Chapter 18
IVY
I stirred my margarita as I touched my tongue to the salted rim. I’d lost my taste for alcohol when I’d been teetotaling with Ian. I’d been too busy getting drunk off his kisses.
My friend, Diego, snapped his fingers. “If you’re just going to play with that, girl, hand it over to me. I need as much booze as I can guzzle down tonight after the day I had.”
Pushing her own glass out of the way, Chloe said, “You don’t need to suck down her margarita. Our second round is incoming.”
“Don’t...”
Diego held up his hand, the low lights of the bar catching the multiple rings on his fingers and throwing off sparks “...use the word suck in my presence. When I think of the effort I put in with that man, I feel like telling him to kiss my gay, Latino ass.”
With Diego’s words hovering over the table, the waitress, in the middle of delivering our drinks, hit the base of a margarita glass on her tray and the pale-yellow liquid spilled onto the table. “Sorry. I’ll get you another.”
“That’s okay.”
I blotted the spill with my already soggy cocktail napkin. “I’ll take that one.”
I could barely finish the first one, melting in front of me.
When the waitress finished delivering the other two drinks without a mishap, Chloe lifted her glass. “Don’t use the word ass in my presence. When I think of all the uncomfortable things I did with Trent to make him happy, I feel like force feeding him one of these chilies.”
Both Diego and I dropped our jaws at the same time and stared at Chloe, obliviously sipping her drink. I shifted my gaze to Diego and said, “Don’t you dare ask her.”
“What word shouldn’t we mention to you, Ivy?”
Chloe dabbed her lips with a napkin, leaving a smear of bright red lipstick. “Money?”
I splayed my hands on the table in front of me, touching my thumbs together. “No words are off limits for me. Knock yourselves out.”
Diego, fully informed about the situation, hunched forward, stroking his sleek black goatee. “I don’t see the downside, Ivy. You get to be with the man, the very hot man, you love...”
he cupped his hand around his mouth and leaned toward Chloe “...and stop moping around here, and Ian gets to be with you, which he obviously needs right now, and you can keep your slimy, but also very hot, brother quiet. What’s the problem?”
“It’s deceitful and disrespectful to Ian. I’d be like a paid girlfriend. I’d hate it. That’s why his manager wouldn’t tell him about the arrangement. He knows Ian would shoot it down.”
“Celebrities have paid girlfriends and boyfriends all the time, and I should know.”
Diego, a costume designer in the business, patted the breast pocket of his silky green shirt. “Hello, you ever hear of a beard?”
“Except Ian’s not gay, sorry to disappoint you, and he doesn’t need to pay me to be with him.”
Chloe swirled her drink. “Apparently, he does. You have all this shit going on that he doesn’t know about; why is this deception any different? This one would actually do him some good. He doesn’t have to know. The record company is paying you. It’s not like you’re suddenly going to be living large off his fat stacks. You’re going to be handing it over to Matt. It’ll be enough to keep the little weasel quiet, until I can figure out a way to shut him down.”
“Ooh, you’re going to shut down Matt?”
Diego rubbed his hands together. “Do tell.”
“I’m working on it. In the meantime, I think Ivy should accept the offer.”
Chloe took a minute out of giving advice to wrap a strand of hair around her finger and smile at an attractive man sitting by the window. “I wasn’t going to tell you, Ivy, but I stumbled across a few hints and rumors about Ian and his inability to finish the album. So, the stuff’s out there.”
I smacked my hand against my chest. “You’re kidding. Who are these vultures roaming around, swooping in on every star’s weakness.”
“Girl, you have no idea what’s going on in the business. It’s cutthroat. And Chloe?”
Diego tapped her glass with his finger. “I think that guy you’re eye-fucking over there is looking at me.”
Chloe flopped back in her chair. “It is true. All the hot men in LA are gay.”
Thirty minutes later and still not through my first margarita, I called it a night.
Diego cajoled. “Come with us to this club. They play a lot of old Motown. You’d love it.”
“I’ll go with you another time. I promise.”
I covered an exaggerated yawn with one hand. “That tequila made me tired.”
“Girl, you didn’t drink enough tequila to lose one inhibition.”
He wagged a finger at me like a gay granny. “If you’re not going back to the popstar, then you need to get a life.”
Chloe flicked some bills on the table for a tip, as Diego had put the tab on his card. That’s how we usually split the bill, but they wouldn’t let me pay anything tonight.
As Chloe pushed back her chair, she said, “Oh, Ivy’s going back to the popstar tonight—she has a pillow with his face on it.”
Diego arched a plucked eyebrow. “Well, at least you get to sit on Ian Pope’s face.”
The two of them cackled, as I steered their drunk asses out of the bar and saw them into their Uber. I hopped into my own Uber a few minutes later and headed home. As the driver left the freeway, I scooted forward. “I decided on another destination.”
He turned down his classical music, Chopin, if memory served, and said. “Put it in your phone.”
I eased back, phone in hand, and entered the new location on the app. Fifteen minutes later, the car pulled in front of the Santa Monica Pier, and I stepped out, pulling my jacket around my skimpy top.
I hadn’t even driven past the pier since that last night with Ian—our last real night together when we made sweet love, and he told me he loved me. I ordered a Diet Coke from the same fish stand where we’d eaten our first dinner together and sat at the picnic table where his fans had swarmed him. I didn’t believe torturing myself like this did any good, but I couldn’t help it.
My phone rang in my pocket, and my heart skipped a beat when I saw my brother’s name. Could my life get any worse if I answered it? “Hey, Matt.”
“Now, that’s a nice greeting. So different from your usual bitchy tone. You must be in love.”
My knee started bouncing. “Sure.”
“You lied to me, sis. You told me you saw Ian Pope that one night at the concert, but I saw some fan pics of the two of you. Looked all loved up, as the tabloids say.”
I sighed. “Okay, I did see him a few times, but nothing happened, and he’s back in England. What little we had is over.”
“You’re trying to tell me you didn’t sleep with him?”
“Eww, I’m not answering your questions.”
“Whatever, I really don’t wanna know, and I heard he’s back with his ex-girlfriend, anyway.”
I almost dropped my phone. “I didn’t hear that. Where did you read that?”
“It doesn’t matter, but since you did spend some time with him, it puts you in a better position.”
“Better position to what?”
My hand was gripping the wooden picnic table so hard, I’d leave with slivers.
“Suggest to him that he sexually molested you, and you’re ready to go public unless he pays up.”
My stomach lurched. “I already told you. I’m not doing that, and I’m sure his team would go after me so hard to discredit me and ruin me, the whole scheme would collapse...and then I’d have no chance of getting him back.”
Matt sucked in a quick breath, and I could almost hear the wheels turning in his head. “Are you saying there’s a chance?”
“There might be.”
How long could I hold Matt off by dangling this prospect in front of him? At least it would make him drop the blackmail plan. “You know what Dad used to say. Every good con takes time to set up. Every mark has to be cultivated.”
“You’re all in now?”
His voice had grown high with suspicion.
“I didn’t say I was all in, but what you said about his ex, kinda pissed me off. Sparked my competitive nature.”
I licked my lips, tasting the salty air.
“Good, good. Dad always said you had all the elements of a successful shark. What’s the plan?”
“I’ll take it under consideration. Just don’t do anything stupid in the meantime. If I go down or you try to go at Ian Pope on your own, you’ll risk any chance, already slim, we might have.”
“Deal, but I’m not giving you much time. You could be conning me as we speak.”
“I could be.”
The edges of my phone cut into my hand as I squeezed it. “If I can swing this, will you give me that flash drive?”
“I just might.”
He coughed his raggedy smoker’s cough. “I don’t like holding anything over your head, sis. I almost forgot I had that old flash drive, but when I saw you with Ian Pope, I suddenly remembered. I wouldn’t do it if I wasn’t desperate. One more con for old time’s sake. It’ll be fun.”
When I ended the call, I sat on the bench, cupping my phone in my hands. Then I lumbered to my feet, feeling about ninety-years-old, and bought a ticket for the Ferris wheel. What did Matt say? For old time’s sake.
I returned home at about eleven o’clock to an empty house. Chloe and Diego must be having a good time. I left the light on for my roomie and got ready for bed. I dragged my laptop with me and searched the internet from one end to the other for any news about Ian with his ex. Had Matt just been messing with me?
I smoothed my hand over young Ian’s face on the pillow and glanced at the time on my laptop again. Still too early. Maybe I should’ve gone to that club to eat through the hours. I switched over to YouTube to watch videos and downed more Diet Coke, although I was already so wired, I didn’t need the caffeine to stay awake.
Finally, the clock hit one AM, and I reached for my phone. Jack Davies picked up on the first ring. “Ivy?”
“I’ll do it.”
Part II - London
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Blind Item #12
The 1/5th singer is all set for a raging solo comeback, but his main squeeze may be in for a fright as the singer pours on the kink at this fishy site.