by Mia Archer
It's really too bad. That would've been a fun moment if I wasn't so far up my ass worrying about everything.
19: Lunch
"Why did you leave?"
I sighed. I'd been afraid she was going to ask this question from the moment she showed up at my work today. And I didn't have a good answer even though I'd been thinking about it all last night and into the morning.
"I had to work…"
It seemed like a weak excuse even as I said it. Judging from the way she looked at me across the table she thought it was a weak excuse as well. She had a look that said she wasn’t putting up with my bullshit, though it was at least a friendly and amused “not putting up with your bullshit” look.
"Your boss seemed more than reasonable. I'm sure she'd understand if you had to take the day off…"
“Yeah, that would’ve been pretty easy,” I said, a little annoyance creeping into my voice. “I’d have to convince her I’d just spent the night with Ivy Thompson and I needed the day off to have a whirlwind day with you. Kinda hard to believe unless you’re standing right there validating the story.”
“I could’ve sent a selfie or something,” she said.
That was true. There were ways around my flawed logic. Hell, Rachel had seen me at the concert the night before even if I didn’t know that when I was sneaking away in the middle of the night. She probably would’ve believed me even without the crazy story, but I wasn’t telling Ivy that. No, this was getting too close to the real reason why I left.
I was afraid. Afraid I’d been a one night stand. Afraid I might be more than a one night stand. Afraid of my feelings and of the world she lived in. Afraid of being pulled into that world which I wasn’t sure I wanted.
Ivy reached down and picked at her salad. We were at a nice little diner just down the street from where I worked. Not too different from the diner where we'd met the night before, only now we were sitting at a booth instead of up at the counter. Also we had to deal with people walking by and taking a look, then taking a second look as though they couldn't believe they were seeing what they thought they saw in the giant diner windows.
So far no one had come in.
Yet.
Someone banged on the window and I looked up to see a woman who looked to be in her middle years. We made eye contact for a moment and she scowled at me. Yeah, it was pretty damn obvious what she thought of me. It was pretty damn obvious that I wasn't required.
She looked to Ivy who in turn looked down at her food and studiously ignored her. Not that it stopped her from pulling out her phone and snapping a quick picture. I rolled my eyes.
Talk about a shining example of the sort of thing that made me hesitant to think of Ivy as more than a fling. I couldn’t imagine dealing with that on a regular basis. I didn't know how she lived in that world. It was crazy!
"So do you get this a lot?" I asked, desperate to find any excuse to change the subject.
Ivy looked up and locked eyes with me. A smoldering glance that took me aback. That had my entire body raging. That was a look of pure lust, but there was something else under all of that lust. There was pain there. I wanted to reach out and take her hand, but I didn't. I was mindful of the people walking past. Of the cell phone cameras that would flip out and take pictures of any such tender gesture.
Ivy might live in a totally different world, but I knew enough about that world to know that a picture of Ivy with some random woman was already going to be all over the Internet.
A picture of her holding that girl’s hand would set gossip sites on fire, and the last thing I wanted was to have my face plastered all over the Internet. Not that there was much I could do to stop it at this point.
"You never answered my question," she said. "Why did you leave last night? I thought we had a good thing going."
I sighed. It seemed like we really were going to do this. It seemed like no matter how hard I tried to avoid this conversation it was something that was going to happen. Well, if she wanted to have this conversation then I guess we could go ahead and have it. I might as well rip the bandage off now.
"We come from two different worlds Ivy. You've got all the stuff you're doing, and I'm just a girl fresh out of college who pushes spreadsheets around!"
Ivy leaned forward. Reached out to take my hands. I grimaced and glanced over to the window where more people were taking pictures. I thought I even saw somebody out there with a real camera. Well, I suppose it was only going to be a matter of time before word got out that Ivy was here.
Amazing how quickly people gathered even if it was a celebrity whose star had faded somewhat.
She seemed to take that grimace for something that it wasn't though. I saw that pained expression on her face again.
"Jessica…"
Ivy stopped. She seemed to be at a loss for words. And I felt my heart going out to her. I melted at that look. She really was everything I would look for in a woman if I could choose all the traits I wanted in a partner. There was just the little problem of her being sought after by women all around the world. There was just the little issue of her being the "hot one" in a band I’d despised ever since I was in middle school.
Though after last night I was at least willing to admit that maybe my distaste for the band hadn't been entirely warranted.
"I don't think that's really what's going on here," she said. "What's really the problem? You can tell me."
What was really the problem? Other than being pulled into a world where people were randomly taking my picture just because I was out having lunch with a girl? Other than the fact that she'd been doing tours for more than a decade now and I was sure there were plenty of girls just like me who’d gone out with her, had a little bit of naughty fun in the back of that tour bus, and now all they had were the memories of that brief encounter?
I was sure the road behind her tour bus was littered with forgotten one night stands. I didn't want to be one of those forgotten girls.
If I was going into this then I wanted to know it was serious, but at the same time I was terrified of it becoming serious because it would mean being pulled into her world. The world I was getting a sample of right now as even more women were snapping pictures.
"It's hard to explain," I said. "You can have any girl you want, and I'm nothing special. And you are what you are…"
Ivy’s hand squeezed tighter on mine. She held my gaze. It was a hypnotic stare. For a moment the outside world was forgotten. The sounds of the diner disappeared. Even all the people out on the street stopping to take pictures, which seemed pretty damn rude if you asked me, left my mind as I was captivated by her stare.
It wasn’t fair that a girl could do that to me.
"I really think you're not being fair to me here Jessica," she said.
I blinked. "I'm not being fair to you? Are you being serious?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You do that whole charming thing at the diner last night, you take me back to your bus and seduce me…"
Ivy blinked. Then she shook her head and started to chuckle. "What are you talking about? You were the one flirting with me with those text messages. You're the one who agreed to go back to the bus for a tour. You're the one who started playing that little what-if game…"
"Are you seriously saying I was the one who…" I felt my voice rising. I knew that was bad, I knew there were people from the lunch crowd all around us, but I couldn't help myself.
Ivy stopped me by putting a finger to her lips. And for a surprise I found myself closing my mouth and shutting up. I blinked. Had I really just done that? It was hard to believe, and yet there it was.
"Maybe we should just start over," Ivy said. "I…"
She seemed to be having trouble finding her words again. She paused and then the worried expression was gonna from her face. That thousand watt rock star smile was back.
Damn. It wasn't fair that she could turn on that smile and have me immediately melting. I could see why she was so po
pular. Being able to do that to any girl was definitely a career skill in her line of work.
I frowned. That thought naturally led to thoughts of how she probably had done that with plenty of girls over the years. I don't know why that bothered me so much, but I couldn’t help how I felt.
"I think we're getting off on the wrong foot here Jessica," she said.
"Are we?"
I was trying to sound contrary, but it was difficult with the way she was looking at me. It was very difficult considering how her touch was making me feel!
"Look," she said. "It's pretty damn obvious you have some reservations about me and my… lifestyle."
Ivy paused and glanced out the window. In the time we’d been talking a completely new group had gathered and were snapping pictures. Well, they were doing a combination of snapping pictures of Ivy and glaring at me which just served to make me feel even more self-conscious about being here with her in the first place.
It was a mixed crowd, though there were a couple of girls in there giving her serious eyes who might swing our way. Somehow I felt less secure here with this small crowd of crazed fans than I did last night surrounded by thousands of women who might want to rip me apart. Last night I had anonymity, at least.
Ivy looked back to me. "All I'm asking for is one night."
I cocked an eyebrow and smiled. She had to realize how that sounded. "One night? Didn’t you get that last night?"
Ivy shook her head. "That's not what I mean. Last night was amazing, but I wanted a date night with you. I want tonight to be just the two of us. Just like last night at the diner. Is that too much to ask?”
I thought about everything that had happened. More than anything I thought about last night in the diner. At how easily conversation had come. And that naturally led to thoughts of what had happened after when we were together in her bus.
I blushed. Sure I'd been in the middle of a dry spell, but that had been some of the most intense sex of my life, and I'd had some pretty wild encounters back in college. Not so much since I started a day job, but them's the breaks.
Would it really hurt anything to give her one night? I could go out on a quick date. I could endure being a part of her world for one evening, and when it was all done I could go back to my regular life and forget any of this ever happened. I could go back to my nice and safe existence, free from women giving me threatening glares and people trying to take my picture just because of who I happened to be sitting with.
Free from the worry of Ivy leaving me because I’d just been a particularly interesting one night stand that got less interesting as time passed.
Because ultimately that was all I could think of myself as. She might be playing a pretty good game here, but it had to be a game. A girl like her didn't go ten years doing what she did without learning a few tricks.
It just didn’t seem possible that I would be the girl she suddenly decided she wanted to settle down with after so many years of sleeping around. It didn’t seem like she’d actually give up that life even if she paid lip service to wanting something more. So what if I played along with those tricks for one night? It's not like it was going to kill me.
I looked at her. I smiled. "Fine. We can do it your way. We have one night. You get a date, but that's it!"
Ivy finally released my hands, but I found myself wishing she’d hang onto them. I desperately wanted to feel her hands against mine. I desperately wanted to feel more of her body against mine. And I found myself thinking back to the night before. Back to how she'd felt pressing against me…
Damn it. If I allowed myself to keep getting distracted like that I would be in very real danger of starting to take this "date night" seriously!
I didn't care how hot she was. I didn't care how sincere she seemed. I had to remember she was a woman who was probably very skilled at getting what she wanted from women. She was a woman who was very used to getting what she wanted from women.
I was not going to be another silly groupie, never mind that was exactly how I'd acted last night. Never mind that I seemed to throw caution to the wind and completely forget myself when I was around her.
There was just no way I could possibly be more to her than a one night stand, and so that's exactly how I was going to treat her. One more night. That was it.
It was one date, but there was an expiration date on this relationship. So what if I was misleading her just a little? Was that really any different from how she’d no doubt treated countless women over the years?
Ivy grinned. "Great!"
I looked down at my watch and back up to her. "So when should we get together? Will I be meeting you somewhere?"
Ivy blinked. She looked out at the ever shifting crowd and then back to me. She smiled. "It's not going to be that easy."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"You said you’d go on a date with me," Ivy said. "And as far as I'm concerned that means I have you all to myself for the rest of the day!"
"Hold on a second," I said. "I said a date tonight. I never promised we'd spend the day together. I have to get out of my work clothes, get ready, all that stuff…"
Ivy smiled and leaned forward, suddenly looking conspiratorial. She whispered even though there wasn’t anyone close enough to hear what she said. The crazies out there might not have any qualms about snapping our picture like we were some sort of exhibit at a zoo, but none of them were tapping on the glass or approaching the animals on display.
"You have a mall around here, don't you?"
"Well yeah," I said. "It wouldn't be much of a downtown if there wasn't shopping for all the tourists."
"Exactly, and I presume any downtown shopping is going to be a pretty swank, right?"
I leaned back. I thought about the diner the night before. I looked at the diner we were at right now. Even though she was probably pretty damn rich, it seemed like she had pretty down-to-earth tastes. A “swank joint” for shopping didn’t seem her speed at all.
Still…
"I suppose the shopping around here is nice enough," I said.
Ivy held up her hands as though that settled it. "There you have it!"
I blinked. "I'm afraid I don't quite follow…"
"It's simple. We’re probably going to go out to some impossibly expensive stuffy place tonight, so that means you have to get dressed up. I'm sure we can also find someplace at the mall that does makeovers as long as I throw some money around."
"You think I need a makeover?"
Ivy leaned forward again and there was that intense gaze on her face. That hungry look. A look that had me wanting to lean forward and plant my lips on hers.
My eyes darted towards the window, towards the row of phone cameras that seemed to be moving in a never-ending conveyor taking pictures of us. That would definitely give the gossip rags something to talk about!
"I think you're beautiful. I think you’re perfect just the way you are." She shrugged. "But you’re the one who said you needed to do some makeup before our date. I figure if we have them do it at the mall I can spend more time with you. You agreed to hang out with me, and I'm not giving up a minute more than I have to!"
I rolled my eyes. She was trying to lawyer me, and I figured I could get out of it if I really wanted to. Only I wasn't sure if I wanted to. The idea of spending a day with her was suddenly sounding kind of nice. And so I found myself grinning and shaking my head.
"You're not going to give up until I give in, are you?"
Ivy grinned and shook her head. Damn it. That grin almost would've been frustrating if it didn't make her look so damn sexy and eager.
20: Shopping
I was going crazy as I sat in the back of the store. Luckily none of the people who worked here had recognized me. So far. The girls working here today looked to be college aged. Probably a little too young to remember who I was or when I'd been famous.
Then again I would've thought Jessica and her friend were a little too young to be all about the group.
"Are you doing okay ma’am?" A girl asked.
I grimaced. Ma’am. I looked up at the girl. She was pretty enough. She had that effortless beauty that college girls have just by nature of being young.
At least I assumed she was a college girl. Who knows? It was still summer, after all, and there was a good chance she could still be in high school. I grimaced again. I was getting old enough that it was hard to tell the difference.
It was crazy. I shouldn't be feeling like I was already walking around with a foot in the old folks’ home just because I was a little over thirty, and yet there it was.
If anything this tour was making me feel that more keenly than ever before. Being surrounded by throngs of cheering fans and realizing that the throngs were women who were my own age or older rather than the teenagers who thronged to our last concerts. If they had any younger girls with them it was usually their daughters.
It was a crazy change from what I'd been used to when we first hit it big. When it seemed like the world was ours for the taking and the ride would never end.
Well, the world wasn't exactly mine for the taking anymore. Of course I did have my millions socked away, which helped me cry all the way to the bank.
I could be thankful we managed to barely sneak in just before file sharing completely destroyed our industry. I'd been able to get mine and get out. I’d figured I really was getting out for good, but then I got the call and here I was trying to add another few million or so to my already substantial portfolio.
I figured it couldn’t hurt as long as I avoided complications. I looked at the hall leading to the changing rooms. Complications like falling for a fan which was the last thing I should be doing.