“So, I thought you still lived in Rosewood,” Ivy said after they’d been driving for quite some time.
“I do. We’re almost there.”
They turned off the highway onto a dirt road that meandered through the trees. They rounded a corner and crossed a small bridge that spanned a creek before they came to a large clearing in the woods.
Blake’s house was exactly what Ivy would’ve expected but nothing like she could’ve imagined. It was rustic in style, with clean, contemporary lines. It was two stories high with a large, sloped A-frame roof on one end and floor-to-ceiling windows.
They pulled around the back and Blake hit the button to open one of the four garage doors that lined that side of the house. Inside, the garage was large and immaculate with white linoleum floors, white walls, and bright lights. His truck was parked in the far bay, with his boat and his two dirt bikes parked in between.
Blake helped Ivy out of the car and walked her to the door. It opened into the large open space of his great room.
Ivy walked in, a little stunned by the beauty of his home. It was as though someone had taken every bit of his personality and shaped it into a house.
The two-story-high ceiling of the kitchen had skylights on the sloped roof that came down and fanned out to the more intimate dining room. The near wall was entirely covered in stone with a professional grade stove carved into it. The kitchen island was made of distressed ebony cabinetry and a shiny black granite countertop. There were arched exposed beams overhead and worn, reclaimed wood floors underfoot.
“Do you like it?” he asked as he tugged at his bow tie and slipped out of his tailcoat. “It used to be an old mill. I had it pretty much gutted and redone, although I tried to reuse as much of the original material as I could. All the stone and beams are untouched. And the floors.”
Ivy wandered into the living room. There was a massive fireplace and plush leather couches that invited sitting and watching football on the wide-screen television mounted above it. “It’s beautiful. I’ve never seen anyplace like it. It must’ve cost you a fortune.”
“Well,” Blake said with a shrug, “real estate is cheaper out here than it is in California. Still, I put a lot into it to get it just right. I wanted a place to live out the rest of my life, and this is it.”
Ivy walked over to a pair of French doors that opened out onto a deck. Blake followed her and opened the doors up. “Go on outside. I’ll get us a drink and meet you out there.”
Blake returned to the kitchen as Ivy stepped outside. It was cool in the woods, but not uncomfortable. The deck was large and partially covered with a set of furniture for gatherings and an outdoor kitchen. There was another fireplace near the seating area, which roared to life as she got close to it. Ivy leaped back, turning when she heard Blake laugh.
“Sorry. It’s gas. I flipped the switch as I stepped out,” he said, offering her a glass of white wine.
Ivy took a large sip to calm her nerves and walked over to the railing. The property sloped down a little wh
ere the creek flowed by. She looked out into the woods, but couldn’t spy a single light in the distance. “Got any neighbors?” she asked.
Blake leaned on the railing beside her and shook his head. “Not really. I bought twenty acres and my nearest neighbor owns fifty, so I’ve never even seen the guy.”
“That’s nice,” Ivy said. “I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have enough space to breathe. Sometimes it feels like I’m never truly alone. There’s always someone around, someone watching.”
“Have you ever . . . considered getting a place a little farther from the rat race of LA and Manhattan?”
Ivy turned to him with a smirk curling her lips. “You mean like moving back here?”
He shrugged and sipped his wine. “I know California and New York are where you conduct a lot of business, but there’s nothing that says you can’t have a place to go that’s away from all that. Where you could have some real downtime, be that here or a mountain house in Tennessee or a chalet in Colorado.”
“I’ve thought about it. The last few years have just left me so little time to devote to anything other than work. When I go back to LA, it’s back into the studio to record a new album. That means new videos, promotional trips, maybe another tour next summer. Kevin is pushing me to tour Asia this time.”
“You have to make the time to have a life, Ivy. There’s a whole world outside the music business. You deserve to have a home that isn’t crawling with press and a relationship that isn’t documented daily online.”
Ivy heard what he said, but it seemed like an impossibility.
“It took a three-hundred-pound linebacker to make me reevaluate things. Since high school, my life had been nothing but football. I was going to be Brett Favre or Joe Montana and play ball into my forties. And then, there I was, lame at twenty-four. It took a long time for me to figure out what I was supposed to do with my life. Hell, I’m still trying to figure it out.”
“You really can’t play anymore?”
Blake shook his head. “It was a freak occurrence. I’d been hit harder a hundred times before, but this time ruined everything.”
“May I see?” She didn’t know why, but she wanted to see the scars. They’d both changed over the years, but his injury was physical proof of everything he’d been through. She needed to see and understand what had happened to him while they were apart.
He hesitated for a moment, biting his lip, and then he finally nodded. Blake didn’t seem comfortable with the idea, but the fact that he would do it anyway spoke volumes. He lifted his foot up onto the nearby patio chair and tugged up his gray slacks. There were red scars running across his kneecap and down his calf. Another on his thigh disappeared beneath the rolled cuff of his pants.
“It’s pretty gruesome, so I don’t show many people. I got a new knee and some titanium rods that reinforce the shin bone and femur. It took twenty-three screws to hold it all together. Unfortunately, it didn’t make me bionic. It made me a benchwarmer.”