by Max Monroe
“I swear, I’ll be less insane once this meeting is over,” she said in spite of herself. “It’s making me so anxious. I just don’t want it to end up the same way as the meeting with the studio head.”
I smiled at that. “Baby, you don’t have to explain anything to me. Be as insane as you want.”
A real smile crested her lips. “Now, I think you might be asking for trouble right there.”
I chuckled softly. “I’ll take as much of your trouble as I can get.”
Her green eyes searched mine, and eventually, she whispered, “Thank you for being here.”
I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and pressed a soft kiss to her hair. “I will always be here for you. Never forget that.”
A soft sigh escaped her lungs, and she rested her head against my shoulder, and the quiet, peaceful silence spread into an otherwise emotionally chaotic moment.
But it ended as quickly as it started.
Fiona stepped into the room, smiling like the three of us were fucking family.
It was a sham of a smile and made my stomach churn with discomfort.
“June is ready for you,” she said and gestured toward the opposite side of the room where a short hallway opened. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll take you to her office.”
We walked behind her, down the marble-floored hallway until we reached what I assumed was the screenwriter’s office.
Fiona opened the door, and both Ivy and I stepped inside.
“June,” she announced. “I have Ivy Stone here for you.”
The woman turned around in her chair, and the instant my gaze met the features of her face, I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience.
My stomach fell like a rock, straight through my body and into my shoes, and a sharp, painful intake of breath filled my lungs.
Ivy, unaware of the shrapnel spinning wildly from my mind, continued walking into the room toward the leather chairs on the opposite end of the big glass desk.
I…I couldn’t move my legs.
I was paralyzed and poisoned as years of life fled from my body and heart and slammed me right back into the mind of a boy.
A boy who hadn’t been ready to be a man.
Glancing back to pull me closer as she sat, Ivy finally noticed my distance. Her brow furrowed down, eyes searching mine erratically.
The woman behind the desk hadn’t stopped looking at me. Not for one moment, not for one second. Ivy wasn’t even here as far as she was concerned.
Big blue eyes. Jet-black hair. The same nose. All of the familiar qualities were nearly too real to process, but I could tell she’d weathered the time well.
She looked uncertain and unsure, but eventually, she quelled the silence. “Levi,” the stranger said my name like it was a prayer, and it only took hearing that one word from her lips to confirm everything.
June Gatto wasn’t just the screenwriter on Cold.
June Gatto was June Fox.
My fucking mom.
The woman who’d abandoned our family when I was just a child.
The woman I hadn’t seen or heard from in years.
The woman I used to cry myself to sleep over when I was a kid, hoping and praying she’d come back to us.
The fucking awful woman who’d torn my family apart and changed my father irreparably. He’d never been a kind, caring man, but he’d been tolerable. After she’d left, I’d lost everything.
“Do you—Do you two know each other?” Ivy asked, glancing back and forth between us in confusion.
“She’s my mother,” I said without pretense. I’d have loved to make it more complicated or eased into the blow, but the words were spoken for me from a place I didn’t recognize. A place where the world kept hitting, blow after blow, until you couldn’t hold up your head anymore.
“W-what?” Ivy’s eyes grew wide as saucers at my words. “This is your mom?”
My shock quickly morphed into rage, and I stepped forward until I stood directly in front of her desk.
“You’re fucking June Gatto?” I questioned, my voice rising with each word. “You’re the screenwriter for Cold?”
“I’m sorry you had to find out this way,” she responded, and I felt Ivy’s presence move beside me. “I didn’t know you were coming to this meeting. Otherwise, I would have handled it differently.”
“Handled it differently?” I questioned, and my jaw ticked with rage. “What the fuck does that even mean?”
“I wouldn’t have let it happen like this.”
“You mean you wouldn’t have let it happen at all,” I retorted, sarcasm dripping from my voice like a faucet. A sharp gasp left her mouth at my words, but I didn’t stop. I didn’t hold back. I had twenty plus years of pain and trauma from this woman, and I sure as fuck wasn’t going to stand there and make this easy on her when she hadn’t given a fuck about making anything easy on me.
Me.
Her son.
Her only child. Well, at least, I thought I was her only child. For all I knew, she’d replaced us with a shiny new family that met her selfish fucking needs. “I mean, we both know your track record, Mom. When it comes to me, you’re the master of the disappearing act.”
“I’m sorry I left, Levi, but I had to. I couldn’t survive in that small town. I couldn’t stay there with your father. He…he didn’t leave room for anyone else.”
“Oh, but it was perfectly fine for you to leave your kid to suffer through it?” I tossed back. “You do realize what my father was like after you left, right? You realize that he didn’t magically turn into a loving guy? Disconnected, narcissistic. If it weren’t for Sam Murphy and Red Pulse, I’d have had to fend for myself. All because of you.”
The sham of a woman that was my mother stood up from her seat, and her eyes stared back at me earnestly. She looked sad and pained, and I didn’t care to see any of it. I refused to feel any sort of sympathy for her discomfort.
“I had no idea,” she whispered. “I had no idea it was like that for you. If I would’ve known—”
“You mean if you would’ve cared to know,” I cut her off before she could give me some line of bullshit about how she would have done things differently. “Christ, how could you think it would be anything else?” I shook my head. “You just didn’t give a shit about anyone else but yourself.”
“I do care, Levi. I still care.”
The realization of all that this meant slapped me across the face, and my head swam with the fact that she was the fucking screenwriter. The person who had made my real-life hell into a goddamn movie.
“All this fucking time. All this time and you’re the one who did this to me? You’re the one who sensationalized one of the worst moments of my life into a goddamn movie for other people’s entertainment? Do you even understand how completely fucked that is? How fucking cruel that is?”
She shook her head. “That’s not why I did it, Levi. I did it for you—to help you, not to hurt you.”
A shocked laugh left my lips. “To help me? Oh, that’s rich. Please, explain to me how you thought this movie would help me.”
“You needed to face it, Levi,” she said. “Red sent me updates…” She stuttered as my face turned stormy, and then she lowered her voice cautiously. “…for a while. He stopped. Honestly, I think he was hoping I would come back.” Her throat quivered. “I couldn’t face you. Even then, I knew you wouldn’t take my appearance well. I knew you wouldn’t want to see me. I knew my presence would just hurt you,” she said, and my skin crawled at the sight of actual tears in her eyes. Did she think a few measly pools of liquid regret could really erase what my life had been like as a result of her selfishness?
“And why the hell might that be, Mom? Why wouldn’t I want to see the woman who left me for her own gain?” I snapped.
She twisted her lips. “I guess…I guess it was why I wrote the screenplay for this story. Sure, it’s about Grace. But for me, it was always about you. It was so hard seeing the tragedy that you had to li
ve through on the news and in the papers. And I just…I just—”
“Two fucking times,” I cut her off. I didn’t need or want to hear another word of her bullshit excuses or reasons. “This is twice you’ve ruined my fucking life,” I said, vibrating with the power of my words.
I felt Ivy’s presence beside me shift closer, a soft hand settling on my shoulder.
That gentle hand of hers was the only thing keeping me steady.
“Do you even understand what this movie has done? The pain and trauma and tragedy that’ve occurred because of it?” I questioned, and my voice started to rise again.
I thought about Dane and Camilla.
I remembered the way Boyce had looked when I’d walked into the house and he’d had a knife to Camilla’s throat.
But, unbidden as it was, I also thought about how if it hadn’t been for that fucking movie, I never would have met Ivy.
It was irony and pain and bittersweet all rolled up into one giant confusing clusterfuck of emotions.
I didn’t really know what to say or do after that.
I just stood there, frozen to my spot, staring at a woman I should’ve known, but was a complete stranger in my eyes.
Ivy’s hand squeezed my shoulder, and I glanced down to find her looking up at me, her big green eyes filled with so much concern it made my chest ache.
She’d come here for a reason.
And it sure as fuck wasn’t so I could be painfully reunited with my absent mother.
“Stop the movie,” I blurted out and met my mom’s eyes. “If you really want to help me. If you really want to do something for me, your fucking son, then don’t let this film be released.”
“I-I wish I could, Levi,” she said, and her voice was soft with sadness. “I really wish I could. But I can’t. I’ve tried. But the contracts that were signed give the studio full control over what happens with this movie. I’ve already had my lawyers scour through every detail, and there is nothing anyone can do.”
“Wow,” I muttered and shook my head. “Well, I hope it was all worth it, Mom. I hope you’re enjoying your Hollywood life. I hope you’ve gotten everything you wished for. Money. Success. Zero parental responsibilities. Or shit, maybe you have other kids. Whatever this brand-new life of yours entails, I hope it’s everything you ever dreamed of.”
Her mouth turned down at the corners. “Levi—”
“No.” I lifted my hand. “I don’t want to hear anything you’re about to say. Your words mean shit to me. And you sure as fuck don’t deserve any more of my or Ivy’s time.”
“Levi…I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
This time, I completely ignored her. From now on, I only had eyes for Ivy.
“I need to leave,” I said.
“I know,” she whispered back and grasped my hand in hers.
“Levi…wait…” June Gatto moved around her big fucking desk and tried to stop us, but I was done.
Done with talking.
Done with feeling.
Done with her.
My head swam, and my chest was so tight I could barely breathe against the crushing anxiety. I felt like I was in some sort of alternate universe where I wasn’t even in my body. Like I was just a mere spectator of my actual self, standing off to the side watching my own life like a movie.
A movie that was more car crash and tragedy than anything else.
I barely remembered leaving June Gatto’s office.
The drive back to the hotel had felt both long and fast, the realization of time too hard to comprehend over the shock of what I’d just witnessed.
And I really had no idea how long we’d been back inside our hotel room.
It could have been minutes. Hell, it could have been hours for all I knew.
The world spun erratically around me, and I gripped the couch cushion with my fingertips in a pathetic attempt to steady myself.
Levi paced around the room like a caged animal desperate to be released from his confined hell.
His eyes were empty, his lips stuck in a perpetual firm line, and his jaw was so hard I feared it might shatter if it grew any tenser.
He strode over toward the small dining table and abruptly swiped his hands across it, knocking everything off the surface and onto the floor.
“Fuck!” he shouted. I grimaced when the booming vibration of his yell rolled through my ears.
He had so many emotions undulating throughout his body, he didn’t know what to do with himself.
I couldn’t blame him.
He deserved to be angry. He deserved to throw shit and scream and shout.
He deserved to feel whatever it was he was feeling.
Considering, as of late, I’d had more than my fair share of breakdowns, I completely understood, and I felt nothing but sadness that he had to go through this.
The realization that June Gatto was in fact June Fox was almost too much to wrap my mind around.
His mother, the woman who had left him when he was a child, had written a movie that revealed his innermost pain.
Because she’d written that screenplay, he’d had to relive everything that had happened with Grace. I couldn’t understand how anyone would have thought that was anything but cruel. How a mother could’ve thought that was the right thing to do for her son.
A strangled sob left his lungs, and he sat down on one of the dining chairs and put his head in his hands. His body vibrated and his shoulders shook, and my heart felt like it was breaking into a million tiny pieces at the agonized sight of him.
How much tragedy and pain did one person deserve in a lifetime?
I felt like Levi had reached his quota over six years ago, but apparently, life was hell-bent on making him experience the maximum amount one human being could possibly handle.
And, God, I hated seeing him like this. Normally so strong, so fucking strong, and right now, I had never seen him more vulnerable.
Tears pricked behind my eyes, and I stood up from the couch and moved toward him.
I couldn’t let him deal with this alone.
I needed to be there for him.
I wanted to be there for him.
He’d been so good to me over the past few months. He’d let me grieve and feel and just mourn Camilla’s death without any judgment. He’d let me lash out and pick fights and lose my fucking mind, and all he’d given back in return was patience and love.
I’d needed him so badly, and he’d never hesitated to drop everything to be there.
He’d left Montana for me.
He’d taken a leave of absence from the police force for me.
And he’d never once made me feel like I was a burden.
No, if anything, he made me feel like he hadn’t wanted to be anywhere else. Even during the hard times, the sad times, the fucking terrible, insane times where I was quite seriously losing my shit.
Levi had done all of that for me.
And now, he deserved the same from me.
I placed my hand on his shoulder, and he looked up at me, emotion dampening his cheeks and reddening his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Ivy,” he whispered. “It’s just too much to process right now. All of it. I just…I just can’t…” He paused, and I shook my head.
“You don’t have to explain anything to me,” I whispered back. “God, Levi, I’m so sorry you had to deal with that today. Deal with her.”
His mother’s name felt like it weighed one hundred pounds, and I didn’t even have the strength to push it past my lips.
“I’m sorry you had to see it. You already have enough fucking bullshit on your plate without adding my baggage into the mix.”
“Pretty sure my baggage has been your baggage for the past couple of months. So…” I said softly and offered an apologetic smile.
His blue eyes lifted ever so slightly at the corners, and I urged his arms open so I could sit down on his lap, my thighs straddling his.
I pressed both of my hands to his cheeks and swiped
away a few rogue tears with my thumbs. “I’m sorry you had such a shitty mother. You deserved better than that.”
“I did, didn’t I?”
I nodded. “You still do.”
“I never want to see her again, Ivy,” he whispered. “If I don’t have to see or speak to that woman for the rest of my life, it would still be too soon. She isn’t my mom. She is a complete stranger, just some woman I happen to share the same genes with.”
“You don’t have to see her again,” I said softly. “It’s your choice to keep toxic people out of your life. I know I sure as hell won’t be accepting any acting jobs when her name is written across the screenplay, and I’ll make sure everyone on my team knows not to give out any of your information if she happens to call around asking for you.”
“Well, thank fuck for that.” He chuckled softly despite his mood, but then his eyes turned serious and searched mine.
In that moment, I felt like he was staring into my soul. But it was in the very best way, like his blue gaze had the power to fill me up with love.
“I never want to be without you,” I whispered. “I want us. I need us.”
“I do too, baby,” he said and slid his hands up and down my arms. “Can we decide right here and now that whatever we do in terms of the future, we do it together?”
“Yes.” I rubbed my nose against his. “And I really hope our future plans include living together. I’ve gotten used to you always being here. I don’t think I could do the whole long-distance thing when it comes to you. It would be too hard to have to go days or weeks without seeing you.”
“Of course they do.” He smiled. “One day, you’ll be my wife, and it would make zero fucking sense for us to be living anywhere else but together, baby.”
My heart started pounding erratically in my chest at his words.
“Your wife?” I asked and he nodded.
“My wife.” He pressed a kiss to my lips. “Mine.” His kiss turned deeper, and when my lips parted, he slipped his tongue inside my mouth to dance with mine.
I kissed him back with everything I had, and he slid his hands into my hair.
“I love you,” he whispered against my lips. “I love you more than I knew it was even possible to love someone. And every day, that love keeps growing. You’re my heart, Ivy. My whole fucking heart.”