Page 29 of One More Made Up Love Song
Ivy won’t look at me as she gathers up her stuff, slinging her bag over her shoulder, then retrieving her lanyard and crew badge from the coffee table where she left them. She mumbles something about getting some sleep, then she heads for the door without looking back.
“Good night!” I call to her retreating form, but I’m smiling as I sink back onto the couch. Ivy only squirms like that when she doesn’t want to talk about her feelings. And if she doesn’t want to talk aboutthesefeelings, it could mean she actually has some.
It could also mean shedoesn’t,and she wants to avoid an awkward conversation in which she lets me down gently.
I think back to the first conversation I ever had with Ivy.
She was a senior at Belmont and an intern at NewGroove Records, my previous label, when I ran into her in a women’s bathroom just down the hall from the conference room where I’d been reviewing the terms of my recording contract.
I needed a minute to breathe without my agent hovering over me, and I was banking on the fact that Kevin was exactly the kind of guy who wouldn’t follow me into the ladies room.
“Sorry,” I said, glancing over my shoulder to where Ivy was washing her hands. “Just need to hide from my agent for a minute.”
She lifted an eyebrow, her entire demeanor cool and comfortable. “You must really like the guy.”
I grinned before nudging the door open to peek into the hallway. “His intentions are mostly good.”
“But they aren’t good right now?” she asked.
I let the door fall closed, then turned to face her, truly taking her in for the first time. Young, beautiful, wild curly hair that hung halfway down her back. Her glasses were bright red, the same color as her sneakers, but the thing I noticed most was that she really didn’t seem to care who I was.
“Not at the moment, no,” I finally answered.
She finished drying her hands and threw away her paper towel. “Well, good luck with that,” she said, before crossing to where I stood with my back against the door. She pushed her hands into her pockets. “Is it necessary that I hide from your agent too?”
“Oh! Absolutely not,” I said, stepping to the side. “Sorry.”
She took a step forward, but then I called her back, chasing a sudden impulse to not let her go.
“Hey, wait.”
She turned around.
“What’s your name?”
“Ivy Conway.”
“Nice to meet you, Ivy. I’m Freddie.”
A question passed over her expression before she finally said, “I know. I know who you are.”
“Ah,” I said. “I wondered, but I didn’t want to assume. You didn’t seem to.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “I’m an intern for your record label. I think I’d be a pretty terrible one if I didn’t.”
I rubbed a hand over my jaw even as an idea popped into my head. “Fair enough. Okay, how about this? If you had to, could you name the four members of Midnight Rush?”
“Midnight—wait, is that the boyband you were in? When you first started in music?”
I nodded. “That’s the one.”
She offered me an apologetic smile. “Sorry. I remember the band, and I’d probably recognize a few songs, but I was never the kind of fan to learn names.”
“So you don’t know my middle name.”
“Definitely not.”
“Or where I grew up.”
