Facing the Music

by Andrea Laurence

  The background music got louder and the crowd cheered wildly. Ivy put her fingers to the strings of her guitar and started to play. Closing her eyes, she leaned into the microphone and began to sing.

  If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that nothing good in life comes easy

  And when it comes to love, it’s painfully true the same rules apply

  We’ve had our differences, and you’ve taken the long road back to me

  But now I’m in your arms, and I must admit that baby, I lied

  I said I was over you, I said we were through

  I said I’d go on without you . . . but I’ve never stopped loving you

  No, I’ve never stopped loving you

  I’ve tried to move on, but your hold on me is strong

  And I can’t stop loving you

  She sang as though she were alone, singing the song to Blake. He was the only one who needed to hear it. The only one who would really understand what she was trying to tell him. She forgot about the crowd and the audio/visual team recording her performance; she just lost herself in the music.

  As she strummed the last chord and the music faded away, Ivy felt a huge weight lift from her chest. There were tears in her eyes as she looked out at the enthusiastic crowd. They loved the song. She’d sounded damn good. Kevin would be more than pleased with the live recording. She had no doubt the song would be available on iTunes before she landed back in LA.

  She stood and blew a kiss to the crowd. “Thank you.” Ivy took a bow and absorbed the applause. Hopefully Blake would be as receptive as the audience was to her song.

  Now was the moment. This was when she would walk offstage and into Blake’s arms. She’d fantasized about it all day like it was some romantic movie playing in her head. She would run into his arms and he would tell her how much he loved her. That would be better than any amount of audience applause.

  She took a deep breath and started walking. As she cleared the curtains, she looked around but found only Kevin. This was not what she was hoping for. “Where is he?”

  Kevin shook his head. “We’ve been looking for him. He’s around somewhere. I’m sure he heard it. How could he not?”

  The stage assistant came running up just then, out of breath from his search. “Someone said that Blake had to do a last-minute interview in his office.”

  Ivy tried not to be disappointed, but she couldn’t help the sinking feeling in her chest. He’d missed it. He’d been in his office with some reporter talking about the Rosewood football program instead of hearing her sing her heart and soul out to him.

  Her bodyguard, Dominick, came up and put a reassuring hand on Ivy’s shoulder. He’d flown out with Kevin to help with fan control during the concert, and it was amazing how much more comfortable she felt with him by her side. He was six foot four, two hundred and forty pounds of security. “Let’s go find him,” he said in his comforting low rumble of a voice. “Bring your guitar. Maybe he can get a private performance. That might be a better way to hear the song anyway.”

  Ivy nodded. Maybe he was right. “Kevin, I have to go find him.”

  “Good luck. I’m sure it will go great. I’m jetting out of here in about two hours, so if you can, catch me before then to say good-bye, okay? Otherwise I’ll get with you in LA later next week.”

  Ivy leaned in to give Kevin a hug. He looked a little stunned but didn’t pull away, reminding Ivy that she’d never hugged her manager before. She’d been in the South too long, she thought with a chuckle. “’Night, Kevin.”

  “How do we get to his office from here?” Dominick asked.

  Pointing to the nearby band building, Ivy said, “That’s the side entrance to the band room. We can cut through there.”

  Dominick made a path with his mere presence, easily escorting Ivy to the door and inside the school. They navigated through the maze of hallways, finally arriving at Blake’s makeshift office.

  There was a paper sign on the door that said COACH CHAMBERLAIN over the PRIVATE sign of what was normally the teacher prep room. The door had no windows, so Ivy couldn’t tell if he was done with his interview or not.

  Leaning her ear to the heavy wood door, she couldn’t hear any voices. She reached for the knob, finding it unlocked. Dominick waited to the side as she pushed the door open and stuck her head inside.

  Ivy didn’t remember the breaking of her heart making a noise the first time, but this time, there was literally a sound. It was the deafening shatter of her guitar falling to the ground, mingled with her own gasp.

  Blake was not in his office with a journalist. He was in there with Lydia. A mostly nude Lydia.

  Ivy couldn’t speak. Lydia had been telling the truth all this time. How was that possible? Her eyes just kept darting around the room, waiting to see something that made sense. The round cheeks of Lydia’s ass hanging out of those red lace panties certainly didn’t make sense. Nor did the fact that Blake’s hands were on her bare skin.

  Blake’s eyes widened as he saw her. In a flash, he shoved Lydia out of the way. “Ivy!” he said, running to her, but she’d taken off his letterman jacket and threw it in his face. He tripped over her guitar, stumbling for a moment. By the time he cast it aside and recovered, she’d slammed the door shut.

  She turned to Dominick. “Get me out of here,” she said, barely able to keep back her tears.

  Dominick’s large arm encircled her shoulders, quickly ushering her at a jogging pace down the hallway. He radioed for a car to meet them at the nearest side entrance as they zigzagged through the halls.

  Blake’s panicked shouts of her name came quick behind them, but she wouldn’t stop. She knew he couldn’t catch her. Not with his leg. “Ivy! Wait. Please. It’s not what you think.”

  Ivy didn’t turn. She just kept moving. He’d said those same things the last time, and it had been exactly what she thought. And this time it was so much worse. It was with Lydia. Lydia! The one he swore he wasn’t involved with. The one he said he wasn’t attracted to.

  Ivy was a fool. She’d just announced to the whole damn world that she loved Blake and always had. Then she found him with his hands on another woman, just like back in college.

  They burst out a side door just as a black sedan pulled up. Dominick quickly ushered Ivy into the car and climbed in behind her. The minute the door shut, the wheels of the car spun into motion and they peeled away from the high school.

  Ivy looked out the back window in time to see Blake burst through the door and watch her drive away. He had the same broken expression he’d had as she drove away from him that night at Auburn. This time, she didn’t know if it was the pain from his leg or the hurt of knowing he’d screwed this up. Again. Either way, she hoped he suffered.

  She certainly would. He thought it was bad having to hear “Size Matters” on the radio all the time. How did he think she would feel having to perform “I’ve Never Stopped Loving You” for the rest of her career? It was her new single. She’d have to perform it on late-night talk shows and at concerts for the next few years. Every time she opened her mouth to sing that song, she’d picture him with Lydia and her lace-covered ass cheeks.

  Ivy squeezed her eyes shut and turned to face forward. Wiping the tears from her face, she leaned in toward the driver. “Take me to the cabin,” she told him. “And radio the pilot of Kevin’s jet not to leave without both of us. I want to pack my things and get back to LA tonight.”

  Blake’s entire leg was on fire, but it was nothing, nothing compared to the ache in his chest. As the taillights of Ivy’s car disappeared into the night, he realized he’d good and truly lost her this time. There would be no third chance. There would be no trust rebuilt between them.

  And it was all Lydia’s fault. The first time he and Ivy had broken up, he’d been guilty. This time, he was innocent. He should’ve left the moment he saw Lydia in his office,
but he’d wanted to figure out what her angle was. He didn’t really think she was going to the cops to confess, but if not that, then what? The next thing he knew, her dress had pooled to the floor and she was standing there in nothing but lingerie.

  That. That was what she had planned. Every time he tried to step around her to get out of his office, she’d step in his path. Then she started to close in on him. He’d put his hands on Lydia to push her away and in that moment, of course, Ivy had come in and seen them. The most evil smile had broken out across Lydia’s face and he knew she’d deliberately set him up to get caught.

  She had to be stopped. Somehow, her twisted little brain was just certain that once Ivy was gone, Lydia would have him all to herself. In her dreams.

  “Hey, Blake!” Clark Newton, the owner of the Rosewood newspaper, shouted at him from down the street. “Was that Ivy leaving just now?”

  He swallowed hard and nodded. “Yes, it was.”

  “Do you think she’ll be around town for a while or is she headed back to California right away?”

  “My guess is she’ll be in the air by midnight.” Never to return. Because he was an idiot.

  Clark nodded. “I suppose she has to go promote that new song she debuted tonight. It was fantastic.”

  Blake hadn’t heard a new song. He’d missed the last part of her set because of Lydia. “Sure was,” he lied, heading back into the building. And then a thought stopped him and he turned around. “Hey Clark? I’ve got some pictures I think you’d be interested in running in the Sunday paper. A big headline grabber.”

  “Really?” he said. “I don’t get many big headlines around here. I was thankful for the concert so I’d have something for the front page tomorrow.”

  Blake nodded. The concert and how much money it raised would undoubtedly be front and center, but the scandal he was about to hand over was front page material as well, just beneath the fold. “I’ve got them in my office. If you’ll meet me out front in about twenty minutes, I’ll get them to you.”

  “Sure thing. Say, Blake, what are they pictures of?” Clark asked.

  Blake thought for a moment before he answered. “Last week’s parade.” That was true enough.

  Clark frowned. “I already did a story on the parade in last Sunday’s edition.”

  Blake smiled and shook his head. “I guarantee you didn’t do a story on this aspect of the parade!”

  “Wait a second,” Clark said. “Are you talking about the same picture from the slideshow?”

  “What slideshow?” It seemed like he’d missed more than just a few of Ivy’s songs.

  “The one during the encore; didn’t you see it? They were flashing through pictures of you and Ivy together. Some were back in high school and college, and some were more recent, including one from the parade. It went by kinda quickly, but it looked like . . .”

  Blake was intrigued. “It looked like what?”

  “It looked like Lydia Whittaker was throwing something in the street. I was thinking maybe that was what spooked the horse. A streak of luck that someone would have taken a shot at that exact moment. I wish I could get my hands on it to see if I really saw what I think I saw.”

  That was an interesting development for certain. “I can probably help you with that. I didn’t see the slideshow, but I’m pretty sure they’re the same picture.”

  “Great!” Clark beamed. “Say, you don’t know who slipped that picture into the slideshow, do you?”

  Blake shook his head. He sure didn’t. But he would be damn interested in finding out. “I’ll meet you out front in a little bit. I’ve got to take care of a few things first.”

  With that, he disappeared back into the high school, his sights set on tracking down Lydia. He had been too concerned with chasing Ivy to give Lydia a piece of his mind before, but now his calendar was wide open. He rounded the corner to his office. He moved aggressively down the hallway despite the fact that every step echoed pain as surely as the tile hall echoed each sound.

  He threw open the door to his office. Blake wasn’t surprised to find Lydia, still in a state of undress, sitting on his desk. Bending down, he picked up her pink dress from the floor and threw it at her. No wonder she’d been all dressed up tonight. She was on the hunt.

  “Put on some damn clothes before someone else sees you in here.”

  With a pout, Lydia slid from the desk and pulled the dress over her head. “Blake—” she started, but he wasn’t about to listen to anything she had to say.

  “Can it, Lydia. This is done. No apologies, no excuses. Get out of my office.”

  “But Blake,” she cried, fat crocodile tears gathering in her eyes, “you have to understand—I had to do this to protect you. She would just embarrass you again! I couldn’t bear to see you go through all that a second time.”

  Blake chuckled bitterly. “So kind of you to have only my welfare in mind. It couldn’t possibly be because your greedy, social-climbing ass was determined to catch a Chamberlain, right?”

  Lydia flinched at his coarse words. “How could you say that?”

  He could only shake his head. “Are you so delusional, Lydia, that you would think just because Ivy was gone you would have your opportunity back?”

  “No,” she said, crossing her arms and tilting her pert little nose in the air. “I’m over you, Blake Chamberlain.”

  He took a few steps toward her, narrowing his eyes with suspicion. “I find that very hard to believe, Lydia. You’ve been chasing after me since junior high.”

  “I know, but we really aren’t meant for each other. Seeing you and Ivy together at the game last night made me realize that we want different things. I want a handsome, successful husband who treats me like a goddess. You want to slum with the poor girl that made a career out of humiliating you and half the male population of California. How could I love a man with such poor judgment?”

  She shrugged, pursing her pink lips as she considered her next words. “We’re not meant to be. I know that now.”

  “Then what was tonight about? Why set this trap and ruin everything for me?”

  “I wasn’t trying to ruin things, I was trying to save you from yourself. It’s like I said before, I did this for you. Date anyone, Blake. Anyone but Ivy. You might think you had something special, but when it fell apart, she’d write another awful song about you. She can’t be trusted, so I had to send Ivy back to California for good.”

  Blake squeezed his eyes tightly shut as he tried to wrap his mind around her logic. “This has nothing to do with me,” he said at last. “You can throw all your altruistic motivations out the window, because I’m not swallowing that crap. You did this to hurt Ivy. What happened between you two that you would waste so much of your energy trying to wound her?”

  “She took everything that was supposed to be mine!” A red flush of rage mottled Lydia’s flawless complexion. “And she did it on purpose. She went out of her way to take away everything I wanted because she was jealous of my life. I was the head cheerleader. I was popular and pretty and had the envy of everyone in school. I was supposed to be the prom queen. I was supposed to date the captain of the football team and live this charmed life.”

  Blake tried to process everything she was throwing at him. She apparently had years of built-up aggression over her competition with Ivy. What he couldn’t understand was why she thought Ivy did it on purpose. Ivy never wanted to be prom queen, but she tolerated it for his sake. Blake had asked out Ivy, not the other way around, so it wasn’t as though she had stolen him away from Lydia.

  “You need some therapy.”

  Lydia laughed. “I’m not disturbed, Blake. I see everything very clearly. Ivy took it all away just to spite me. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let her have you, too.”

  Blake shifted nervously on his feet. “Are you threatening me, Lydia?”

  “No.�
�� She shook her head. “I wouldn’t hurt you just to get back at her. I’ve cared about you for too long to ever do something like that. I just want to see Ivy broken, defeated, and back in California, where she belongs.”

  He could feel his blood pressure start to rise. “Well, you’ve got your wish. She’s leaving Rosewood as we speak. At the moment, I wish you’d do the same.” Blake circumvented her to unlock his desk drawers and opened one to pull out the envelope with the pictures from Nash.

  “Wait,” she said. “What are those?”

  “Nothing to worry your little head over, since you’re going to turn yourself in to the police. Or was that just a big story to keep me in my office?”

  Her stoic expression proved him right.

  “What?” he asked. “I told you Nash kept copies, and I was right. I’m not the only one with them. Apparently while you were in here playing me, someone else was playing you. This picture,” he said, holding up the envelope. “On the jumbotron. Where the whole town could see it.”

  Lydia listened to him quietly, her hands tightly balled into fists at her sides. Her lips were pressed together into a thin line, and her gaze was icy as she regarded him. She didn’t like that she had been caught. It was ruining her glorious moment, splitting up him and Ivy at last.

  “What are you going to do with those pictures?”

  “Well, the funny thing is that I’d decided yesterday that I wasn’t going to do anything with them. No one got hurt, and Ivy and I were happy together. I didn’t want to embarrass your family. But tonight, you’ve gone way too far and I have no choice but to change my mind. I’m about to hand them over to Clark Newton. Look for your debut on the front page of the Rosewood Times tomorrow morning.”

  Lydia’s jaw dropped open, her eyes wide with panic. “Blake, please,” she pleaded, but it wasn’t going to make any difference. “What do you want? I’ll do anything.”

  “Anything?” He chuckled bitterly. “Well, then I want you to track down Ivy right now. Run out of my office and go straight to her cabin to tell her what you did.”