My fist connected with the table, and I pressed my face into my biceps, trying to muffle the sobs coming out of my mouth.
Get a grip!
Everything around me swam, and a cold pit of unhappiness threatened to swallow me up from the inside out. Life felt bleak and hopeless, and it didn’t escape me that the feeling only intensified when the texts came. I’d spent most of that tour judging Jamie for not wanting to kick his habit, but if my love for Oliver was really an unhealthy addiction, how was I any better than the singer?
Wiping the tears away, I finally understood a simple fact.
I couldn’t keep doing this.
By the time Jack arrived, I’d managed to calm down. I had a plan now. A plan with only two steps, but it was better than trying to leave my “recovery” from Oliver to chance.
Step one was losing my virginity. Good thing the guy sitting across from me was the perfect person to help rip that Band-Aid off.
Step two was blocking Oliver’s number once and for all. I hoped completing step one would make that easier.
Jack wore a big grin and his usual preppy outfit. “How are ya?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Fine. Just hoping this heat will let up soon.”
“It’s like a goddamn sauna, isn’t it?” he said with a laugh. “A few of us are thinking of hitting the beach this weekend if you want to join.”
“Thanks. I’ll let you know.”
“How are your classes?” Jack seemed genuinely interested to know, but I was eager to be done with small talk.
I bit on my lip. “They’re fine. But uh…that’s not what I wanted to talk about.” My attention caught on the tiny green crocodile on his shirt.
He cleared his throat. “Right. I was thinking we’d grab some food and take it somewhere a bit more private?” He looked over his shoulder, as if worried someone might overhear our conversation.
The weird thing about Jack was that despite seeming happy to keep our relationship casual, he was always worried about others finding out. Zoey thought he was embarrassed that after a year we still weren’t officially dating, so in order to avoid questions from his friends, he pretended that nothing was going on between us. I didn’t know if I believed that. Frankly, I didn’t really care. I was happy to keep us on the down low if that was better for him.
“I’m not hungry, actually,” I said and reached for my bag. “Want to go walk through the botanical gardens?”
He quickly agreed, and we left. Our destination was only a short walk away, but he started talking as soon as we were out of the earshot of anyone. “So how are you feeling about things?”
My hand found Jack’s wrist and squeezed. “I want to keep seeing you.”
When he looked at me, his expression was pleasantly surprised. “Oh, okay. I wasn’t sure if you’d met someone while you were back home or something.”
The snort that came out of me wasn’t elegant. “River Valley? Not a chance. And I’ve been thinking. I think I’m ready to take things further.”
His expression grew too hopeful, and I hurried to clarify what I meant. “Physically, that is. You know…we’ve been holding back.”
Really, I was the one holding back, but now I knew what had to be done. If I ever wanted to get over Oliver, I needed to stop saving myself for him in some twisted attempt to regain all that we had lost. It wasn’t going to happen.
Jack’s eyes swept over my face, the hope in them replaced with surprise. “Whoa. Damn, I wasn’t expecting that. Okay. Yeah. Whenever you’re ready, Ivy. It would be my honor—”
Oh God, he needed to stop talking. “I’m ready,” I interrupted, pulling him past the gates of the garden.
Jack nodded, twisting his wrist out of my hold and interlacing our fingers instead. His thumb caressed the inside of my palm. “I’ll ask Mathas to crash at a friend’s place some night next week so that we can have my place to ourselves.”
There were a lot of ferns in this place. Ferns and tall spiky cacti. I twisted my head around, looking for a place that was secluded and ideally had a nice patch of grass.
“Ivy?” Jack asked, tugging on our interlaced hands. “Next week sound good?”
“What?” I asked, craning my neck to get a better view of the area behind a row of benches we were passing. “Next week for what?”
He was silent for a second too long. “You know…” he said at last. “For us to finally go all the way. What are you looking for?”
I forced myself to focus my attention back on him for a moment. “No, next week doesn’t work. I said I’m ready. I want to do it right now. Help me find a spot where no one can see us too easily.”
His eyes grew. “You want to have sex here? You can’t be serious.”
I frowned. “What’s the problem?”
“Where do I even start?” His voice was incredulous. “What’s up with you?”
“Nothing.”
His gaze flickered over my shoulder as his expression grew grim. “Ivy, this is insane. This is a public garden. Why don’t we wait just a few more days and do it somewhere comfortable? And private.”
“I just want to get it over with,” I said through clenched teeth. “I’m twenty and a goddamn virgin, Jack. I’m sick of it!”
Jack’s face fell. He extracted his hand from mine and took a step back.
“Wow. You sure know how to make a guy feel wanted,” he said in a quiet voice.
“Oh for God’s sake,” I growled and crossed the distance between us to pull him down for a kiss. Why was he being so needy? Did he want me to get him some flowers and chocolate so that he deflowered me?
My lips crashed against his, and I wasted no time seeking entry with my tongue. His mouth parted and he started to kiss me back, but within a few seconds, he was pulling away.
“Stop,” he said, wiping my lipgloss that had smudged across his lips with the back of his hand. Something about that gesture seemed uncharacteristically cold.
“Why?” I demanded, feeling anger rise up inside me.
“Because I’m a fucking person!” The words burst out of him, freezing me in place. Since I’ve known him, I’ve never seen Jack upset, and the fact that I was the one making him feel this way snapped something in me.
“So am I! I thought you wanted this.” My hands were curled into fists at my sides. Why the hell was it so hot? For a moment, I felt like the heat in this city would never end.
“Not like this,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m not going to have sex with you here, Ivy. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but we’re not doing anything until you get your head back on straight.”
I needed to get out of this heat. Drops of sweat were rolling down my back, and I wanted to tear my tank top off and scream at every cheerful freshman sitting on the benches around the park. How could they possibly stand this nightmare?
“Fine,” I wheezed, my breath getting stuck at the top of my throat. “Whatever, Jack. If you won’t do it, I’ll find someone else who will.”
He pursed his lips and looked away. “Okay, Ivy. I’m going to go now.” Without looking at me again, he turned and began to walk away.
“Bye, Jack!” I yelled, furious. Some of the wretched freshmen lifted their faces from their phones and glanced over at me, probably curious about the sweaty, yelling girl. I scowled at each one until they turned away, and by the time I was done, Jack was long gone.
I sat in the shade of a tree with my head between my knees until I felt I could breathe again. What the hell was that? It felt like I’d had a mini-panic attack, but I’d only ever gotten those when I was claustrophobic.
Maybe I’m feeling a different kind of claustrophobia?
The need to go through with my plan was pressing down on me. I just wanted to stop feeling like this, once and for all.
Dragging myself toward the apartment building, I contemplated texting Zoey, but I didn’t want to pull her away from her studies for the second day in a row. I was done with pissing people off for the day.
When I got to our floor, a shout from an apartment a few doors from ours snapped me out of my thoughts.
I picked up on the muffled words. “Fuck you! Get the hell out of here and don’t come back, you hear me?”
A door swung open and out of it appeared a tattooed man who looked to be in his twenties. His skinny chest was bare and his T-shirt was bundled in his hands. He swore under his breath when he saw me, then he brushed past me and started down the stairs. A girl with pink hair ran after him, yelling, “I don’t ever want to see you again!”
She’d been crying, and her black eyeliner was running down her cheeks in thin rivulets. Despite this, there was nothing vulnerable about her. She was all fierce anger and indignation, and I whistled under my breath.
The sound caught her attention. “What?” she called out to me, her brows pulling together as her arms wrapped around her waist. “Here for the melodrama?”
I shook my head. “Trust me, I’ve just had enough of my own. You okay?”
Her shoulders lowered slightly in response to my words. “Yeah. Just broke up with my asshole boyfriend. It was about time, you know?”
She had a short pixie cut, effortlessly pulling it off by virtue of her sharp features. Her hand rose to rub at her button nose before moving to her right eye, smudging the makeup further.
“Sure. I think I just broke up with someone fifteen minutes ago,” I told her, leaning back against the wall. “We weren’t really together, but it felt like a breakup anyway.”
Her lips curved into a knowing smile. “They sure know how to string us along, don’t they?”
I nodded. Jack would probably argue that I’d strung him along, but whatever I’d done to him paled in comparison to what Oliver had done to me. I’d earned the right to feel like a victim.
“You live here?” eyeliner girl asked, glancing down at the keys dangling from my hand.
“Yeah, 305 down the hall.”
The frown returned. “Oh. Zoey’s roommate?”
“Yeah.” I spun the key chain on my finger. “You know her?”
“In passing. We met when she moved in a few weeks ago,” she said, looking down the hall toward our door. “Don’t think she likes me much.”
Zoey moved in two weeks before me, eager to get out of her parents’ house in River Valley so that she could have some privacy. I shrugged and stretched out my palm. “She didn’t say anything to me. I’m Ivy.”
“Mimi,” she responded, shaking my hand. “I stumbled into your roommate when I was coming home from a club at six am. Let’s just say I wasn’t in great shape and…” she trailed off, looking down at herself. “I suppose this isn’t much different. But at least I’m not high.”
I laughed at her blunt honesty. “Is that how you let off steam?”
She pursed her lips and moved them side to side as she considered my question. “I guess. Sometimes it works better than others. You party? Your roommate sure as hell didn’t seem like a partier.”
“She’s not. But neither am I. I mean, I’m still underage. Can’t get into any of the clubs anyway.”
“And what do I look like to you?” Mimi asked with a snort. “I’m nineteen. You don’t have a fake ID?”
My cheeks heated. “No. I wouldn’t even know where to get one.”
She looked me up and down. “You’d pass for twenty-one easily. I’ve got a hookup for you, if you want to get one made. Otherwise, if you’re ever in the mood, let me know, and I can take you to Flare. My boyfriend works as the doorman, he’ll get us in.”
I glanced toward the staircase her boyfriend had run down. “You sure about that?”
She followed my gaze and snorted. “Oh, not him. That was Evan. I’m talking about Mikey.”
My eyes widened. “You have two boyfriends?”
“Had,” she corrected. “Just one now. I’m back to being one of the normies, I guess.” She crossed her legs, shifting to lean against the doorframe. “So you interested? I’m going to Flare tonight.”
Could going out with her solve my current dilemma? Maybe I’d meet someone cute at the club and bring them home. Scratch that. Zoey would kill me. They’d need to be the ones bringing me home.
But who was I kidding? I was the girl who sucked at making friends, and now I thought I could get a guy’s attention at a club?
You did it once.
This was reckless, but in my current state of mind, maybe it was exactly what I needed. I could be an anonymous girl tonight, and do things I normally wouldn’t. I lifted my gaze up to Mimi. “Sounds fun. You sure you’re up for it?”
She grinned at me. “Hell yeah. I’m newly single, after all. Well, kind of.”
I definitely needed some more of her energy in my life. Despite the yelling match I had witnessed, she seemed to be ready to move on already. What would she say if I told her I’d been waiting for a guy who was barely paying me any attention to be my first? Yeah, I didn’t really want to find out.
When Zoey got home later that day, I told her about my plan to go out with Mimi.
“That is a terrible idea,” she concluded immediately. “That girl is bad news, Ivy. She was really messed up the morning I was moving in.”
I’d told Zoey the revelation I had in my class. My attachment to Oliver was an unhealthy addiction, and I was finally determined to get over it. I hadn’t shared his messages with her, but I told her about Jack. How we had a fight and that I wasn’t sure I’d be seeing him anymore.
“I don’t understand,” I said, folding my arms across my chest. “You were the one who encouraged me to move on and put myself out there. I’m finally trying to do just that.”
She grimaced. “You’re jumping from one extreme to the next. Sneaking into a club with someone you’ve only just met? Maybe you should start by coming to one of the pre-med socials with me.”
“Zoey.” I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “I just want to let go for one night, and I don’t want to do it around people I might see again on campus.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Jesus, what are you planning on doing? Drinking your body weight in alcohol?”
If I told her I was hoping to meet someone to have sex with me tonight, she’d probably barricade me inside our apartment. I rolled my eyes. “No. C’mon, you know I’m a light drinker. I just want to have some fun and do something a little crazy. Maybe it’s not the healthiest way to move on, but it’s good enough for me.”
My friend leaned against the fridge and sighed. “Well, at least you know this isn’t healthy. Look, I don’t like this one bit, but I can’t stop you from going. Just promise me you’ll be careful, okay? Don’t accept any drinks from people you don’t know—they might be roofied and shit. And try to keep it down when you get back.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’m going to crash at Mimi’s,” I said, turning away from her to the sandwich I was in the process of making.
“You don’t need to do that,” she said. “I’ll wear earplugs to bed.”
“I already feel bad about distracting you with my issues. Honestly, it’s fine. Mimi might be a bit out there, but I trust her.”
“You just met her,” Zoey grumbled. “She doesn’t seem particularly trustworthy.”
“I think you should give her another chance,” I said before taking a bite.
She shook her head. “Let’s see if you’re singing the same tune about her after tonight. Do you need help with your makeup?”
“Absolutely.” Zoey always knew how to make me look good, and tonight, I needed to look great.
10
JAMIE
On Friday afternoon, I pulled into the parking lot of the In-N-Out where I was supposed to be meeting Fox. This was the last apology on my list, and it was last for a reason. Out of all my fuck ups over the past ten or so years, this was by far the biggest. There was a good chance I’d be on my way to the hospital by the time we were done here, so it seemed smart to get the rest of my amends out of the way first.
Fox, like man
y of the people I had contacted over the past few months, hadn’t wanted to meet me at first. He’d long since written me off, but he had the disadvantage of being related to me. Shortly after I’d called—and was told to fuck right off—my ma, Marie, reached out to him. She still lived in Texas, in the same tiny one-story house where she’d raised me after my father left us. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’d offered to move her into a bigger place, but she’d always brushed me off and said she was perfectly happy with her home. I think she treasured the memories of Fox and I playing there together as children. My cousin’s parents had a volatile relationship, and when things got too heated back home, he’d come over and stay with us for a few days.
Fox could resist me, but his strength failed when his Aunt Marie got involved.
“You talk to Fox, and you make this right,” my ma said to me after they got off the phone. “You hurt that boy badly, and he won’t forget it easily. But deep down, I think he knows you were ill. Show him you mean to set yourself right, and he might still forgive you.”
Normally, forgiveness was the most I’d allow myself to hope for with these things. But with Fox, I really—stupidly—hoped for more. I missed my cousin, my old friend. I didn’t have many friends these days, given that I’d cut nearly everyone off after I left Ritual Disruption. Nial had been encouraging me to start meeting people, but with the lawsuit occupying so much of my time and energy, I didn’t feel like I could afford the distraction. Maybe, I was just scared. It had been many years since I’d made a new friend without alcohol loosening my tongue. What the fuck did people even talk about these days?
I was fifteen minutes early, but when I got out of the car, something made me look around the lot for his truck. The last time I’d seen that truck was ages ago, so chances were he didn’t have it anymore, but on my second scan, I noticed it parked about five rows to my right. A grin inched up on my face despite the nervousness churning in my gut. Fox was a guy who didn’t change. I had to convince him I was different.
Pretty Words: An Enemies To Lovers Rock Star Romance (River Valley Rebels) Page 13
