“Have you always been close?”
I bit on the inside of my cheek. Maybe I should have told Ivy about our history earlier, but it was still a deeply shameful episode in my life, and I worried about how she’d react.
“Jamie?” she asked after a prolonged silence.
Shaking my head, I resolved to be honest. Besides the temporary silence regarding Oliver, I didn’t want to have any secrets between us. “We practically grew up together. My ma and her sister, Fox’s mom, lived in the same town, so I’d see Fox all the time. We were best friends all through high school and college, until I dropped out and joined Ritual Disruption. Our lives suddenly became very different, and we started drifting apart. Then I started drinking, and things between us got more strained, just like they did between my ma and I. Still, I’d see Fox from time to time, until I did something really fucked up. We had a huge falling out, and we’ve only gotten back in touch recently.”
She turned to me, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see her brows furrowing. “What happened?”
I let out a long breath. “I pretty much ruined his marriage.”
Ivy waited for me to continue.
“I was a different man. I mean, you saw me. I don’t have to explain to you how fucked up I got at times. On our fourth world tour—I was twenty-five—Fox came to see us in New Orleans with his wife, Iris. She and I…” I was suddenly unable to say the words out loud.
“You slept together?” Ivy’s voice was soft.
“Yeah,” I admitted. “But it was more than that. I apparently convinced her to leave Fox and go with us on tour. She did, and the next day, when I woke up on the bus beside her, I could barely remember who she was. I can’t remember seducing her or asking her to leave her husband of two years, but I did. In my drunken stupor, I did all those things, and ruined someone’s life. She stuck around for a week, trying to make it work, trying to make me remember the moments we shared, while I just drank and snorted everything I could get my hands on so that I could drown out the shame roaring inside my head.”
I stopped at a red light, and Ivy’s hand landed on my thigh. We shared a look. She sighed when she saw the expression I wore. “Jamie, it was a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes.”
“Sometimes, I think the past ten years was all one enormous mistake. There are days when I think back to everything I accomplished with Ritual Disruption, and it all seems so meaningless. People say music can change lives, and I’ve had fans who told me as much, but that influence often feels indirect. Then I look at my life, and the lives of all the people I’ve harmed directly, and I wonder if it evens out or if I just caused a lot of needless pain.”
The light turned green, and I pressed down on the gas while Ivy sat beside me in silence.
You finally scared her away. Congratulations.
Then she spoke. “You can spend your entire life looking back and analyzing past events. It’s like with every passing year, the lens we perceive the world through changes. I get why you’re ashamed of your old self, why you question and regret some of the things you’ve done. But at some point, we have to let go of the past and focus on the only thing that’s real—the present moment.”
Some of the heaviness lifted. “That’s true. But it’s easier said than done, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “It’s always going to be a work in progress, I think. Letting go.”
“What about the future? Should we spend time thinking about that?”
When I glanced at her, she shifted in her seat. “The future is unpredictable. The more we think about it, the more it takes us out of the present, and I don’t want to be somewhere else when I’m with you. I want to be right here, right now.”
Her hazel eyes met mine, and my stomach turned. A sense of shimmering wonder filled my chest, and electricity crackled under my skin. I knew it then. I was falling in love with her. She smiled and squeezed my leg, and that dimple appeared again.
We parked in front of the Thai restaurant and climbed out of the car. Fox’s truck was already in the lot. Inside, a lucky cat waved his left paw at us while we waited for the hostess to take us to our table.
Fox got up from his seat when he saw us approaching, and he moved to shake my hand. “Good to see you, J.” His attention shifted to Ivy. “This your date?”
“Ivy,” she said, extending her hand. “Nice to meet you.”
He ticked up one of his brows, looking between us as if trying to figure something out. Some insecure part of me was sure he was trying to approximate the age difference.
They shook hands, and he stepped away to reveal a petite woman standing behind him.
“This is Reina, my girlfriend,” he introduced us. Reina had long blond hair that cascaded down the front of her black dress. She looked sharp, as if she’d come here straight from the office, and I noticed a laptop bag hanging from the back of her chair that appeared to support my hypothesis. She greeted Ivy and I warmly, and we all sat down.
“I met Reina at the auto shop. She came in to get her car fixed, and the rest is history, as they say,” Fox told us after we ordered.
Reina chuckled. “You missed the part where I had to ask you out twice before you agreed on a date.”
“She was trying to tell me how to fix her car,” he said with a shrug. “Let’s just say it got my hackles up before I realized that’s exactly the kind of woman I need in my life.”
“What about you two? How did you meet?” Reina asked.
