Verse Fifteen

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"So, you ready to hear my terms?"

"Your terms?"

Ivy Bennett was no fool when it came to negotiating. Maybe it was because of my father always having to have some kind of angle when it came to even personal life, but maybe I'd inherited his penchant for playing hard ball.

For not taking anyone's shit.

...except Caleb's. But he was an entirely different story altogether, and I had a plan for him.

You know the saying. Karma is a real bitch.

"Yes. I will accept your apology for what you've done and said to me, including basically breaking my best friend, and we'll become work professionals. I won't bring up what you did, and you won't insult me or treat me as anything less than your equal when it comes to songwriting. Sound like a fair deal to you? Because honestly, this is all just very exhausting to me, and now I have more problems to deal with."

Kade's entire presence took up my entire small dorm room, even though there were two other people inside aside from him.

His dark hair fell in a soft waves atop his forehead and deep brown eyes pinned me to the spot even though he wasn't nearly as intimidating as I could be.

I hoped.

"Well?"

"That's really all you want? I was going to agree to a whole lot more money, honestly."

A feline smile tipped up the ends of my mouth.

"You do realize that's not usually how negotiations go, don't you superstar?"

I winked at him, tilting my head slightly.

Shit. Was I actually flirting with him after what he'd said to me earlier? I was not desperate, nor a crazy stalker fan, but with him standing so tall and real and god, his cologne

He narrowed dark eyes at me and the heat behind them was enough for me to glance down and realize I was in one of my more revealing pajama sets, even if it was only shorts and a tank top.

"What about our situation is normal?"

"True. Now, about my best friend—"

"I am right here, you know?"

I cringed internally but kept a mask slipped over my face. It was an involuntary action that I'd perfected over the years of being the good little statue for my father in his political appearances, but when it bled into my real life, I suddenly realized that maybe that was becoming my real life after all.

I shuddered at the thought and quickly banished it, wanting nothing more than for Kade to leave so that I could explain everything, but not everything, everything. I couldn't breathe a word to her about the Caleb situation.

She would only get angry and try to go and file a Title 9, and there were no grounds for that...yet.

I said I had a plan, and I did. I just needed time for it to pan out.

Caleb would be just as humiliated as I was. All I needed was a little extra more time.

"Con, listen—"

"Nope, I'm not listening right now. I want to talk, and I don't want to be interrupted, either."

Her blue eyes shimmered with sliver tears threatening to fall, but still she held herself tall and didn't balk in the face of her favorite artist standing before her.

"I want to know why you felt the need to hide the fact that you're apparently working for Kade Hendrix from me, but here we are. But you know what? This, I understand, kind of. You've been trying to work in songwriting for so long, it makes sense. How it happened is the mystery, but I really couldn't care less about that right now. You know what I do care about though?"

Her eyes grew fierce and determined and a pit of dread swelled up and exploded inside of me, like a mini fireworks show going off in my stomach at what I knew she was going to say, but that didn't make the blow any less powerful.

"Caleb. That's what I don't understand. After everything, Ivy. Everything—"

"Can we please not talk about this in front of—"

"No, you came in here and had this little discussion in front of me, blindsiding me, so I think it's my turn, don't you think?"

She turned her head to Kade but her eyes widened in realization that this was actually happening and his intense stare was pinned on her and instead snapped her gaze back to me, the anger and rage bubbling up within her once more.

"What the fuck are you thinking? No, seriously, are you on something? Did he slip you something in class? What could be going through your mind to think that what you're doing is okay? After what he did, Ivy."

"I know good and well what he did, Constance. I was the one who lived it. This is my life and my mistakes and consequences that I will have to live with."

"But why? That's all I want to know. Just tell me why, and then I'll be like Elsa and we can just let it go. Just tell me."

Her pleading pulled at the damn heart that was pounding ferociously in my chest, like an animal was stomping on my ribcage instead of a beating organ.

I looked to Kade, who had given us some space and leaned back up against the back wall with his hands tucked into the pockets of his dark denim jeans.

He was mouthwatering. Addictive and forbidden and inviting, his black ball cap that he'd had on at first obscuring his dark eyes, but it was currently in his back pocket.

The weight of his stare was on me. I could only begin to wonder what the hell we were fighting about.

I doubted he even cared.

"I can't."

"What? What do you mean, you can't?"

"I can't tell you, Con. You just—you wouldn't understand."

"I wouldn't understand? Your best friend, the person who's been there from the very beginning? Through your father being a monumental asshole, through Catalina trying to control you, through what Caleb did freshman year, through what happened with your mother—"

"We do not talk about her. Especially not in front of strangers."

"Jesus, I mean at this point Ivy what does it even matter? I could scream from the rooftops and you still probably wouldn't even hear me. I guess I just wonder when you started keeping secrets from the one person who was always there to keep them."

"I guess when you started judging me for the secrets I'd tell you. And this just proves my point."

Her blonde hair swelled up like a huge cotton ball on her head and caught fire, steam coming out of her nose and mouth like she were a screaming kettle on the stove.

"Judge you? When you so obviously don't approve of mine and Isaac's relationship? Wow, that's so rich, coming from you."

My focus on Constance was that of a laser beam, so much so that I wondered how I hadn't turned into Superman yet and seared through everything in the room with the red in my vision.

"What do you mean, I don't approve of your relationship? When have I ever said that?"

"Um...I'm just gonna—" Kade started, but Constance continued as if he hadn't even spoken.

"You hate being the third wheel. You complain about it all the time, and you warned us that dating would ruin our friendship if we ever broke up. It's obvious."

"I never said—"

"Whatever, that's not even the point. The point is that Caleb is a piece of shit abusive asshole and you're clearly getting back together with him."

"I never said I was getting back together with him. I never said anything about him, actually."

"No, you just posted a picture of you two on Snapchat looking like you wanted to eat his face off."

I was starting to realize why Constance had given me the silent treatment when I'd returned from Corbin's studio. She was too angry with everything that had happened that she knew once she started she would explode.

Hot, angry tears welled behind my eyes but I refused to let them fall.

Crying was just another weakness, another vulnerability, that the world would use to its advantage. I couldn't show it, and I refused to do so in front of Kade, who was wide eyed and so out of place that it was almost comical.

"I'm actually just gonna go, so—"

"I'll walk you out," I called after him, wanting to get as far away from Constance as I possibly could.

"We're not done, Ivy."

I didn't respond to her as I grabbed my keys off the dresser close to the door, slipped on a hoodie over my sleep tank and toed on some slip on shoes.

I didn't have to look back at her as I left through the door being held open by Kade.

In the dim lighting of the muggy hallway, however, I suddenly realized what a monumental mistake it had been to fight with my best friend in front of Kade, the person I wanted a working relationship with and nothing more.

Now, he knew much more about me than I was comfortable with.

Blowing out a soul weary sigh, I slumped against the wall and covered my face with my hands. I couldn't come back to the dorms.

My father's house was the only other option, but even that wasn't the best idea, especially not after the stunt I'd pulled at his political party that it seemed he loved even more than his own children.

Definitely more than he'd ever loved his first wife.

The shock of the night was so potent, so tangible and all consuming that I'd forgotten I'd offered to walk Kade out.

Kade cleared his throat, but I was too much of a coward to pull my hands from my face to look at him, knowing the force of those magnetic eyes would pull on mine.

He had the superstar effect, this piece of him that was so intriguing that you couldn't help but to want to reach out and claim a piece for yourself.

"You alright? That seemed...heavy."

One last sigh leaving my lips, I pulled my hands from my face to find that Kade was leaning leisurely against the wall directly beside me, his legs crossed at the ankles and his arms crossed against a leather jacket clad chest that I knew was broad and muscular, if the professional pictures that were always plastered on his social media were any indication of what might lay beneath his dark clothing.

"It's fine, best friends fight. It was nothing. Come on, I'll walk you to your car. Which lot did you park in?"

He seemed unsure of if to continue to try to console me, but when he read my face and found absolutely nothing there but a blank, emotionless wall, he let out a sigh of his own and motioned forward with his arms.

"I don't remember, but it was close to the big fountain in the middle of campus."

A laugh bubbled to life in the back of my throat.

"What?"

I couldn't keep the smile off my face as he regarded me like I'd lost my mind.

"What are you laughing at?"

"You parked in no man's land. Come on, better hurry. If you're lucky, you might not have been towed yet."

"What the hell is 'no man's land'?"

Maybe it was a bad idea, but I reached behind Kade and pulled his dark ball cap from his back pocket and had to stand up on the tips of my toes to reach up and place it on his head backwards.

Fuck, I really shouldn't have done that. Now he looked like my type.

Dark, brooding asshole mixed with a dash of douchebag.

We hit the elevators and just as the doors closed, the electricity in the small, cramped space came to a fever pitch.

"Are you sure you're good? If my best friend reamed me out like that..."

He shook his head and a rueful smile danced on his face.

"Actually, he did that already, right before I came to apologize to you. I guess we've both been yelled at enough today by our best friends."

"What did Corbin yell at you for?"

The elevator doors opened on a sharp ding, and I grabbed Kade's elbow in mine before tugging him out along to the parking lot that no one could ever park in because it wasn't for students, but faculty.

They took their parking spots seriously, these college profs.

"How'd you know it was Corbin that's my best friend?"

"It's obvious. He's your producer and you take him on family vacations. His daughter is obsessed with you. It's kind of cute actually, if she weren't so wrong about your 'amazing talent'," I teased, glancing up at his face to see if the joke hit home.

This was what I'd needed. A distraction.

It was easy, somehow, to be around him like this. Like we were partners in crime, sneaking around like we'd known each other forever.

It was better than remembering the alternative: that I was using him for my escape plan.

"Shit."

I glanced around the faculty parking lot directly in front of the fountains in the campus quad, and there were no shiny cars worthy of someone at notorious as Kade Hendrix.

"And no man's land takes its next victim. Come on, I'm friends with the guy at the impound lot. If we're lucky, they'll still be processing your car and you can use your flashy status to get it back."

"No it's fine, I'll have someone come and do it for me. You don't need to worry about helping me."

"Um, I actually want to help. Do you really think I want to go back to what we just walked out of? I'm going to stay the night at my dad's tonight. But if you don't want to get your car tonight, I can drop you off wherever you're staying in the city on my way to his estate."

"Estate?"

Kade's eyebrows were in his hairline, hiding behind the strap of the backwards ball cap that was doing traitorous things to the desire roiling around in my stomach.

"Yeah, it's what I call his 'house', because you can't really call it that. He's kind of obnoxious about his money."

"Why do I feel like teenaged Ivy would've painted her room all black in protest of this fancy estate?"

Genuine laughter floated to my mouth before I could analyze it.

"Well, you'd be wrong, but teenaged Ivy did play the most earth-shaking, ear drum bursting rock music she could get her hands on at all hours of the night."

"Sounds like my kind of girl."

I bit my lip so hard blood welled to the surface.

"Wouldn't you like to know."

For a moment the two of us just stood there in the alabaster glow from the moon illuminating the black pavement beneath us, our shadows cast behind us from lamp posts interspersed through the half empty parking lot.

He was on one side of a white line, while I stood on the other, our toes inches from each other, chests rising and falling in perfect synchronicity.

For one wild, manic second, I imagined the feel of his hands on my waist tugging me into a hardened chest.

I imagined his fingers digging into my scalp and his mouth crashing down onto mine.

And then a tire squealed nearby, obnoxious jerks laughing and hollering, and an entirely different kind of panic entered my bloodstream like an IV drip of poison.

"Come on, my car's in the student lot."

"Lead the way," he said.

And it might've been my imagination acting up again once more, but I could've sworn his voice wavered as he said it.


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A/N:

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