Page 103 of Rockstar Baby

“You are well and truly a jackass.” Though I grinned just the same. And it wasn’t just at Ian’s typical antics.

I could go back to New York. To Ivy. I didn’t have to linger around here, missing her. A few phone calls and a couple of altered arrangements, and I could—

The other line beeped. “Hang on.”

But I didn’t click over to take the call, just checked who it was.

Ivy.

Calling me at—I checked my watch—past midnight, her time. When she hadn’t yet answered my text from earlier. My three texts actually. She’d had the day off, so I’d been persistent.

For that matter, she’d been slower and slower to respond to texts in general, so I’d started spacing them out. Except I hadn’t today. Not that it had made a difference in her response. But I hadn’t fully realized how far apart her replies had become until right this instant.

Now she was calling for the first time ever.

Fulfilling her promise, maybe? She’d probably been out with her new lover today. Guilt kicking in before bed.

Better tell old Rory to stop fussing at me so much, as my new man doesn’t like it.

My stomach twisted in tandem with the vise around my heart. I sat up straighter and sent the call to voicemail.

Like a coward.

“Not all of us are like you,” I said to Ian, once I could speak around the lump in my throat.

“Are you referring to your lack of flowing tresses? And it is a lack, but you still got yourself a mighty fine woman just the same. She’s been hanging around with Maggie and Zoe, you know.”

Even in the midst of my own confusion, I was happy to hear it. Ivy had meshed well with the other women, enough that they’d developed lasting bonds.

Ivy was able to do things like that. Me? I overthought and groused and generally pushed people away.

“Of course she has. I’m to come back there and it’ll be just like it was that day in April. One big, happy, dysfunctional family.”

“I put the fun in dysfunctional, thanks though.”

“Aren’t you assuming an awful lot? Just because Ivy is friends with Zoe and Maggie doesn’t mean we can just pick up where we left off. Her life continues despite me being out here. I can’t expect her to just hit the pause button and wait for me.”

Except I did. In my head, in my heart, I couldn’t help it. Because every fucking part of me was waiting for her.

“That’s true. She may be shagging the high school football team even as we speak. I imagine she could still fit into one of those tiny cheer uniforms too. Just like Britney Spears.”

Now I had that picture of Ivy in my head, complete with pigtails and pom-poms. Sometimes I hated that bastard.

“You aren’t funny.”

“Tell me, mate, what is it you’re afraid of? That you’ll come back here and Ivy will demand you drop down on one knee and produce a ring?” He waited a beat. “Or that she won’t?”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Which?”

I started to reply, then stopped. Of course she didn’t expect a ring. Even if things had gotten far more intense than we’d expected, she wasn’t looking to settle down yet.

Just as I wasn’t.

But wasn’t that like finding your next big hit? You might be looking or you might not, but when you stumbled upon a gold record, only an idiot would put it back on the shelf.

Bloody shelves again. I was going to ban that word from my vocabulary.