“I am one sick motherfucker.” I shake my head and roll off of her.
I’m crossing the room, reaching for the lock on the door when Ivy says, “Don’t walk away, Nolan. Don’t walk out, not now.”
“Do you know why I do this?” I say, not even able to look at her.
“Tell me,” Ivy says.
“No,” I say, turning to look at her in the bed. “I’m asking you to tell me why. Why the fuck do I do this?”
She sits up on the bed and swings her legs over the side. Her hands are still bound. Her wrists are red and raw from the yellow rope. “Fuck,” I say, walking back to her and reaching for them. I begin unwinding the yellow rope, trying my best not to look her in the eyes.
“I agreed to it.”
“Why?” I ask, looking at her. “Why the fuck did you agree to it?”
“It was exciting.”
I can’t breathe.
“But that’s not why you do it, is it?”
I can only shrug. “I don’t know. I really don’t. I don’t know why, after all that shit that happened to me, why the fuck I’d be fixated on this stupid fucking fantasy.”
“Maybe you’re just trying to prove something to yourself, Nolan. Prove that you’d never have done something like that.”
“It was just a drawing. A spur-of-the-moment drawing. Would I like to do a gang bang one day?” I laugh. “Maybe back then. Maybe that’s just something twenty-year-old guys think about? We think a lot of fucked-up shit when we’re twenty. But no. I didn’t really want to do it. It was just… a fantasy. A drawing. And the next thing I know I’m on TV. I’m being pulled in for interrogation. And my friends are looking at me like I’m guilty. And I’m looking at them like they’re guilty. And I still don’t fucking know, Ivy. What the fuck they did to her that night that made her lie about me.”
“Maybe she lied about all of you?”
“But why?”
“I don’t know, Nolan.” Ivy is pouting her lips at me. Sad. I’ve made her sad.
“Do you have any idea how badly she fucked me up? She ruined my fucking life. And you know what?”
Ivy stands up and put her arms around my waist, pushing herself into my chest. Her body is chilled and I reach for a robe on a nearby chair. The robe I was going to wrap her in once the play was over. I place it over her shoulders and Ivy presses her cheek into my hot skin.
“What?” she asks. “Tell me.”
“I hate myself for bringing you here. For asking you to do this with me. I fucking hate myself. Every time I find something good, I break it. And now look, I did this to you and I hate myself for it. That stupid lying bitch did this to me. She turned me into this fucked-up piece of shit. She made me become Mr. Romantic. Why? Why did I let her ruin my life?”
“Your life is pretty good, Nolan,” Ivy says. “Even if she did ruin it for a little while, you got back up and made something of yourself.”
“A club owner?” I laugh. “Really? This is all I’ve got to look forward to? I don’t need the money, Ivy. I’ve got money. I’ve got family houses, like this one. More than I need. It’s not about the money. Do you know what I was going to school for?”
Ivy tips her head up and looks at me. “Was it art?”
I laugh. “I guess it’s obvious at this point.”
“And your father?”
“He wanted me to be an artist. He was so pissed off when I didn’t go back. He was so pissed off when I went into business. He cut me out of the will, stopped talking to me. Hoping his grudge would convince me to go back.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Obviously.”
“And you regret it, don’t you? Is that why you bought that land in the desert? To make something beautiful out of the ugliness? I mean, I haven’t seen your clubs, and I’m sure they’re nice. But a resort implies a very different level of clientele. And talk about a challenge. Borrego Springs is not a guaranteed win, is it?”
“I don’t know, really. I’m just…” I look down at Ivy. God, she is so pretty. And sweet. “I’m just looking for something good. The land was cheap. No one wanted it. And I could relate to that, you know? I could relate to the feeling of being… discarded. I don’t want to spend my life thinking about stocking the bar with alcohol, or DJ’s, or all the other shit that goes with running clubs. I want more, Ivy. It might be wrong to want more, but there it is. I want more. I want this resort to work. I need this fucking resort to work.”
Chapter Forty - Ivy
God, he is so broken right now. I don’t like it. I hate it, in fact. He is a good person. “I was a little scared, Nolan. But every time I got to that point, you were there with something reassuring. The pretty picture stuff. The laugh. Kissing me behind the knee. I knew it was a fantasy. Even when I didn’t. I trusted you to just be… so goddamned good at what you do that I let myself believe. I believed in you, Mr. Romantic.”
Nolan shakes his head, but I get a small smile.
“And,” I say, “you’re in luck. Because I told you earlier. I have a great plan for Hundred Palms Resort. I’m here to save you from certain doom.”
“Is that right?” He smiles bigger this time.
“Yes. I have my presentation all geared up and ready—aww, I think I left my purse in your car.” I get a small laugh out of him for that remark and it lifts my spirits. I can’t stand to see him this way. I never once thought about how his past might affect the way he acts now. Not really. I made lots of assumptions. Made lots of accusations, in fact. But it never even entered my mind that he’d be repressing pent-up anger and sadness over what he lost that night. Not just his life, but his sense of self.
“Want me to fly back and get it?” Nolan asks.
“Are we done here tonight?”
“Do you want to be done?”
“Um, no. I can see there’s something going on in the bathroom, Mr. Romantic. I want whatever all that is for.”