Guy next to me felt like this was a perfect opportunity to jump back into our earlier conversation. “So what was the stint in rehab for anyway?”

Classy.

All conversation stopped at our table and every eye slid cautiously to me. This was a lie. This was a lie. I wasn’t an addict, except to maybe hope. Yes, I was only addicted to hope for life after my eighteenth birthday.

“Everything,” I muttered. I didn’t feel up to the task of picking out one of the many reasons to go to rehab. I had lots of vices; I didn’t want to give any one of them up just to prove a fake addiction. “Seriously, you name it.”

The table was quiet for six entire seconds as the heavy information sank into all those around me.

“Sex,” Ryder said clearly in the wake of the awkward silence.

“What?” I sputtered.

“Sex, were you addicted to sex?” he clarified. He settled his gray eyes on me again, their depths becoming pools of liquid silver. But still, he was mocking me, calling my bluff. There was nothing sparking in the air between us and I couldn’t help but be intrigued. What was different about him? Why wasn’t he pulled into the same bullshit every other man on the planet had to suffer from?

“Absolutely,” I sat up straighter, my confidence gaining with each moment he held my gaze. “But I refused treatment; I prefer to live in denial.” I laughed.

“You’re basically like the female version of Tiger Woods,” Ryder stated but his eyes danced with amusement.

“Exactly,” I nodded, offering him an amused smile that lacked any of its usual flirtatious traps. “But it’s my cross to carry.”

“Nuh-uh,” guy next to me grunted in complete disbelief, like I was the holy grail of damaged daddy issues. He scooted closer to me on the bench and I couldn’t help myself, I clung to Chase. I was destined to this sort of depraved, user lifestyle, but nothing could make me willingly give myself over to creepers. I had standards.

Not very many standards….

But there were some levels of crazy I just couldn’t mess with.

“Back off, Hayden, she’s not serious,” Chase barked at him. I was really beginning to like Chase. He tossed his floppy hair out of his eyes in disgust and then turned his deep blue eyes on his friend. “And it’s disgusting that you would be attracted to somebody else’s real problems.”

“I’m just messing around, man,” Hayden laughed. “I wasn’t serious either.”

“Right,” Chase rolled his eyes and his hand went from my lower back to all the way around my back.

He was strong, and protective and I melted into him. But it was all fake. He was under a spell, nothing more. This would fade….

And I would be left with an attachment that meant nothing.

“Hey, want to go with me to the Biology Lab? I have to drop off some extra credit,” Chase leaned in so he could ask me quietly. He held my gaze in his searching blue eyes, looking for something, making sure I was Ok.

“Yes please,” I whispered, trying to show him that I was fine. I wasn’t. I wasn’t anywhere close to being fine, but it didn’t really have anything to do with sleazy Hayden or even the fact that I had been sent away for treatment, just not of the addictive-behavioral type.

It did have a lot to do with the behind the scenes of my life, the ones that nobody could see, the ones that hurt and cut the deepest and screwed me up until I was a walking disaster of bipolar emotions and feminine insecurities.

But mostly it had everything to do with the gray eyes staring at me across the table like they knew me, like they saw through all of the pretty façade of my life and cut to the empty, lost part of me. But most of all it had to do with the fact that he saw me; Ryder saw me and didn’t care.

What the hell was I supposed to do with that?

I followed Chase from the lunch room, letting him lead me by the hand and I decided that I had to find out. Even if it meant that eventually I would turn on the glamour and he would be sucked in just like everybody else and all of his appeal would crumble around him…. still, I had to know.

Chapter Four

“Ivy, is that you?” My mother called from her bedroom.

“Yes,” I called back wondering if she was expecting someone else. I walked over to the windows that looked out at the busy downtown street and watched Chase pull back into traffic. I half wondered what had taken him so long to leave. I lived with my mom in a trendy midtown loft and because of the busy one way streets, Chase couldn’t park and walk me to the door like he had originally planned.

That was fine with me. We weren’t on a date; he was just taking me home from school. Although I wondered if my nonchalance about the whole thing hurt his good-boy ego. The stress of that thought had me glancing at the cherry wood upright piano that sat three feet to my left, pleading with me to play it. To take out my nervous energy on the ivory keys and unforgiving demands of Tchaikovsky.

“How was your first day back?” My mother asked as she walked out of her bedroom. She looked stunning in a short black cocktail dress and six inch stilettos. She was fastening a diamond chandelier earring with two well-manicured hands and perfected the concept of elegance.

“It sucked,” I sighed and then turned my back on her.

I walked over to our immaculate eat-in kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water out of the stainless steel fridge. I noticed a note on the counter from the cleaning lady and had to grip the counter to keep from rolling my eyes. I hated everything about this apartment, about our clothes, about our possessions…. about our lifestyle.

It was honestly disgusting.

“Ivy, ladies don’t say ‘sucked,’” my mother chastised.

“I apologize,” I mumbled. I forced myself to turn around and face her. It took a huge effort on my part and an even greater effort to look in her forest green eyes without cowering. I was her spitting image, it was our strong genes that kind of took over any mixing of DNA and molded us into replicas of each other. One day if I had a daughter of my own she would be just another carbon copy of me. Good thing I would never, ever, ever have children. That was so not in my life plan.

“So, tell me about your first day back,” my mother asked with way too much enthusiasm.

“Why are you so dressed up?” I deflected. We were supposed to have dinner together tonight. I wouldn’t be all that upset about the loss of mother-daughter bonding time but I was terrified for whatever man had to put up with my mother for the rest of the evening.

And possibly through the morning.

“Oh, right,” my mother sighed looking down at her ensemble as if she just realized how dressed up she was. Her eyes darted around the room never quite reaching my face. “Uh, Nix is in town. He has some sort of business thing tonight and we’re going to dinner first.”

My fingers found the edge of the granite counter again and I instinctively dug in, gripping it tightly until the pads of my fingers started to tingle with numbness. I concentrated on my breathing, steadying my ragged breaths and forcing myself to remain calm. I had to remain aloof; I needed to keep the perfect disguise of cool indifference. I couldn’t let her see my fear, or my anxiety, or any of the other hundreds of emotions spinning like a self-destructive tornado inside me.

“Are you meeting him somewhere or is he coming here?” I ground out, barely keeping the bite of anger out of my tone.

“He’s coming here,” my mother said slowly. She was watching me carefully, her eyes sweeping the length of me, waiting for me to fall apart again.

But I would never fall apart again.

I learned my lesson the first time. I couldn’t be real anymore. I couldn’t show anything beyond the plastic casing I wrapped myself tightly in or they would know; they would see something immediately.

And I would have to pay.

Eighteen. Trust fund. Two years. Breathe. Just breathe.

“He wants to see you,” my mother continued. Her smiled tightened just a fraction into a practiced ease that meant that she felt the volatility of the moment as acutely as I did.

“Good,” I breathed carelessly. “I want to see him too.”

My stomach started twisting in the aftereffects of my lies. I felt lightheaded and dangerously close to trembling. I could not let her see me struggle for calm. She had to believe I was relaxed, or at least as resigned to the situation as she told me I had to be.

“Good,” she smiled wider, her expression becoming natural once again.

The twisting got worse until bile was rising in the back of my throat. I turned my back on her, my fingers instantly finding the counter again and digging in until the edge cut into my skin and I could have winced from pain.

“Why don’t you change then, he shouldn’t see you so…. disheveled,” she remarked callously. “What did you do? Spill on yourself today? I saw a boy drop you off earlier, I’m surprised he took any interest while you looked like that.”

I held in my gasp of indignation. It was just my shirt, my dark shirt that barely showed any signs of stains, that was ruined. Something in the room was slowly sucking out all of the oxygen leaving me lightheaded and disoriented.

I gasped for breath.

I needed to hold it together.

I couldn’t lose it.

Not again.

“I spilled coffee,” I explained in my practiced patience. “I’ll go change. When will he be here?”

“Soon, sweetie. Why don’t you wear that new red dress I bought you?” she suggested.

I paused for a moment near tears. “I don’t have to go with you, do I? I’m just really tired from school today and I have a lot to catch up on from the quarter that I’ve missed so far.”

“Oh, no, you’re not going with us. I just know Nix would appreciate it if you put some effort into yourself when you’re around him,” she explained like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

She was my mother. My mother. Why was this Ok to her? Why couldn’t she see how wrong this was?

A million different responses flashed in my head, all of them intending to get me into trouble. “You’re right,” is what I said instead. “I’ll go change now.”

“Ivy,” she stopped me before I could get to the sanctuary of my bedroom. I turned to acknowledge her and faked a yawn, just in case she noticed the glassiness to my now tear filled eyes. “I’m glad you’re home, sweetheart. I missed you.”

“I’m glad to be home too, mom,” I answered, avoiding any accolade that had to do with her.

She rewarded me with her most charming smile, the one that would get millionaires to sign their wills with her as the sole beneficiary and make ordinary men melt into whimpering piles of stupidity. I mimicked the smile, knowing I looked like the mirror image of her and that it would on some level, drive her crazy.

The buzzer sounding near the door drew both of our attention. She waved me off to go get ready while she answered the door. I fled to my bedroom, not even waiting around to find out who was there.

I knew who it was.

Nix.

A shudder slithered down my spine; I felt it all the way to my toes and fingertips. I stopped from choking on the disgusted nausea that had wrapped around my stomach in a heavy blanket of warning and reminded myself that they were leaving.

This interaction would only last a minute, maybe a few minutes and then I would have the entire evening to myself. I would finally get to be alone and have precious moments to breathe.

I could do this.

I heard the door open outside of my room and the deep tones of a melodic male voice greet my mother. The voice had goose bumps rising quickly all over my skin in more forewarning. I shook my head out in a desperate attempt to get out of the fearful fog I had conjured around me.

I walked over to my closet and stared into the depths of cluttered clothing packed in tightly together. There was no way I was putting on the paper napkin my mother considered a dress. I needed something in between mega-slut and carelessly cute.

I threw myself into finding a perfect outfit. It wasn’t something I enjoyed doing, but after years of studying the art of dressing to impress, it was something I could do almost blindfolded. I picked through my massive closet that took up an entire wall of my large bedroom, tossing several pieces on my four poster queen-sized bed.

When I was satisfied with a few different options I laid them out carefully on my robin’s egg colored down comforter and decided from there. I went through the checklist before I came to my conclusion: spray tan, check; shaved legs, check; pedicure, check; tattoo concealer…. probably needed a touch up.

I settled on a pair of mostly white with black pinstripes shorts and a silky black cami: sexy but casual. I pulled my wavy reddish-gold hair into a side ponytail, letting the length of it hang over my shoulder and expose my neck. Then I reached into the deepest depths of my closet, into a mostly empty Louboutin shoe box where I retrieved my tattoo concealer. I applied it on the inside of my right wrist and then on my ribs, underneath my cami just in case.

I shivered again at what “just in case” could imply.

I looked myself over in my mirror, deciding that everything was in place and then returned the concealer to its hiding place. I practiced breathing with several deep breaths in and out and then turned to face my doorway. I could hear them out there, laughing and talking. They were so at ease with each other, with their whole lives.

It was insane.

They were insane.

And I was insane for putting up with this whole bullshit life.

I opened my door quietly, hoping they wouldn’t immediately notice me, but I was an idiot for holding out any kind of optimism. Their eyes fell on me at the exact same time and I had to stop breathing completely to keep from cringing as they both eyed me hungrily. My mother’s gaze was deranged pride and satisfaction and Nix looked me over with a ravenous desire he didn’t even try to conceal or downplay.

“Hi, Nix,” I greeted casually, leaning my hip against the doorway.