Facing the Music Read Free Page A

relations squad was done with him, Sterling was shiny and new, ready for his close-up in the next music video.
    It was hard to believe she’d actually dated him, but Ivy hadn’t known any of this up front. She liked her boys bad, but she drew the line at toxic. She just wanted the kind that would charm her and break her heart. That’s what she went for in men. She supposed it was her own fault for dating bad boys with no serious relationship potential. It wasn’t the best way to settle down, but she wasn’t interested in all that. She’d had her heart broken once, and that was enough for her. Her one true love was her music. She just needed the men for inspiration. Only firsthand heartache would do for great singles, so the more unsuitable, the better.
    When her relationship with Sterling imploded and their tour ended, she had enough material to write a whole album. But she settled for one song. Just one—“The Sweetest High.” It cut to the bone, though, accusing him of loving his drugs more than her and calling him out for singing to little girls while he was high. It was the first piece of bad press to get past Sterling’s handlers.
    At this point, she almost wished they’d been able to stop the song from coming out. It had done well at first, but when people realized who it was about, the backlash had been brutal. Instead of seeing her as a truth teller, his legion of tween fans revolted against her. They would never believe such vicious, bitter lies about their dear, sweet future husband.
    Sterling’s management jumped on the bandwagon. They put him on every talk show they could to proclaim Ivy lied about him because he broke up with her and she was madly jealous. It snowballed from there. His eleven million Facebook fans were calling for a boycott of her album. Some bookies were taking bets on how long it would be until she had a breakdown and checked into rehab.
    It’s said that there’s no such thing as bad press, but she’d lost a good chunk of her fan base when they chose sides. #TeamIvy had a lot fewer supporters than #TeamSterling.
    Ivy understood where Kevin was coming from. She needed to lie low for a while and let everyone forget about the thing with Sterling. She needed to go back to dating her usual crop of unsuitable men—rock stars, actors, and athletes. If she wrote a song about one of them using and dumping her, no one would bat an eye.
    She wanted to just hole up in her Malibu beach house for a while and work on her new album, but it was impossible with paparazzi camping in her driveway, harassing her every time she went outside. With the state of her career, she couldn’t risk pulling a Britney and having a meltdown as the cameras captured every moment. She needed to get away to someplace no one would expect.
    “Is it really so bad, Ivy? You just arrived.”
    “It took three minutes for someone to mention Blake. Three. You wanted me to write some new music with a more sophisticated sound and emotional depth. How am I supposed to do that when people are constantly bringing up the thing with Blake?”
    Her manager had challenged her to write some new songs for her next album that weren’t the perfect soundtrack for a woman scorned. She was getting older, and so were most of her remaining fans. She may have lost her younger audience, but this was her opportunity for her sound to mature.
    “How is that any different than here?” Kevin asked. “You haven’t been able to write the last few weeks anyway. A new environment, a new routine might shake up your creative energy.”
    Ivy pulled up outside her parents’ cabin and put her car into park with a heavy sigh. She hated when Kevin was right. He was always so smug about it. She had been struggling to write songs for her new album. She’d stared at blank notepaper, banged her head on the piano keys, crumpled wadded pieces of musical crap and tossed them in the trash. Nothing. Her mind was totally blank. That usually called for a new