“No I don’t,” I scoffed. Too fast, too defensive.
Except . . . shit. Maybe I did.
“I noticed it in rehab,” he continued, casually twirling a strand of hair. “Whenever you lied, your hands went straight to your nose. You’d twist your ring until the skin went red.”
I ran a hand through my hair and sighed. “Okay, fine. I was avoiding you.”
Iggy made a loud squawking buzzer noise that echoed through the café. I flinched; a couple of people glanced over. Iggy, of course, didn’t care. He never had. That fearless, unapologetic way he existed in the world was something I’d always admired. Maybe even envied.
“Old news,” he said. “Tell mewhy.”
“I just...” The words jammed in my throat. Talking about this crap always felt like trying to yank barbed wire out of my chest. Even back at the Willow, it had taken me days before I could string together a sentence for Dr Williams without panicking. And I knew Iggy wouldn’t judge me—he never had—but that didn’t magically make it easy.
“Bodhi,” Iggy murmured, his voice soft and steady as he reached across the table and placed his hand over mine. The teasing spark in his face had vanished, replaced with something earnest and open. Something he only ever showed in moments like these.
“I was ashamed,” I muttered, staring at our hands. At the way his thumb brushed the back of mine, like he’d already forgiven me for something I hadn’t admitted yet.
“What?” He furrowed his brow. “Why?”
“You’d seen me at my most vulnerable, I guess. You’ve heard things I haven’t even told the band, and they’re like my brothers, y’know?” I shook my head and flipped my hand over so his palm pressed fully against mine. “I appreciated your support and friendship in the Willow. I still do. I just thought?—”
“You thought we’d never see each other again,” Iggy finished for me. He smiled, but it wasn’t one of his bright, playful ones. It was small and sad, and it hit me harder than anything he could’ve said. I hated it. Hated being the reason it existed.
“Yeah. I guess. You were from London, and I’d be going back to LA once the tour was over.” I shrugged, guilt twisting deeper. “In the Willow, you became my best friend. But I always thought that’s where it would stay. Where it would end.”
“I understand,” he whispered. He started to pull his hand back, but I closed my fingers around his, stopping him.
“I didn’t expect our worlds to collide, and seeing you here, as our new makeup artist... it just threw me. I was overwhelmed, and when Riff asked if we knew each other, I said no before I even thought about it.”
“Bodhi, it’s okay?—”
“It’s not.” I gripped his hand a little tighter. “It was a dick move. I shouldn’t have done that, not after everything we went through. But there was another reason I said no. Does anyone else on the tour—other than me—know about you?”
Iggy rubbed his thumb along the side of my hand, a slow back-and-forth that somehow grounded me. When I looked up, he was worrying his bottom lip, teeth sinking into it gently.
“You mean that I’m an addict?”
“Arecoveringaddict,” I corrected automatically, and the corner of his mouth twitched, like he wanted to smile but couldn’t quite commit.
“No. No one knows but you.”
“That’s what I figured,” I said quietly. “I was avoiding you, yeah. But I think some fucked-up part of me thought I was also protecting you. Because if I’d said we knew each other, they’d all assume the same thing.”
“Okay, I see your point,” Iggy replied, brow creasing.
“Do you . . . want people to know?”
He leaned back, letting go of my hand, and the absence was immediate, cold against my skin. “I’m not ashamed that we went to rehab, or that I’m in recovery. Trust me, they drilled that into us enough.” He shrugged, staring somewhere past my shoulder. “But Sasha is my friend. She trusted me with this job. Idon’t want anyone thinking I can’t handle it just because I’m an addict.”
“A recov?—”
“Recovering addict,” he interrupted, waving a dismissive hand. “Yeah, yeah, I know.”
I snorted, and he shot me a tiny smirk in return.
“So,” Iggy continued. “Where do we go from here?”
I opened my mouth, but a server arrived, placing two glass mugs of inky black liquid in front of us, still steaming. They added a plate piled with the biggest pastry I’d ever seen. Golden, flaky, and laced with green icing and crushed pistachios.
