"She's quite possibly the most annoying person I have ever met.  The answer is no, Jackie."

"Kade.  I think you're being too quick on the trigger with this one.  I know I'm not your mother or someone who can tell you what to do—but this right here?  This publicity?  This is what gets you noticed.  It's what gets you on that dumb Instagram account that everyone is watching like a hawk.  It's what gets you on the entertainment news Snapchat.  This is what you want people to be talking about—not what happened with Graham."

"I—"

"And not what happened with your sister, too."

Dammit.  She really had to get me on that one, didn't she?

"One dinner?  I only have to have one dinner with her out in the open, and that's it?"

Jackie grew contemplative in her silence and I swore to everything holy that if she wanted more...

"She wants to do a feature on a duet.  Any duet you can create out of thin air or with your new lyric wizard Ivy—I need you to add her on there."

"Are you serious?  Can she even sing well without autotune?"

"You know she can, Kade.  Now you're just being an asshole."

"Of course I'm being an asshole!  I obviously said I only wanted to have to endure one night with her—now you're telling me she wants to come into my studio, where she can come back anytime she wants—"

"You can use a different studio—"

"—and she wants the right to be featured on a track off my album on a love song that's going to haunt my career long after we 'broke up'.  Look at what happened to G-Eazy and Halsey!"

"I don't care about those artists.  This 'relationship' is going to be unconfirmed.  Any sources being leaked to magazines or online publications are going to say that you two are just hanging out and having fun and you're just friends at this point, but the world is obviously going to think otherwise.  You need them to talk about something other than your sister's attempt?  Well here it is.  I'm serving it to you on a silver fucking platter and you're too stubborn to even take a bite."

I hated it when she was right.  And that was often. 

"Fine, I'll do it.  But I'll pick the song she duets on, not her.  Understood?"

"Yes, boss."

I rolled my eyes at Jackie's tone but otherwise I settled myself down. 

I wondered how Ivy would feel if we used one of her songs to feature another girl that wasn't her. 

Fuck, the only girl I wanted featured on my album was her. 

But having another female artist that was as popular as I was in the charts featuring would be a big boost to not just streams for the duet, but for the album as a whole. 

Maybe I could somehow convince Ivy to do the backing vocals on some of the tracks...

I thought back to our text conversation earlier in the day and cringed outright as I remembered that I was going to be late getting to the studio at Corbin's brownstone. 

I would've been there on time, if not for Jackie and her constantly changing plans of how to get the media off of me about the fight with Graham and onto something else. 

Fans were already starting to turn and were quick to try to 'cancel' me because of my 'toxic masculinity'.  They clearly hadn't read the police report I'd tried to leak about Graham and what he'd done to my sister. 

"Alright, now, let's get you in the chair.  You go on in ten."

I groaned outwardly, but Jackie only shooed me into the dressing room without sparing me another glance. 

Six o'clock couldn't come soon enough. 

It was worrying how much I was looking forward to seeing Ivy again, especially after she all but snubbed me and insulted me every single chance she got, but there was something about that fire in her eyes, under her skin...

There was something undeniably irresistible about that woman, and I'd be damned if I let her slip through my fingers. 

She could insult me and call me any name in the book—but I wasn't going to let her get away so easily. 

Her talent was like lightning in a bottle—one flash it was there then gone the next.  I hadn't come across a single songwriter quite like her, and I wasn't too egotistical or prideful to admit that she was leaps and bounds more talented than me when it came to writing lyrics. 

She was what I'd been looking for ever since I had fallen into my writing slump when things with Bree and Graham had started to reach a fevered pitch, and now that I had her, I wasn't going to give her up without a hell of a fight. 

And maybe it was about her talent and the music that she could write with me, or maybe it was about that lingering stare filled with intrigue and barely disguised desire roiling beneath the surface of her form—but I wasn't going to let things end without fully exploring the curiosity shining in her verdant eyes. 

Yeah, six o'clock really couldn't come fast enough. 

"Yeah you're right.  I really don't fucking believe you."

Mia snorted through a laugh as she sipped on a Cosmo while I nursed a vodka cran courtesy of our fake ID's that had passed just enough for a couple of twenty-somethings desperate for a day drink. 

"Oh, really?  Shocker."

"I'm just—seriously?  Kade Hendrix?  Doesn't that man have enough talent that he doesn't have to steal some random person's song off a demo he just heard?  Aren't there like...protocols in place so that he doesn't do that?  Why wasn't your information on the flash drive anyway?"

Mia's brown eyes sparkled in the early afternoon light drifting in through the beer stained windows and I caught her mischievous grin long before the effects of what that look actually meant hit me. 

"I put my contact info in the envelope I sent the flash drive in.  Isn't that enough?"

"Girl, no.  You needed to plaster your name and number all over that damn audio file.  Seriously?  Kade Hendrix.  Damn."

"What?"

Mia took another sip of her drink, crinkling her face up in disgust while trying to pretend that she didn't actually hate the taste of alcohol. 

"You either have some seriously shitty or seriously amazing luck.  I'm trying to figure out which one it is."

"Yeah.  Me, too."

The bell above the door to the hole-in-the-wall bar I'd found with Mia after escaping one too many dull campaign meetings with our fathers, but I didn't turn to see who'd entered since they would be the tenth patron to set foot into Lizzie's since we'd arrived a little over an hour ago. 

"Uh, Ivy..."

"And you wanna know the worst part of it all?  I can write such good songs when I'm with him.  It's like the words flow so well when I'm with him, or even when I was on the phone with him.  It's annoying—like, why can't you be a terrible songwriter, too?  I mean, he's a terrible person so why not—"

"Ivy.  That dude that just walked in is staring at you."

"What?  No, he's probably just staring at the liquor in front of us.  We're sitting right at the bar."

"Nope.  He's staring at the back of your head."

"Oh well.  Whatever—he can stare away I don't care."

"He gives me creepy vibes."

"Do you want to leave?"

"No, I want to finish my drink."

She was nowhere near close to finishing her drink, but I wasn't about to tell her that it usually took her two hours to nurse a drink I could down in two seconds. 

She liked her drinks fruity and without any alcohol taste—so basically, virgin drinks. 

When Mia did get drunk though?  Oh, it was a sight to see. 

"I just couldn't keep this in, Mia.  It's been eating me up from the inside out.  I can't tell Con or Isaac—"

"And why not?"

"You know why, Mia."

She was the only person I'd confided in that I might've had a teensy, tiny little crush on my best friend's boyfriend.  It was innocent, really.

Virtually nonexistent.

"No, I really don't.  I thought you were over all that with Isaac."

"Yeah, I thought I was, too."

"I mean, he's so happy with Constance.  She seems really sweet too.  She's not my cup of tea, but I'm not judging.  She's got that whole ditsy blonde thing going for her—at least she's not mean.  She could be really mean if she wanted and still not lose anything."

"It's not just about Con, either.  I don't want to ruin our friendships.  If it came out how I really felt about him...it would ruin an almost ten year friendship—on both sides.  She was there for me with all that shit about my mom, too.  I couldn't ever do that to her.  It would destroy her if she found out."

"So, just turn your feelings off about him.  Isaac isn't really even that hot, is he?"

"You have eyes, Mia.  Does that answer your question?  And besides, this isn't the Vampire Diaries.  I can't just 'shut off my emotions' or whatever.  I tried the other option you gave me and look how well that turned out."

"Hey—I told you to find a nice guy.  Someone nice to get you over Isaac.  Caleb Brentwood?  Not.  A.  Nice.  Guy.  Maybe he was pretending at first with you, but you clearly fell for it.  You need to listen to me more."

"Yeah, yeah.  If I'd listened to you, I would still be pining away for Isaac in my room like a love sick teenager crying into my tissues and living at my father's house."

"Isn't that what you're doing now, though?  Not the living at your father's house, but...the other part?  Caleb fucked you up even more than you already were, and from what you've told me you never even loved him, he was just someone convenient to try and get you over Isaac.  All it really did was screw you up even more and probably make you scared of commitment.  Oh, and sex.  You're definitely scared to have sex again."

"Would you be quiet?!  You know we're in public, right?"

"Yeah, but who's listening to us?  Anyway, I think you should stop holding a grudge against Kade.  Maybe get on his good side, see where that can get you."

Her flirtatious wink made my stomach roil. 

The thought of opening up my heart to a stranger who had already fucked me over once was not my idea of a fun time. 

He'd already proven himself untrustworthy, so why should I trust him with something I'd already given away once before that ended in a complete shitshow?

"Yeah, right."

I downed the rest of my drink just as Mia's phone buzzed in her purse. 

"Hello?  Hey, yeah I'm in the city.  No...no I don't mind.  I'm with a friend but—oh, okay.  Right.  Yes, I'll see you then.  I love yo—"

Whoever it was on the other end of the line didn't care to hear her 'I love you's'.

"Your dad?"

"Who else?"

Her earlier joyous attitude had melted into something somber and melancholy, but when I tried to reach out a hand to console her, she pulled away and scooted off the stool. 

"I have to go, my dad has need of me.  Photo-op and all that.  Gotta tote around the token child, right?"

My heart stung for her, but there really wasn't much I could do for her if she didn't let me help. 

"Do you need to call a ride share?"

"No, I barely even had three sips."

She was right—her drink was mostly full of pink sugary alcohol—unlike my third vodka cran which was down to it's last dregs of watered down alcohol and one lime peel.

"Okay, well...be careful.  Tell your mom I said hey."

She flashed a smile at that.  Talking about her mom always made her happy. 

A quick goodbye hug later and there I was, seated at the sticky bar top alone, trying to figure out how I was going to kill four hours until I had to go to Corbin's brownstone studio when a looming, tall figure leaned over the bar, his frame eerily familiar. 

It wasn't until the sickly expensive stench of his cologne hit my senses that I realized what a monumental mistake I'd made. 

"Hey Ives.  Interesting conversation you just had with Mia there."

Caleb Brentwood was peering down at me like he knew the entire contents of my soul...and maybe he did.  Maybe in giving him my virginity, he'd reached down into the pits of my body and yanked a piece right out for himself to have and wrap around his fist and carry it as a trophy for the rest of time. 

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"I think the better question here, babe, is why you thought I'd ever let you go.  We've got some things to discuss.  Why don't you order yourself another one, and I'll drive you to wherever you need to go next."

I didn't move a muscle.  He motioned for the bartender to fix me up whatever I'd been drinking and as Caleb pushed the drink in my hands and raised them to my red painted lips, I couldn't help but think the lipstick stain looked an awful lot like blood.

***

A/N: 

What do you think is going to happen next?

What do you WANT to happen next?

What is Caleb going to do?!

What is KADE going to do????!!!!

What scenes are you most looking forward to?

Until next time my lovely readers,
Kristen :)