“No, I do have other things to say. I don’t know how much you’ve heard about what happened after you left the tour—”
“I heard you quit the band.”
“Yeah. After the OD, I realized I didn’t want to stick around on a path to an early death.” I cracked my neck. “So I left the band and checked myself into rehab. You could say I took the advice you gave me that night to heart.” Her expression told me she knew exactly what night I was talking about. “It was a ninety-day residency program on the outskirts of LA, and it really helped. I’ve been clean ever since.”
“You never considered returning to Ritual Disruption after that?”
Her question surprised me. “No.” I shook my head. “I didn’t.” There was a multitude of reasons why being in the band and being clean were mutually exclusive, but few people were privy to them.
“So you broke up the band,” she concluded in a tone laced with disapproval.
I rubbed at my cheek. This was a sore topic. “The band broke up after my departure. They could have chosen to keep going.” Had she read any of the articles that came out after the breakup was announced? The media had been confused about what happened with Ritual Disruption. On one hand, I was the lead singer, but everyone considered Oliver to be the real talent. He’d made sure to emphasize in nearly every interview he’d ever done that he wrote our music. But if I was just a crooner with a nice voice, why hadn’t he found a replacement?
Of course, the media didn’t know the full story. Not even half of it. But setting them straight wasn’t my current priority.
“Hard to do when you’d pitted most of the industry against one of their members,” she snipped.
A cold sensation spread through my chest. That detail hadn’t gotten out to the public, so how the hell did she know about it? Had she kept in touch with Oliver long enough for him to tell her?
“Who told you that?” I asked.
Something tense passed across her face. “Never mind.”
I held back the urge to pry. Whatever had happened between her and Oliver in the aftermath of the tour wasn’t my damn business. I needed to stay focused on doing what I’d come here to do.
“All right. Look, I’ll get right to it. That tour was the lowest point of my life. I don’t remember much of it, to be honest, but I do remember you and how I behaved. So first, I want to thank you for helping me that night. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be sitting here if it wasn’t for you.”
Color spread across her cheeks, and she looked down at the table. “All I did was get you an ambulance.” A few purple strands fell into her face, and I fought a sudden urge to brush them back behind her ears.
“You really helped me, Ivy,” I said earnestly. She’d helped me more than she would ever know. “Even when I’d done nothing to deserve it. Which brings me to my apology. I was completely out of line when I came on to you in that dressing room while you were all alone. I can’t imagine how scary that was for you. I’m ashamed of my actions and I’m very sorry.” My T-shirt was sticking to my back. I always sweated buckets during these meetings, especially when it came to seeing their reactions.
She lifted her face to look at me, and her brows pinched together. “Huh?”
She seemed…confused. Despite preparing myself for a wide variety of possible reactions, this wasn’t one of them. For a moment, panic gripped me. Did I mix something up? Was it another girl in that dressing room? Compared to the average person, I had a lot less confidence in my own memories, but this level of fuck up seemed too high, even for me. At a loss of how to respond, I cleared my throat.
Ivy leaned across the table, and from this close, I could make out light freckles sprinkled across her nose. They were cute—an observation that I certainly shouldn’t be making at the moment.
“Let me get this straight.” Her voice was scary. “You wanted to meet so that you could apologize forthe kiss?That’swhat you wanted to say you’re sorry about?”
Now it was my turn to be confused. “Yes?” Had I done something else to her that I could no longer remember?
“Are you serious right now?” Her hands were wrapped around the edge of the table, and judging by the whiteness of her knuckles, there was a good chance it’d snap at any moment. “The kiss is the least terrible thing you did to me.”
I pulled at the neck of my shirt. “It was?” Jesus fucking Christ. I was sure that when it came to her, I’d managed to remember everything important.
Her laugh was disbelieving. “You lied to me about Oliver, and I was dumb enough to listen. You made me doubt him, and that was the beginning of the end. You ruined what at the time was the best thing to ever happen to me. Do you understand?That’swhat you should be apologizing for.”
She jerked back into the chair, raising her chin high while I tried to make sense of what she’d just said.
“You think I lied about Oliver?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
“I know you did,” she shot back.
I frowned. After all this time, did she really still believe Oliver was the man he’d pretended to be with her? By now, the illusion should have worn off. I knew he was furious at Ivy for calling the ambulance that night. He’d screamed about it as soon as I’d gotten discharged from the hospital. I couldn’t believe he’d been able to hide all of his anger from her, and if she knew of his ire, wouldn’t she at least suspect something about him didn’t add up?
My prolonged silence obviously irritated her. “Well? Don’t you have anything more to say?” she asked.
“I’d apologize if I’d done something wrong, but I didn’t lie about Oliver. Everything I said to you that night is true.”
