Page 94 of Start With A Slap

The stub that came with the messengered tickets included a computerized note:For you and a lucky friend. Happy birthday, baby. All my love, Ivy.“Of course. Yeah. Friday.”

She knew she shouldn’t be so shocked. The omnipotent Sever Mark was back at the chess board again, doing what he did best. Heknewthat Jason wouldn’t change his birthday plans unless the tickets were from her. He knew to get seats she could afford. And he knew she wouldn’t deny it once she figured it out. He knew everything, except this:shewas going MIA that night.

Back at her desk, she mass-texted every woman she knew in the greater Los Angeles area:Girls nite out Thurs?

Being pushed around in bed was one thing. Extending it to herlifewas another.

If Ivy was having an affair,shewould be calling the shots.

CHAPTER 28

Thursday

“Shot!”Ivy called, and everyone at the table knocked back a kamikaze.

She was a little giddy, and not just from the booze or the hilariously sloppy high fives. For three straight days, she’d let Sever’s calls go unreturned, and the ladies’ night she’d cooked up as an alibi turned out to be exactly what she didn’t know she needed. Even the venue was a surprise hit: Ivy wasn’t keen on Sunset Strip hotspots, but this one had great acoustics, un-snobby waiters and mojitos that tasted like sunshine.

She picked hers up. “Sorry, Tiff. You were saying? About the producer guy?”

“Oh, yeah! So he takes me to his place, and on every wall there’s these super-detailed close-up paintings of spread-eagle vaginas.” The table was rapt, and she continued, “He tells me they’re portraits of his exes, and if I play my cards right, I could be over the fireplace.”

“No!”

“I kid you not. I had to fake food poisoning to get out of there...” Tiffany looked at her phone, pressed the screen, “butnot without taking a secret video first.” With a smile, she turned her phone around.

“I need to see this up close,” Ivy said, and giggled. “You’re... wow, you’re not kidding. The artist isn’t bad, though...”

“Yeah, thanks for that silver lining,” Tiffany said, and addressed the group again. “That’s what I meet at work: guys who are great on paper but in real life, pervy wackadoodles. Compare and contrast with whatIvymeets at work...”

Ivy looked down at her drink.

“A smokin’ hot trust fund baby!” Tiffany exclaimed. “Who is alsoniceandthoughtfuland head over freakin’ heels for her! Could shebeany more lucky?”

“I don’t know,” Ivy said, turning the spotlight to the girl sitting opposite her. “Amy metherMr. Right in high school. He’s a total snack cake, he just won a humanitarian award from the NAACPandhe still gives her moon eyes when he thinks nobody’s looking.”

“That’s great,” Tiffany said through a wide grin. “I feel so much better now about my life.”

Amy said, “Honestly? I’ve been in a relationship so long, I get a little envious of the unattached. It looks like fun.”

“It is,” Tiffany said. “When you’re twenty.”

Ivy peeled her cocktail napkin off the bottom of her glass and crumpled it up, then flashed back to Sever on the award stage, tossing a napkin over his shoulder.

—Makes us feel alive.

“Dude, I love being single,” Jess said. “My time is all mine.”

Camila said, “Yeah, but in this town, being alone can be solonely.”

“Look, monogamy is a social construct,” Jess said, and as the others weighed in, Ivy thought of Sever, alone in his mansion.

What did he normally do on a night like this? Read Proust by the fireplace? Throw darts at an original Jasper Johns?Backstroke through a pile of gold doubloons? She couldn’t really see him catching the latest episode ofThe Bachelor.

She could, however, imagine him watching porn. The accompanying recall of his orgasm face and his natural scent caused an unbidden body throb.

Ivy crossed her legs and cleared her throat. Hecouldbe watching that video of his dead True Love, for all she knew.

Absently, she folded the napkin into smaller and smaller triangles, then let it bloom open before starting over.

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