Get a Grip (Hollywood Nights)

by North, Cara

  Alex said through his emotion, “I’m sorry for…all of this. Trust my little brother, Ivy. He won’t betray you like we did him. Ever. I know that. I never meant to hurt you. I loved her then.” He looked at Adele and said, “I hate myself because I even love her now. Monday morning I’ll start the paperwork for the divorce.”

  Bo could feel Ivy’s grip on him tighten and she turned into his chest and sobbed. He held her tightly. His heart was aching because he had no idea Alex ever felt anything for anyone, much less remorse for what they had done.

  Alex wasn’t even to the building when Adele scrambled to her feet and ran after him. She launched herself at him and practically knocked him down as she begged him for forgiveness.

  Bo couldn’t watch anymore of it. He squeezed Ivy and then started walking them in a different direction.

  They walked quietly along a path leading to the vineyard. He tried to process everything that just happened. “I’m sorry you had to see all of that. I was trying not to let her make a scene in front of everyone. I don’t know how this happened. I just had to take a piss.”

  She snickered at his side and then sniffed. “She’s drunk. Your brother realized she wasn’t coming back and went to look for her. I was just heading inside to grab some clothes. I was going to swim, but now that everyone is in the pool it doesn’t look as big or as relaxing. This cover up doesn’t provide much warmth.”

  “Are you cold?” He made a U-turn on the path and started them back towards the rooms. “I wish I had something to give you.”

  “You give me plenty. I’m chilly. I’ll be fine if you want to walk.” She leaned in close to his side.

  “I want to go back to our room and pretend we are in Vegas, or New York, or home, and none of this happened,” he said sadly.

  “He’s been hurting a long time, Bo. You all have,” she said gently.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Okay.” Ivy sighed. He knew it wasn’t okay, but he didn’t want to deal with it right now. “Let’s talk about something else then.”

  “Anything.”

  “Our moms are discussing baby names. I’m not fond of anything they are coming up with. I want us to come up with the name.” She looked at him when he laughed and asked, “What?”

  “Nothing, I was just thinking we will need to get a stamp to mark it every day as property of Bo and Ivy Bliss. I doubt he or she will want that tattooed.” He laughed again. “God, I’m going to be a father. I’m going to be a mess. You realize this right?”

  “You’re going to be amazing, just like you are at everything else you do.” Ivy’s confidence humbled him.

  ***

  The last person Ivy expected to run into at the coffee shop was Adele Bliss. Yet there she was, waiting. Ivy took a few cautious steps forward. Adele greeted her with a tentative smile and said, “Hi. Mom said I might find you here.”

  “Mom?” Ivy stood outside the coffee shop with Adele. Her tummy rumbled.

  “Mom Bliss.” Adele clarified. “Do you want to grab some coffee?”

  “I don’t drink coffee.” Ivy replied automatically.

  Adele looked at the sign on the door that indicated nothing more than a coffee shop and then looked at the ground. “Oh. Well I guess I’ll…”

  Ivy didn’t like that the woman was about to cry so she said, “There is a bakery inside. They make the most interesting sweets.”

  Adele wiped a tear and asked, “Can I join you for cookies then?”

  Ivy nodded. She was cautious of Adele, but something told her that the woman wasn’t as villainous as she had been portrayed. She didn’t doubt in Bo’s mind and from his perspective there was no other way to see her. They were family. She had the feeling they would be remaining family. Ivy opened the door and said, “Come on in.”

  They sat outside at a corner table. Adele had her coffee and picked at a slice of cake. Ivy had a slice of cake and four cookies along with a glass of milk. She didn’t pick at any of it. Adele finally sank the fork all the way through the cake and took a bite.

  “This is really good.” She was surprised. Ivy nodded. “I wasn’t expecting it to be so…flavorful.”

  “Everything is that way.” Ivy could talk about food without a problem.

  Adele had two more bites before saying, “I came to apologize for what happened. I’ve been struggling with some things and I drank too much…”

  “I’m not going to lie and say it was easy to hear you talk to him like that. He’s my husband. I know you have a past with him. I just don’t want to be worried that something like this will ever happen again. It’s not fair to us.” Ivy was amazed at how far she had come in her ability to stand her ground. She didn’t just accept the apology and she didn’t hold back.

  “No,” Adele admitted. “It isn’t fair to any of you. Can I explain what happened?”

  “You said you were drunk.”

  “I mean the whole story. I don’t know if anyone has told you. I’ve never talked about it before, but I feel like you need to know. Alex isn’t divorcing me. He forgave me. I don’t want the upcoming holidays to be awkward so I called mom and asked her where I might find you so I could make things right.” Adele fidgeted with the fork the whole time. Her hands were a bit shaky. Ivy had the feeling the woman was not used to explaining herself or her actions to anyone.

  “Nothing you can say will change the way I feel about him.” She prayed that was true.

  Adele slightly smiled. “No. I don’t think it will. Bo and I met in high school. He played football, I was a cheerleader. We went our separate ways after and a few years passed and I ran into him. We started talking, then dating, and then I moved in with him, and one night I proposed. I think he only said okay because he was tired of me talking about marriage all the time.”

  It wasn’t lost on Ivy that Bo had been bullied into a proposal and then a marriage by two different women.

  Adele went on, “He was working as a grip and he was struggling. I was ready to settle down. I wanted to be married, I wanted a house and some children, and I wanted a man that would take care of me. I know that is not exactly helping the feminist movement, but it is true. I wanted to be a house wife.”

  Ivy nodded. Okay, so far nothing too terrible. It wasn’t like she expected them to be engaged and not live together.

  “Bo worked a lot. If he wasn’t working on set he was working on the company he was building. I didn’t really fit into his plans. One day, Alex showed up at our door. I had always been a little afraid of him. I mean he’s always so dark and brooding. I hadn’t really talked to him before. I let him in. We talked all night. I saw Bo less and less, I saw Alex more and more. He wouldn’t touch me.”

  Ivy arched her brow. She suspected this part was a lie because Bo said he caught them in the act.

  “For the longest time, he would not touch me. He kept asking when I was going to end it with Bo. I hadn’t seen him in two weeks, how could I end it? I asked Alex to stop by for dinner. He did. I wouldn’t let him leave without kissing me. The moment we kissed it was like someone poured gasoline on us and threw a match. There was no turning back.” Adele shrugged. “Bo has always had good luck and timing. I guess it might have seemed like it wasn’t that day, but the first time Alex ever touched me, was the day Bo came home and caught us.”

  “Didn’t either of you tell him?” Ivy asked. She was clearly scandalized, but it meant something, or should have meant something that his brother tried to resist and that Adele wanted to end it with Bo.

  “He wouldn’t listen. He didn’t believe either of us. I don’t blame him. How could he? He caught us in the act on the kitchen table in that crummy little apartment. I have to live with the fact that I caused that. If I had gone to Alex’s apartment instead, if I could just wait until Bo got back, if I could keep my hands to myself. So many ifs.” Adele stabbed the cake and took a bite.

  “You loved them both.” Ivy bit into her cookie to keep from asking questions she didn’t r
eally want answers to.

  “No,” Adele shrugged. “I never really loved Bo. Not like I should have. Not like I love Alex. Bo…I don’t know how to say this to you.”

  “Just say it.”

  “Bo just never had any passion outside of work. We had a terrible time of…well you know. He wasn’t like he is now that’s for sure.” Adele laughed.

  “What do you mean?” Ivy wished she hadn’t asked the question.

  “Seriously?” Adele shook her head. “I know you two are active. It’s written all over him, literally. I knew he preferred brunettes. I knew he liked long legs more than anything. I knew this because he had dated other cheerleaders before and after me. I didn’t exactly prefer a guy who would rather spend the rare day he had off in the ocean rather than in the bed with me. How many times has he been surfing since you have been together?”

  “Once.” Ivy didn’t see why that mattered.

  “When he was not on set, he surfed every day,” Adele said and took a sip of her coffee. “Alex made time for me. He brought his books to the apartment and I helped him study. We went out to dinner sometimes. He wanted what I wanted. How we got together has just made being happy impossible. I know how they look at me. I’ve tried to be nice. I’ve tried to be giving. They still look at me like I was fucking them both for years. I wasn’t. I didn’t.”

  “So then why the whole scene? Even if you were drunk you told Bo you loved him and you said he loved you. Where did that come from if it wasn’t true?” Ivy sat back in the seat and crossed her arms.

  “I was mad. Jealous, you have no idea how jealous I am of what you have.” Adele closed her eyes.

  “I have some idea.”

  She nodded and continued, “I was mad at him for giving you everything he would not even consider giving me. Alex and I have not been successful in getting pregnant. It’s been wearing on our marriage for a while. You’ve been together five minutes and you already have everything I’ve wanted for years. It’s not…fair.”

  “So you don’t love Bo?”

  “No.” Adele laughed. “Not like that. And certainly not after Alex. It takes a strong man to deal with a woman like me. I know that. I can’t even tell you how much I hurt thinking back to that moment when he fell to his knees and cried. Alex has never cried in front of me. After the first year together, when things didn’t happily ever after like we hoped they would, he started to shut down.”

  “Have you tried fertility treatments?” Ivy asked. She could shift this entire thing now and planned to.

  “They said he’s fine.” Adele shrugged. “I guess we don’t have the right timing.”

  “Have you been checked out?” It seemed like an obvious question.

  “Me?” Adele looked at her as though it was not such an obvious question. “Why would I need to be checked out? I’m fine.”

  “You’re making yourself miserable.” Ivy said without mercy. “And you are making everyone else around you miserable too. If this is all because you want a baby, you need to go to the doctor and tell them you are not fine. You need help. My sister has four children. The last one, she needed to take fertility shots to get. If you want something, you have to ask for it. Nicely.”

  Adele had fat teardrops in her eyes when she nodded. “You’re right. I am making myself and everyone else miserable. What if they say I can’t?”

  “Then you try something else.” Ivy looked at the woman who she was once jealous of and pitied her. Adele was weak, sad, and frightened. Ivy understood that frame of mind all too well. “They do all sorts of interesting stuff these days.”

  “Ivy.” Adele sniffed, wiped her tears with a napkin. “I really am sorry. I don’t want anyone else to hate me.”

  She broke down into a full crying session. Ivy leaned over and hugged her.

  Adele whispered, “This family is all I’ve got.”

  Epilogue

  Prologue to Lights

  Thanksgiving…

  Sam had dressed as comfortable and as casual as she could manage since she was trying to impress a boy that happened to be at this dinner. Her family had grown closer since Ivy’s marriage to Bo. Adele announced that she and Alex were finally pregnant. It was still early, but she couldn’t keep it a secret. Alex, for all of his miserable existence, seemed happy for the first time Sam could remember. Miracles really do happen.

  Her heart thundered as the last person to arrive, Ivy’s nephew Gordon, opened the door. As soon as he walked in Sam stood up, then she sat down, then she stood up again. He wasn’t paying any attention to her because his family was greeting him.

  He was so tall and handsome. He was already working at Bo’s company and she would begin working there this summer. He turned eighteen in a few days and would graduate this year. She still had months to go. They were both interested in working in Hollywood. So many people were trying to get out of this town and she couldn’t wait to break into it.

  She sat down again. Her mind raced with what she was going to say to him when he walked by. She had met him briefly at the photo shoot they did for Bo and Ivy’s fake wedding. He was gorgeous in a tux. His green eyes finally turned her way. She wasn’t sure if she should stand up or remain sitting. He walked towards her, stopping to say hello to others along the way.

  She stood up as he approached.

  He laughed and asked, “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing.” She cleared her throat and tried for a nonchalance she didn’t possess.

  “That’s like the third time you’ve stood up just to sit back down.” He gave her a quizzical expression that had one of his eyebrows moving up as the other moved down. This close, she could smell the cologne he was wearing. He smelled so good. If it wasn’t for the fact that he was looking at her like she was crazy she could enjoy this encounter more.

  “Well.” She didn’t get another word out. Her mother called for her and he was pulled off by his little sister.

  She could have sworn he looked at her a few times during the course of dinner. She helped clean up after the meal and went searching for him without being obvious, she hoped. He wasn’t watching football with most of the guys. He wasn’t playing video games with his younger brother and two sisters. She mosied into the kitchen and casually looked around the room.

  “I think he’s out back,” Ivy whispered as she came to stand next to her.

  “Who?” Sam could have died right there she was so embarrassed that anyone noticed.

  Ivy smiled and pushed her towards the back door without another word.

  She wasn’t sure at first if she was going to like her big brother married to a celebrity, but Bo had never been happier. Ivy was accepting of her other brother Dale, who couldn’t be there for the holidays because he worked his act in Las Vegas. Ivy was even nice to Adele and Alex.

  Since Ivy had entered their lives a lot of things had become nicer, friendlier amongst her family. Sam wasn’t sure if the woman was directly responsible, but she was glad nonetheless.

  The lights were still off in the back yard. It was too late for swimming and a bit chilly in the evening at this time of year. She walked out closer to the water and heaved a heavy breath. Apparently he was not out there. She picked up one of her feet and pulled the high heel off. Then she lifted the other and did the same. She had worn them and the dress specifically to catch his attention.

  “Why stop there?” He laughed.

  She looked around but didn’t see him.

  “Up here,” he said.

  She looked up as she looked around again and saw him sitting on top of the roof to the pool house. She took a deep breath and said, “What are you doing up there?”

  “Why don’t you come find out?”

  She looked back at the house. She had two older brothers in there that may or may not be okay with her climbing on to the top of the pool house to talk to a guy. She thought about it a moment and realized, Gordon wasn’t just a guy. He was the only other person there he age. He was Ivy’s nephew. Even if he w
as a girl, she would probably have hung out with him because of those two reasons alone. It wasn’t her fault he happened to be a guy. A really hot guy.

  “How did you get up there?” she asked as she walked towards the door.

  “Come inside, come up the stairs, and then come out the window.” He watched her. She could feel him watching her as she walked.

  Sam opened the door to the pool house. It was a small place, a one bedroom apartment of sorts. She realized it was being lived in when she climbed the stairs and walked into a bedroom that smelled very much like him. A combination of laundry detergent and his cologne hit her senses and she looked around. His stuff was there. He was living in her brother’s pool house.

  Sam was a little ticked off, because she never thought to ask Bo and Ivy if she could move in to it when she turned eighteen. She knew she was going to move somewhere. She couldn’t live with her mother any longer than necessary.

  She dropped her shoes by the door and took a deep breath as she moved to the window. It was open. He was still sitting there only now he was looking at the window waiting for her.

  “You coming out or what?” He laughed again. She liked his laugh.

  “I’m in a dress.” She put her hands on the roof and tried to figure out how to get the rest of her body out without showing her underwear.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I noticed.”

  Everything inside her went warm under his scrutiny. His green eyes sparkled with something she didn’t quite recognize. He held out a hand to her and she reached for it. She climbed ungracefully the rest of the way out to the roof. She let go of his hand and straightened her dress so she could sit with him.

  She kept pulling and pushing at the fabric. It suddenly seemed too short and insufficient for covering anything up. She finally let her legs go straight out in front of her and crossed one foot over the other to keep them closed. She tugged at the material and accepted it was not going any farther down her thighs. “What are you doing up here?”