Page 48 of One More Made Up Love Song
She shrugs, her eyes darting away like that’sexactlywhat she was doing.
I force myself to take a deep breath. “Carina?—”
“I know,” she says, cutting me off. “I know. Please don’t lecture me. I was thinking about Daphne the whole time, and I was so careful because of that. But Margot was just being so nice to me and acting like I was her very favorite person. I was wearing her clothes, eating all this delicious food—caterers were constantly in and out. And so manyfamous people were there, Ivy.” She sits up a little taller. “You would not believe the things I saw.”
Iwouldbelieve it, which is exactly why it makes my stomach churn to think of Carina in the middle of it.
“When did your phone break?”
“Like the second freaking day,” Carina says. “It was so annoying. Then Margot kept saying she’d get me a new one, then that shehadgotten me a new one and it would be there any minute. But I think she was probably lying to me the whole time. Seems like something she would do.”
“I wouldn’t put it past her,” I say. “I ordered you a new phone. So we don’t need one from her anyway. It should be delivered within the hour.”
Carina blinks. “You just…ordered a whole new phone? Isn’t that, like, at least a thousand bucks?”
I wave a dismissive hand. “Freddie can afford it as well as Margot can. And he insisted because he feels responsible. Since you met Margot at his release party.”
On this, I didn’t fight Freddie. He pays me well enough that I could have afforded to buy it myself, but I know Freddie, and I know how guilty he feels about everything that happened. For him, paying to replace Carina’s phone is a small thing financially but a big thing emotionally.
I won’t take that away from him just to make a point.
“Tell him thanks for me,” Carina says.
“You can tell him yourself,” I say. “I figured you’d just fly home with us tomorrow.”
“You’re going home?”
“Back to Nashville. We’ve got two months off. I can drive you the rest of the way to Knoxville once we’re there.”
“Or I could just stay with you in Nashville,” she says, a little too eagerly.
“I’m not inviting you to crash at Freddie’s place,” I say. “We’ve had this conversation before.”
She rolls her eyes. “It’s not like his place isn’t big enough.”
“Not the point.”
I almost tell her that as soon as I have my own place, she can come stay with me anytime she wants. But she’ll want to know all my reasons for moving out of my very free living situation, and that’s not a conversation I feel like having right now.
Besides, if she thought she had a chance, I can easily see her wanting to move in with me full time. She’s never lived away from home—she lived with Mom and Dad while she attended UT—so she’d probably love to get out on her own. But I’m not sure living withmeis the right answer.
It’s hard enough not to worry about her all the time as it is. If I were constantly aware of what she’s up to and where she’s going, I might never sleep.
And Mom would probably call me twelve million times a day.
Carina flops back onto her pillows, propping herself up enough that she can reach for her latte and take a long sip. “So when you sayfly home with us,are we talking on a commercial flight? Or…on Freddie’s plane?” She looks much too excited about this possibility.
“Freddie does not have his own plane.”
“So weareflying commercial,” she says.
“It’s a private plane that we chartered for the trip. But trust me when I say America’s airports do not want to deal with Freddie Ridgefield on a commercial flight. This is definitely easiest on everyone.”
“Chill,” Carina says. “I’m not going to send you hate mailabout his carbon footprint. I’m just happy I get to see Freddie again.” Carina says this with a breezy nonchalance, but I don’t miss the excitement dancing in her eyes. She likes to act like she’s no longer star-struck when she’s around Freddie—she’s met him multiple times—but she’s clearly still impacted.
Honestly, if this is what it takes to keep her from fighting me, I’m happy to exploit Freddie’s fame to suit my purposes. At least in this sense.
A knock sounds on the door, and I move to it, guessing correctly that it’s a member of the hotel staff bringing up Carina’s new phone. I carry the Apple bag back into the room and toss it onto the bed.
