Page 87 of One More Made Up Love Song
“How do you feel about that?” Jace asks.
“Like an idiot,” I say. “Like I’ve been missing out onsomething amazing because I couldn’t see past the nose on my own face.”
“So you want a relationship that’s real,” Leo says, matter-of-factly, and I nod.
“Yeah. I do.”
Wayne coughs on the other side of the room. I can’t be sure, but the cough sounds an awfully lot like the words,I told you so.
“Then why not tell her?” Jace asks.
I lean back and run a hand through my hair. “I want to. I’m going to Knoxville with her tomorrow,” I say. “I just have to figure out how.”
“You could just play her the song,” Adam suggests.
I nod. It’s not a terrible idea, now that I realize it’s about her. Which, honestly, I don’t know how Ididn’tnotice. I was too close to the process, maybe.
“I just don’t want to screw things up,” I say. “I don’t have a ton of experience withrealrelationships. If I do this thing with Ivy, I want to do it right. But what does right even look like when my life is…what it is?”
“Because of the fame?” Adam asks.
“The fame. The paparazzi. The never-ending scrutiny. Why would anyone want any of that?”
“But Ivy already knows all that. She’s been working with you for years,” Leo says.
“Just tell her, man,” Adam says. “Give her the opportunity to decide for herself.”
“You don’t think I should wait until all this faking stuff is behind us?” I ask. “I don’t want her to question my motives. Or feel trapped—like she has to go along with it even if she doesn’t feel the same way just because of all the publicity stuff.”
“Uh, have youmetIvy?” Leo says. “She won’t go along withanythingunless she wants to.”
I chuckle, and my heart expands the slightest bit. That’s one of the things I love most about Ivy. She knows her mind, and she definitely won’t let anyone push her around. Especially me.
“That’s fair,” I say. “But…what if she doesn’t feel the same way? What if I tell her and ruin everything, and then we can’t even be friends anymore?”
“What if you never tell her, and then you never know and you miss out on the opportunity to love her?” Adam shoots back.
Of the four of us, he’s the only one in a committed relationship, so he’s probably the most qualified to ask the question.
But then Jace adds, “Sometimes you have to take the risk and hope for the best. If we only focused on the worst thing that could happen, we’d never do anything. Take my marriage, for example. It ended. And it sucked. But I still don’t regret it. I have my kids, and I learned a lot about what I want my next relationship to look like.”
In every other aspect of my life, I’d fully embrace Jace’s philosophy. It’s a huge part of why I’ve built the career that I have. Sometimes making it in this business means acting first and thinking later. But this thing with Ivy—there’s so much at stake if it doesn’t work out.
“Listen,” Adam says, running a hand over his beard. “I’m not saying I know something. If Ididknow something, it would be wrong for me to say something, especially if someone asked me not to.” He looks at me pointedly, and I get the sense hedoesknow something and he’s trying his hardest to talk around it. “But in this hypothetical situationwhere I am not betraying anyone’s trust, if I thought you were going to get yourself hurt by admitting your feelings, I would definitely figure out a way to warn you.”
I narrow my gaze at him. “But youaren’twarning me now?”
“I’m not doing anything now,” he says. “Because I’m a man of my word.”
I smile and let the hope growing in my chest shoot out a few more roots.
Tomorrow, I think, then I tap the side of my guitar. “All right. Let’s do it again.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Ivy
By nine a.m.the next morning, Freddie is in the front seat of my car, Carina is in the back, and we are ready to leave for Knoxville.
