Chapter 2
two
INDIGO
“Have you spoken to Ryland recently?” Lola glances at me over her shoulder while hefting her suitcase into the back of my baby-blue SUV. It’s getting pretty full, and I hope we can fit everything we need. We can ask my parents to ship stuff, but I’d rather not.
“Why would I speak to Ryland?” I’d sooner sleep in a bed of cockroaches. I am a firm believer in keeping exes in the past. Though that’s a little harder to do when your ex works for your dad.
Lola shrugs. “I don’t know. You’ve only been broken up for a couple of months. I wasn’t sure if he reached out when shit hit the fan with the sex tape.”
“He’d have to actually care about me to do something like that.
” And that’s the rub. I’d thought we were friends before we started dating.
He’s worked as my dad’s personal assistant for the last four years, and we always got along.
By the time we transitioned to dating, it felt like the most natural progression in the world.
Sure, I didn’t feel fireworks when I was with him, and he never made my palms sweat, but it seemed like he understood me.
Like he got why I shy away from attention and the spotlight.
Why I distance myself socially from my parents as much as possible. He was a safe choice.
Unfortunately, as I soon found out, Ryland craves the spotlight. He has big plans and dreams to become the next Hollywood it-boy and write and direct cookie-cutter blockbusters for mass consumption.
I guess he thought dating Robert Bloom and Vivian Marsh’s daughter could help him gain some clout. Walking into parties and premieres with me on his arm would open doors.
If I ever went to parties or premieres.
Which I don’t, despite his best efforts.
After a year, Ryland stopped pretending he was in our relationship for me. Last I heard, he was dating some B-list actress five years younger than him. She’s thin, beautiful, and has perfect skin. I should be sad or jealous, but I’m not.
Which means Ryland Howell ultimately did me a favor by ending things.
The only man I’ve ever been heartbroken over did the breaking ten years ago. I’m not sure anyone else is capable of damaging something I’ve never quite put back together.
Lola frowns. She was never a fan of Ryland’s, but she is a fan of mine, so when it started and he made me happy, she tried to be supportive. The gloves have come off since the breakup. “Well, I’m glad you’re done with that guy. He’s such a tool. You can do better.”
“Yeah.” Except I’m not so sure.
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into going to Minnesota in the winter.” My best friend grunts as she lifts her final suitcase into the SUV. “Of all the places you could have chosen, you pick one that requires snow boots and thermal underwear.”
I giggle at that. I doubt we’ll need thermal underwear—it’s the end of February, so we’re not too far out from spring—but Lola’s a Cali girl to her core.
Which is how I know she loves me. If she’s willing to upend her life for a few months and move somewhere snowy, I can at least be sure she’ll never decide I’m not good enough. “You know why Minnesota.”
“I do. I think it’s a little crazy, but I do.” She gives me a soft look that says she loves me but is marginally worried I’m on the cusp of a nervous breakdown.
Which, fair.
“Are you going to try to get in touch with him?”
“No.” I wish I was brave enough to try, but I’m not. Besides, what would be the point? He made his choice the summer after our senior year.
I doubt he’d even remember me.
“I don’t get it, Inds. Why move all the way up there to be close to him if you won’t even try reaching out?” We’ve had this conversation so many times, I could quote what comes next like we’re reading from a script.
“I’m a masochist?”
“You’re not.”
Sighing, I shove the final piece of luggage into the back of the SUV and slam the door.
“I know it doesn’t make sense, he just… Knowing he’s in the same town is comforting.
” Even if he never loved me the way I loved him, he was my refuge and home when I was desperate to escape the outside world and its invasive attention.
“Okay. If you say so. I still think you should at least consider it. Don’t you still have his number saved in your phone?”
I do. Even after all these years, I can’t bring myself to delete it. “There’s no way he still has the same number he had when we were eighteen. I’m sure he’s had to change it several times, the same way I have. And he’s not simply related to a famous person, he’s famous in his own right.”
“Yeah, but you know your parents could hook you up with his current number if you wanted them to. Didn’t you say they always loved him?”
“They did.”
“Then ask. It’s the least they could do after throwing you into the shitstorm of their divorce and sex tape.” Lola pins me with her best you should listen to me because I know everything look as we climb into the car and buckle up. To her credit, she usually is right, but not this time.
“I know it may seem like I have a humiliation kink after my last couple of relationships, but I can assure you I don’t.
” The soft hum of the wheels moving over the road fills the car, drowning out some of my quieter, more persistent thoughts.
“Now, let’s stop somewhere for giant coffees because this is going to be a very long few days of driving. ”
“Ugh. Don’t remind me. Why can’t we fly, again?”
“Because we don’t want to have to rent a car for months.”
“I still think we should have made your parents pay for first-class flights and a rental car. Call it compensation for pain and suffering.” Lola grins at me and waggles her eyebrows.
And this is why I asked her to come with me. No one else can get me out of my head the way Lola Pierce can. And if I have any hope of finishing this current book and getting it to my publisher on time, I’ll need to stay out of my head. Stress does not help my creativity.
“I’ll treat us to massages when we get there and send them the bill.”
“Hell yeah,” she says, cheering. “Two hours minimum.”
I laugh. Full and loud and freer than I’ve laughed in months. “Deal.”
We should have flown.
“The knots in my back have knots.” Lola presses on her hips as she stretches her back, arching it to relieve the ache I know she must be feeling because I am too.
“Yeah, that was a very long drive.” Understatement. Why the hell is the US so big? We spread our drive out over four days, so we weren’t driving for ten hours at a time, but they were still long days.
I look around the neighborhood in Loring Park where our short-term rental is located. Cute houses line the snow-covered streets, and despite the skeletal barrenness of the trees, I can tell it will be beautiful when everything is in bloom. “We may have to stay here forever. We’re Minnesotans, now.”
“Girl, no. I am not built for this,” Lola says, her nose scrunched up as she waddles across the sidewalk, afraid to slip, even though it’s been shoveled and salted. “I thought snow was supposed to be pretty?”
I laugh because she looks so disgusted. But she’s also not wrong. The snow along the street is gray and grimy-looking, and the stuff on the grass is patchy and not nearly as fluffy as you’d expect. “It probably is when it’s fresh. I’m just glad we didn’t have to drive through it.”
“Me too. Now let’s get all of this unloaded, then find a Chinese restaurant that will deliver.”
We unload our suitcases and stack them in the entryway of the cute little two-bedroom house we’re staying in.
It’s a short-term rental, so it’s fully furnished, and the owner knows we’re planning to stay for three months but may want to extend.
There’s no way I’m going back to LA until everything blows over.
The house is a little bungalow with hardwood floors, tall ceilings, a small but well-laid-out kitchen, and a fireplace framed by large built-in bookshelves.
The paint colors are light and airy—pale creams, light sages, and dove grays—and I’m happy to see that it’s as nice in person as it looked in the listing photos.
I shouldn’t have any trouble writing here.
And even if I do, there are plenty of coffee shops and public spaces close by.
And none of those spaces will have paparazzi hiding in the shrubs, waiting to harass anyone who may spark even the slightest amount of public interest. Even if that person is only the daughter of a couple of movie stars, who is otherwise uninteresting.
Luckily, my publishers have honored my need to keep my pen name anonymous.
They don’t love it, and with every new release, they try to get me to change my mind and go on book tours, but I won’t budge.
I don’t want anyone claiming my success as an author has anything to do with who my parents are.
It’s already difficult to get widespread respect as a romance author, simply because so many people love to look down on romance as a genre.
The last thing I need is to have my parents’ sex tape brought into the conversation.
To the paparazzi and media, I’m just the chubby, single, painfully average twenty-eight-year-old daughter of two über-famous actors.
I don’t love it, but it’s better than them finding out I’m also the writer, Violet Quinn, who writes smutty contemporary romances that feature heroines much stronger and more interesting than I could ever hope to be.
Lola is the only one who knows my secret pen name. I never told Ryland or even my parents. They know I’m a writer, but they don’t know the scope of my success, and it’s easy to hide when my parents insist on paying for the bulk of my bills.
With Ryland, I never thought he’d be impressed or supportive. He was too focused on his own stuff. My parents would be supportive, but it’s impossible not to compare my success with theirs, and while my books do well, I’m not a household name. Not the way they are.
I simply want my successes to be mine.
After we stuff ourselves with Chinese food, Lola pulls out her laptop and starts Googling. “We’re going to do something fun every day. You’ve spent too long cooped up because you’re afraid of being noticed. That’s not something you’ll have to worry about here.”
“Gee, thanks,” I say, pursing my lips to hold back the chuckle that wants to escape.
“I didn’t mean it like that.” Lola winces. “There’s tons of stuff close to us. We should hit some galleries and shows. Maybe go to a local concert.” She chews on her bottom lip, narrowing her eyes like she’s gauging my mood. “Catch a hockey game.”
My palms go clammy and my heart picks up speed. Somehow, I’m simultaneously warm all over and chilled to the bone. “Lols.”
“Just saying, Inds. You came here to be close to him. It’s not like you’d have to talk to him.”
Could I do that? Be in the same building with him?
I’ve followed his career religiously since he was in college.
I’m no stranger to his stats or the way his face has grown more angular and defined as he’s aged.
Every time he’s been linked with some beautiful woman or other, I brace myself for the day the headlines proclaim that he’s found the person he wants to settle down with.
I’ve mostly desensitized myself to all of it.
But could I sit in the same building as him and remain desensitized? Or will all the feelings I ran from ten years ago crash into me with the force of a runaway train?
“Maybe. I’ll think about it.”