Facing the Music: A Rosewood Novel

by Andrea Laurence

“Blake . . . ?” Ivy said quickly, and then seemed to lose her courage.

  “What is it?”

  Ivy sighed and looked at his bow tie instead of his eyes. “If that night at Auburn never happened and we didn’t break up when we did . . . would you have asked me to marry you one day?”

  Blake was a little stunned by the question. It was something he hadn’t thought about in a long time. “Why on earth would you ask that now, after all these years? What did Lydia say to you?”

  A tiny flush of pink embarrassment rushed to Ivy’s cheeks. “Lydia . . . Lydia said you thought I was good enough to sleep with, but that you never would’ve married me because I wasn’t good enough to be a Chamberlain.”

  “Jesus,” Blake muttered, softly shaking his head. If there weren’t a hundred people watching and a spotlight highlighting their every move, Blake would’ve sought out Lydia and given her a piece of his mind.

  “So . . . would you?” Ivy pressed.

  “Yes,” he said simply. “I had every intention of marrying you and making a future together. Ivy, despite the fact that I was the one who ruined our relationship, I was already thinking about rings. I was planning to propose that Christmas.”

  Ivy’s eyes grew wide as Berlin cranked out the last few notes and Gloria invited everyone onto the dance floor for the next song, Madonna’s “Crazy for You.” With the spotlight gone, they were once again blanketed in the dim multicolored lights. Dozens of couples crowded around them, forcing them closer together.

  Blake crooked his finger beneath Ivy’s chin and lifted it so she had no choice but to look at him. “There’s no such thing as ‘good enough’ or ‘not good enough’ to be a Chamberlain. We’re just a family, not a pantheon. Don’t let anyone ever tell you you’re not good enough for me.”

  Ivy’s eyes searched his face for a moment. He kept waiting for her to say something, but she didn’t. Instead, her palms gripped his lapels and pulled him down until their lips met. There was so much emotion in her kiss, so much behind every desperate caress and nibble of her lips and teeth and tongue. Appreciation, desire, relief.

  There, on the darkened dance floor, it was easy to give in to it. He let his hands roam over the slick fabric of her dress. Here, they were public, yet somehow it felt like they were all alone in the crowd. It was just like their first prom all over again. Nervous bodies pressed against one another. Hormones racing with the thrill of the night’s possibilities.

  Desire surged through his body, tensing his muscles and sending his blood furiously pumping through his extremities. The hardened ache of need strained against his ridiculously tight tuxedo pants, making him thankful it was very dark.

  “Ivy,” Blake whispered against her lips as he pulled away. “I want you so badly. I’ve wanted you since I saw you naked outside your cabin that first day.”

  “I was not naked.”

  Blake smiled. Even now, she argued with him. “The memories of your mostly nude body have haunted me for a week. Holding you now, I can’t stop thinking about touching you again. About having you again.”

  Ivy smiled, her body pressed into every obvious inch of his need for her. “It is prom night, after all.”

  Chapter 14

  It took longer than they wanted to finish out their duties for the evening, but eventually they were able to hand over their crowns and slink out of the dance unnoticed. There was a rush of adrenaline surging through Ivy’s veins as they slipped into his Corvette and peeled out of the parking lot. She felt seventeen again, her stomach a flutter with nerves about giving herself to Blake for the first time.

  That night had been romantic and wonderful. She didn’t expect the same from tonight—they weren’t blissfully in teenage love like they had been then. Still, she hoped it would be an occasion to remember for all the right reasons.

  If she’d thought kissing Blake was a bad idea a few days ago, going to his house with the intention of having sex with him was a horrible plan. But so much had changed since she came home, she couldn’t help herself. Obviously this wouldn’t turn into anything serious, but there was something cathartic in their reunion. The two of them making up and making love felt like it would somehow heal their old wounds.

  Even hearing him say the things he’d said tonight had done a lot to help her put those past hurts behind her. Even after they’d apologized for what they’d both done, the doubts that Lydia planted in her head back in school had always bothered her on some level. Blake thought she was good enough. She had to believe he meant that.

  She also had to believe that nothing had really happened between him and Lydia. It had taken time for her to get back to that mental place, but it made more sense. She’d watched Lydia chase him all through school without success. Blake had never been interested in her, even before he asked Ivy out. If at any point he’d wanted Lydia, he could’ve dropped Ivy and had her in a second. But he hadn’t. From the way he spoke about her now, nothing seemed to have changed.

  “So, I thought you still lived in Rosewood,” Ivy said after they’d been driving for quite some time.

  “I do. We’re almost there.”

  They turned off the highway onto a dirt road that meandered through the trees. They rounded a corner and crossed a small bridge that spanned a creek before they came to a large clearing in the woods.

  Blake’s house was exactly what Ivy would’ve expected but nothing like she could’ve imagined. It was rustic in style, with clean, contemporary lines. It was two stories high with a large, sloped A-frame roof on one end and floor-to-ceiling windows.

  They pulled around the back and Blake hit the button to open one of the four garage doors that lined that side of the house. Inside, the garage was large and immaculate with white linoleum floors, white walls, and bright lights. His truck was parked in the far bay, with his boat and his two dirt bikes parked in between.

  Blake helped Ivy out of the car and walked her to the door. It opened into the large open space of his great room.

  Ivy walked in, a little stunned by the beauty of his home. It was as though someone had taken every bit of his personality and shaped it into a house.

  The two-story-high ceiling of the kitchen had skylights on the sloped roof that came down and fanned out to the more intimate dining room. The near wall was entirely covered in stone with a professional grade stove carved into it. The kitchen island was made of distressed ebony cabinetry and a shiny black granite countertop. There were arched exposed beams overhead and worn, reclaimed wood floors underfoot.

  “Do you like it?” he asked as he tugged at his bow tie and slipped out of his tailcoat. “It used to be an old mill. I had it pretty much gutted and redone, although I tried to reuse as much of the original material as I could. All the stone and beams are untouched. And the floors.”

  Ivy wandered into the living room. There was a massive fireplace and plush leather couches that invited sitting and watching football on the wide-screen television mounted above it. “It’s beautiful. I’ve never seen anyplace like it. It must’ve cost you a fortune.”

  “Well,” Blake said with a shrug, “real estate is cheaper out here than it is in California. Still, I put a lot into it to get it just right. I wanted a place to live out the rest of my life, and this is it.”

  Ivy walked over to a pair of French doors that opened out onto a deck. Blake followed her and opened the doors up. “Go on outside. I’ll get us a drink and meet you out there.”

  Blake returned to the kitchen as Ivy stepped outside. It was cool in the woods, but not uncomfortable. The deck was large and partially covered with a set of furniture for gatherings and an outdoor kitchen. There was another fireplace near the seating area, which roared to life as she got close to it. Ivy leaped back, turning when she heard Blake laugh.

  “Sorry. It’s gas. I flipped the switch as I stepped out,” he said, offering her a glass of white wine.

  Ivy took a large sip to calm her nerves and walked over to the railing. The property sloped down a little wh
ere the creek flowed by. She looked out into the woods, but couldn’t spy a single light in the distance. “Got any neighbors?” she asked.

  Blake leaned on the railing beside her and shook his head. “Not really. I bought twenty acres and my nearest neighbor owns fifty, so I’ve never even seen the guy.”

  “That’s nice,” Ivy said. “I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have enough space to breathe. Sometimes it feels like I’m never truly alone. There’s always someone around, someone watching.”

  “Have you ever . . . considered getting a place a little farther from the rat race of LA and Manhattan?”

  Ivy turned to him with a smirk curling her lips. “You mean like moving back here?”

  He shrugged and sipped his wine. “I know California and New York are where you conduct a lot of business, but there’s nothing that says you can’t have a place to go that’s away from all that. Where you could have some real downtime, be that here or a mountain house in Tennessee or a chalet in Colorado.”

  “I’ve thought about it. The last few years have just left me so little time to devote to anything other than work. When I go back to LA, it’s back into the studio to record a new album. That means new videos, promotional trips, maybe another tour next summer. Kevin is pushing me to tour Asia this time.”

  “You have to make the time to have a life, Ivy. There’s a whole world outside the music business. You deserve to have a home that isn’t crawling with press and a relationship that isn’t documented daily online.”

  Ivy heard what he said, but it seemed like an impossibility.

  “It took a three-hundred-pound linebacker to make me reevaluate things. Since high school, my life had been nothing but football. I was going to be Brett Favre or Joe Montana and play ball into my forties. And then, there I was, lame at twenty-four. It took a long time for me to figure out what I was supposed to do with my life. Hell, I’m still trying to figure it out.”

  “You really can’t play anymore?”

  Blake shook his head. “It was a freak occurrence. I’d been hit harder a hundred times before, but this time ruined everything.”

  “May I see?” She didn’t know why, but she wanted to see the scars. They’d both changed over the years, but his injury was physical proof of everything he’d been through. She needed to see and understand what had happened to him while they were apart.

  He hesitated for a moment, biting his lip, and then he finally nodded. Blake didn’t seem comfortable with the idea, but the fact that he would do it anyway spoke volumes. He lifted his foot up onto the nearby patio chair and tugged up his gray slacks. There were red scars running across his kneecap and down his calf. Another on his thigh disappeared beneath the rolled cuff of his pants.

  “It’s pretty gruesome, so I don’t show many people. I got a new knee and some titanium rods that reinforce the shin bone and femur. It took twenty-three screws to hold it all together. Unfortunately, it didn’t make me bionic. It made me a benchwarmer.”

  Ivy reached out and ran her fingertips gently over the scars. He shivered under her touch, squeezing his eyes closed for a moment. “Did I hurt you?” she asked, pulling her hand away.

  “No.” Blake sighed and put down his leg. “I’m just not used to people looking at it, much less touching it.”

  “Does it still hurt?”

  “Yeah, although not as much as my pride. Even after all the physical therapy, I’m still only at sixty percent of my previous flexibility and mobility. I can jog slowly, but not for long. There’s no way I could make it through training camp, much less take another hard tackle. Out on the football field is a line of guys looking to lay the quarterback out on the turf. I couldn’t risk it again. But it was a good excuse to get a spa put in,” he said, pointing to the hot tub set into the deck on the far side. “Therapy,” he said with a smile that seemed hard wrought.

  “Do you miss it?”

  “Every single day. The only thing that makes life bearable some days is working with the kids.”

  Ivy was glad he had something. She felt more than a touch of guilt knowing she had exceeded her every goal and he had lost it all. “Coaching seems to come naturally to you. I’ve heard nothing but how great you are with the players and how much they seem to love you.”

  At last, Blake smiled with genuine warmth. “Sometimes things work out the way they’re meant to. Grant likes to remind me of that when I’m feeling down about things. I still have football, it’s just not the way I envisioned it. And now I have time to settle down, start a family, and have a life outside of the game if I want to.”

  Settle down. Those were words she hadn’t considered in a long time. Ivy wasn’t sure if it was the cooling air or the serious turn of the conversation, but she started to shiver in her strapless dress.

  Blake looked at her and frowned. “Let’s get back inside. I’ll give you the tour of upstairs.”

  Ivy followed him back into the house and up the circling wood-and-iron staircase that led to the second floor. Blake’s injury hadn’t been noticeable to her before, and even now he wasn’t limping. He’d ridden horses and danced. He’d walked all night around the fair. However much pain he was in, he did everything he could to hide it.

  “There’s an elevator in the far corner of the house,” he said as they neared the top. “I had it put in because I knew eventually these stairs would be a problem, but I refuse to use it until I absolutely have to.”

  Blake opened a door into a dark room and flipped the switch. “Here’s the media room, used most often for watching football with my brothers, of course.” There were rows of leather chairs facing a large screen and a projector mounted in the ceiling.

  Down the hall was his office. The space was lined with dark wood bookshelves that were filled with leather-bound books, trophies, plaques, and photos of his football glory days. Ivy expected him to spend more time showing off some of his achievements, but he skimmed right past them. The layer of dust on the desk indicated he didn’t go in there very often. He tried to be positive, but the office was proof to her that he wasn’t over losing his football career yet. It had to be hard to be trapped between pride in your achievements and sadness over having to stop before your time.

  “Here at the end is my room.”

  Blake opened a set of double doors made of old wood. “These were repurposed outer mill doors,” he said. The sharp A-line of the ceiling continued into the room with sloped ceilings that framed the king-size bed in the center of the room. The bed had a stone-and-wood headboard they had to circle around, since the bed faced the wall of windows, not the entrance.

  Sitting atop a frame that looked like old railroad trestles stacked up, the bed was covered with a quilt that must have taken someone forever to piece together. He had put so much thought into every detail of the home. It was one of the things she’d appreciated about him when they dated. He paid attention to every detail, be it a coach’s play on the whiteboard or the secret spots on Ivy’s body that made her arch up and cry out. She looked forward to experiencing that once again.

  Ivy sat on the edge of the bed and kicked out of her heels. She gave the bed a test bounce with a mischievous smile. “This is a little more comfortable than making out by the lake,” she noted.

  Blake sat down beside her with a chuckle. “I did the best I could. A blanket by the lake seemed like the best plan.”

  Ivy looked into his eyes, remembering that night with the stars overhead and the soft blanket below. “It was a great plan. I couldn’t have asked for a better night.”

  A sly smile curled Blake’s lips as his hand went to her bare knee. “I think I might be able to beat it tonight. I’ve picked up some sweet moves over the last few years.”

  Ivy giggled.

  It was a soft, familiar sound that made Blake’s heart stutter in his chest and his crotch throb against the too-tight fit of his tuxedo pants. The woman on the television and radio was not the Ivy he thought of on lonely nights. What he imagined was his sweet, cr
eative Ivy. Thoughtful, sensitive, and unbelievably trusting. He might have been responsible for destroying parts of the old Ivy, but that giggle was enough to make him believe she might still be in there.

  He wanted to lose himself in Ivy Grace tonight, not the rock icon. Part of him was driven to peel back each of her layers, one by one, until he fully exposed her. He would start with that god-awful dress.

  He leaned in, planting kisses along the sensitive line of her neck. He let his hands roam over the back of her dress until he found the metal tab of the zipper. The slow, rhythmic sound of it unfastening mingled with her soft gasps.

  Ivy’s neck had always been her weakness. He could talk her into anything as long as his lips were dancing along her skin. The zipper reached the end of its path, his fingertips brushing over the hollow of her lower back.

  “You know,” she whispered, “I’ve learned a few sweet moves over the years, too.” Pulling away from him, she stood up, holding her limp dress to her body to keep it from falling.

  Blake leaned back onto his elbows, watching the dark silhouette of her body move in front of the wall of windows behind her. She turned her back to him, looking coquettishly over her shoulder. She smiled and let the dress drop to the floor. The light in the room was dim, but it was bright enough for him to make out every detail of her body. She was wearing a black lace thong that exposed the hard, round cheeks of her ass. She kicked out of the dress and turned back, showcasing the tight little bustier she’d worn beneath her outfit. The boning and lace clung to her ribs and the satin cups pushed the full swell of her breasts nearly up and over the top.

  “You packed that,” he said, “to come home to Rosewood?”

  Ivy softly chuckled and shook her head. “No. This came courtesy of a shop in Birmingham that Pepper and I stopped at when we went dress shopping.”

  “I like that store,” he muttered, unable to tear his eyes from the body he’d ached to touch for a week. It was just as well he hadn’t known what she had on under that dress. He would’ve rushed them out of that dance before they’d had a chance to get their crowns.