”
I blinked. “His ex, Jessica?”
“No. They’re completely over, and she’s been waging some kind of hate campaign against him, which doesn’t help.”
“Is she the one who initiated the dick pic crusade against him?”
“Right. And she’s not done with him, yet. So, no, she wasn’t at his place, but he’s still friends with those other people. They’re bad news.”
“Then why does he hang out with them?”
“Hell if I know. They’re all toadies, yes-men. I think they prop him up and make him feel special when he’s not feeling good about himself. And he’s not. The record company has gotten wind of the no-shows at the sessions, and they’re not happy. This is it for him, Ivy. If he fucks this up, he’s done. His label told me he has this one last chance. If he doesn’t perform, they’re cutting him loose.”
I massaged my temple with my fingertips. “I’m sorry to hear this, but why call me? What am I supposed to do about it?”
“You can come to England, Ivy.”
I took a painful breath. “I can’t do that.”
“Look, I don’t know why you broke it off with him. He won’t talk about it, but I know you could give him the motivation he needs if you came back into his life.”
“I have my reasons, Jack, and they’re personal. Maybe you can get him some professional help. Doesn’t he have a therapist?”
“Refuses to see him. Thinks Sasha is using his issues against him to interfere in his relationship with Thea.”
“Well, if he starts drinking again, she could really use that against him. He’s just not thinking straight. Doesn’t he have any close friends out there? One of the other boys?”
“He’s probably closest to Charlie Beck right now, but Charlie’s on tour in South America, and when Ian gets like this, he doesn’t want to see his old friends or his family.”
“I’d like to help him. I really would, but I can’t.”
A roaring headache had a vise-like grip on my head, and I squeezed my eyes closed.
“The record company will pay you.”
My lids flew open. “What?”
“Ian’s record company, Vivant Records, will pay you to come out here and be with him.”
Jack spoke very slowly, enunciating every word, as if English weren’t my first language.
I still had to shake the fog from my aching head. “What are you talking about?”
“Vivant has invested a lot of money in Ian Pope, a lot of money in this comeback album and the tour to follow. If Ian doesn’t come back, his label stands to lose a load of cash. They would have no problem investing a little more by paying you to be by his side to keep him on track. You’re also good PR.”
“I am?”
“Very positive response to your appearance with him at the concert. Some fans also took some pictures of the two of you out in about in LA and started posting them to their fan accounts. The comments are all favorable. People like you, and they like him better with you.”
“This is crazy. I’m assuming you wouldn’t tell Ian about this arrangement?”
“Absolutely not. He would be insulted.”
“As he should be. I’m not doing anything behind his back like that.”
I’ll do other things behind his back, but not this.
“Ian doesn’t know what’s good for him, right now. I don’t see the downside. You want to be with him, he wants to be with you, and the record company is willing to make this happen. It’s a win, win, win, for everyone.”
My nostrils flared. “You forgot one win—for yourself. If Ian goes down, you’re going down with him. No more cushy job, no more perks, no more rubbing elbows with celebrities.”
Jack exploded into harsh laugh. “You think it’s been a cushy job managing Ian Pope? I’m trying to rescue him from his own bad impulses, and apparently, yours too.”
“I can’t accept money to date Ian Pope.”
“Are you playing hardball with me? Because the record company is in a position to pay you a very generous monthly stipend, and all you have to do is be with the man you love.”
“Hardball? You think this is a negotiation tactic?”
The pain in my head had migrated to a pain in my gut, and I regretted every spoonful of ice cream.
“Ivy—”
Jack’s voice had grown cold, and my heart flip-flopped “—do you really think I would allow Ian to meet some woman at a book fair and spend two weeks with her without vetting that woman?”
The coldness of Jack’s voice had seeped through the phone and had gripped the back of my neck in its icy fingers. “Wh-what do you mean?”
“The day Ian brought you by the hotel, I hired a private investigator.”
I pressed my hands against my fluttering belly. Looked like I might go to prison, anyway. “And?”
“I tried to do a little background investigation on Ivy Chase, but I ran into loads of brick walls. Do you know why?”
He paused, waiting for some kind of response. All I could manage to croak out was, “Why?”
“Because there is no Ivy Chase.”