Page 40 of One More Made Up Love Song
Carina isawake but still woozy by the time we make it back to the hotel. Wayne swipes his key card to get us into the private garage, then we wordlessly make our way to the elevator. There’s no show tonight—I don’t perform until tomorrow—so for once, I don’t have anywhere to be or anything to do. My plan was to spend the time writing, figuring out what I’m going to put on the next album, but now, all I want to do is talk to Ivy.
Make sure she’s okay.
Make sure what happened didn’t somehow ruin everything between us.
Outside of our working relationship, I also don’t want to lose myfriendshipwith Ivy. She means a lot to me. Too much for me to have something like this screw things up.
I think of the way it felt to press my lips against hers.
In any other circumstance, a feeling like that might compel me to try for something more. To explore the possibility of a real relationship.
But it feels wrong to pursue something now when it feels like the relationship we already have is suddenly on the line. I don’t want to doubt what I felt when I kissed her, but emotions were high. I was thinking fast and acting faster. Who’s to say my judgment wasn’t clouded?
Even if my feelingsarelegit and Ivy happens to feel the same way, if a photo of us kissing is released, we will have lost the opportunity to explore something more in private. To see how we feel about each other before we find a way to make it fit with my very public life.
Our situation would have made dating complicated before, but I just took complicated and threw it into ablender with a side of stressful, a full cup of uncertainty, and two helpings ofvery, very public.
Ivy doesn’t even look at me before she peels off from the group and heads to her own hotel room, her arm wrapped protectively around Carina’s waist.
I follow Wayne to my suite, the ache in my chest shifting into frustration. I’m self-aware enough to realize that my frustration shouldn’t be directed at Ivy. But I’m frustrated with the situation, I’m anxious to talk to her, and I’m completely incapable of fixing any of it.
Wayne follows me into my suite, but something about his body language feels off, and it makes my skin prickle with annoyance. “What’s wrong with you?”
He shoots me a look. “Nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me, man.”
“What’s done is done,” he says. “There’s nothing to say. No reason to fight about it.”
I scoff. “What are you talking about?”
He gives his head a little shake. “Freddie, youkissedher,” Wayne says. “Did you think for two seconds about how that might impact her life?”
“I kissed her because shetoldme to,” I shoot back. “I guess I didn’t have to agree. But we’re talking about Margot here. She was trying to get close to me, and Ivy saw a way to prevent that from happening.”
“You’re right,” Wayne says. “You didn’t have to agree. Also, you could have stayed in the car.”
“Ivy needed help,” I insist. “Carina fell. I wasn’t going to just sit and watch her struggle.”
“Icould have helped,” Wayne says. “Better yet, you should have stayed at the hotel, man. We both told you that.”
“Right. Because that’s what my life is now. Stay out ofsight. Don’t go places. Hide from fans. Do you realize how exhausting that is? How isolating it is? Ivy is my friend, and her sister was in trouble because of me. Why does everyone keep wanting me to do nothing? That’s not living. That’s not caring for the people in my life.”
Wayne sighs, his arms folded across his chest. “I get that. I do.”
He lifts a shoulder. “But she was looking out for you, and she put herself on the line to do that. And now, in a matter of hours, the whole world will probably know that you kissed her. Her parents. Her friends. The guy she’s been talking to.”
I frown, a hot flash of jealousy burning through my limbs. “She’s talking to a guy?”
“She could be,” Wayne says. “She has a life outside of you, Freddie. Sometimes I think you forget that.”
I drop onto the edge of the couch, elbows propped on my knees, and let my shoulders drop.
“I just want to make sure someone is looking out forhertoo,” Wayne says.
I run a hand through my hair, thinking through what this will mean for Ivy if the photos drop. Ivy’s right that I need to talk to Sloane and Kat. We’ll need to be ahead of the story so we can control the narrative.
Because therewillbe a narrative. People will look into Ivy’s family. They’ll dig into Carina’s past. They’ll pull up old articles about Daphne’s accident and splash them all over the internet. They will dig and poke and prod and speculate because that’s what people do.
