Page 83 of Barre Fight
And this time, there was a new reason. It was because people were counting on him. Miss Mary, those kids, their families. His family, who had come out to see the show and were now back at his and Missy’s place preparing to go back to Hillstone tomorrow. Even Ivy, who’d worked so hard to pull this whole thing together for him. When he started talking again, he looked out into the house and spoke just to them. After that, it was easy to speak about what his family had been through, what all of Hillstone had suffered in the last few weeks, and how donations from the audience would help them recover and rebuild.
“I bet there are PR jobs that feel like this. You could go work for some organization that’s doing charity work or something,” he said. He was sprawled against the armrest with his feet on the coffee table, and Ivy was lying with her legs stretched out and her feet in his lap. They were both exhausted from everything they’d pulled off in the last few days, and he knew that they’d have to order dinner soon. Hungry Ivy was dangerous enough. Tired and Hungry Ivy was a threat to public safety.
“You’re probably right. But I think I know what I want to do. I figured it out this afternoon.”
Justin sat up a little to meet her eyes. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. I was looking around the Opera House, and thinking about how much my grandfather would have enjoyed seeingperformances there if he could have afforded it. And then I started thinking about everything he left behind and all the things I get to do. This beautiful life I get to live. And I thought… someone should tell that story.”
“Your grandfather’s story?”
“All the stories. Lots of people fled like he did and ended up in Australia, and I bet that made all kinds of amazing things possible for their kids and their grandkids. You said it yourself, you didn’t know anything about the Jews who fled and came to Australia… People should know about them, don’t you think?”
“No, I think they’d rather do yet another unit on Captain Cook,” he deadpanned.
She laughed, and god, he loved that sound. Loved that he could pull it out of her. He watched as she took another sip of her wine, following her tongue as she ran it over her bottom lip. Despite his fatigue, desire stirred and he felt his pulse kick. He pushed the feeling away and focused on what she told him. On how her eyes had lit with excitement and that trademark Ivy Page determination as she spoke.
“That sounds like a great idea,” he said. “You want to write an article about it?”
“No,” she said firmly. “A book. I’m going to write a book.” Her eyes went wide for a moment, and he raised his brows in question. “I’ve just never said it out loud before,” she explained. “I was thinking it during the performance today, trying to imagine how I’d do it, but it didn’t feel real until I said it out loud.”
“How does it feel?”
How did it feel to say the big, scary thing out loud, knowing that once you’d said it you could never take it back? “It feels real. Real and… right. I’m going to write a book.”
“Well, that’s settled,” he said, matching her tone. “You’re going to write a book. When can I read it?”
She smiled and shook her head ruefully. “It’s not that simple. I need to get an agent, and they need to find a publisher, and they need to give me enough money to actually do the reporting, and…”
He sat up and took her face in his hands. Cradled her cheeks and looked down into her wide green eyes, so observant and intelligent and alight with ideas.
“And you’ll do all that. And then you’ll write a book. Because you’re Ivy Page, and you can do any damn thing you set your mind to.”
She swallowed, then shook her head, the motion pressing her jaw into his hands.
“It might not work out.” She whispered it like a confession.
“That’s true.” He pressed his lips lightly to the tip of her nose, then pulled back and met her eyes. He wanted her to see everything he was feeling. His confidence that she would succeed, but also his knowledge, just as sure and certain, that he’d hold her like this even if she didn’t. “But what if it does work? What if you get to write a book that your grandfather would have loved to read?”
“He wasn’t a big reader.”
“Okay, what if you write a book, and it’s a bestseller, and then someone turns it into a musical that your grandfather would have loved to watch?”
She smiled, and the sight of her cheeks, cradled in his hands and lifting into a smile against the pads of his fingers made him want to be a photographer or a painter so he could capture it forever. “Would you watch it?”
“I think we’ve established that for you, I’ll watch a musical. And if it’s your musical, I’ll be in the front row every night.”
She raised a skeptical brow but said nothing.
“Well, not every night,” he corrected himself. “Every night I’m not performing.”
“Still,” she said, lifting a hand and placing it over his own. She swallowed, but held his eyes, her gaze somehow direct and deeply vulnerable. “You must really like me.”
He huffed a quiet laugh, his lips mere inches from hers. “Yeah, Ivy. I really like you.”
Something deep in his chest pulled at him, protesting at the inadequacy of the words, but he ignored it. For now, he pressed another kiss to her nose. Then another to her cheek, an inch from her mouth. When she moved and her lips found his, he held himself still, letting himself feel every minute movement of her mouth against his. Letting her tell him what she wanted. He knew what he wanted. He wanted to give Ivy whatever she needed from him. Yes, he’d sit through a musical every night. He’d find the city’s best bagels and bring her one every morning so she could write her book on a full stomach. He’d tell her all his secrets, all his upsetting stories and his ugly thoughts. He’d go tell them to a professional, too, because he didn’t want Ivy to be the only one who knew them, and he didn’t want them to have so much power over him.
Ivy’s lips parted and her tongue traced the seam of his lips. He opened for her, swallowing her sigh as her tongue found his. He slid one hand into her hair, tracing the fingertips of the other hand lighting down over her jaw, then down her neck. Another sigh as he brushed them over her collarbone, and she deepened the kiss, claiming his mouth and making heat pool and pulse in his cock.
