Raji was awakened the next morning by a woman’s voice in the other room of the hotel suite. A service lady was thanking Peyton with a high, surprised note in her voice.
Peyton regularly overtipped any staff they ran into, from car rides to room service to bellhops to baristas. If she hadn’t heard squeals of delight when someone left, she might have taken his temperature and looked down his throat to make sure he wasn’t deathly ill.
She wandered out to the living room of the hotel suite, where Peyton was pouring steaming coffee from a carafe into cups.
The scent of blessed, blessed coffee filled the air so strongly that Raji inhaled deeply and tasted the roasted aroma on her tongue.
She rubbed her eyes. The welts on her back stung, and she loved it. “What time is it?”
“Nine-thirty. Since your flight isn’t until three, I figured we could sleep in a bit.” Sunlight from the wide hotel window glistened on his blond hair, and he looked like a young, golden sun god who had somehow appeared in a hotel suite in the Southwestern US.
The couches and living room set were creamy white, while the dinette set was upholstered in pale blue canvas. Basically, it was as formal as one got in the Southwest. Peyton often booked them a hotel suite with a kitchen and several rooms as if they were playing house. It was as close as they would ever get to living together, and Raji let herself enjoy the fantasy sometimes.
She wandered over and lifted a cover off of a plate to see what was for breakfast. “Oh, good. Egg white omelet and fruit.”
Peyton sat on the other side of the table. His plate held the same. “About last night—”
She shook her head. “I got a little emo last night, but I’m back to being a cold-blooded lizard person today. We don’t need to mention it ever again.”
“—it appears that we got too rough—” he continued.
“Hey, I’m not judging. It sure looked like you liked it, too. I absolutely consented to everything that happened, if that’s what you were worried about.” She dug her fork into her omelet.
“—and the condom broke,” Peyton said.
Raji’s whole body went numb, and her lifeless fingers dropped her fork. It clattered among the other silverware like crashing traffic. “What?”
“I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you last night, but you seemed upset.”
“I wasn’t upset. I was fine.” Her fingers couldn’t seem to grab the skittering fork.
“Dr. Andy held mandatory seminars on sexual stuff for the band. From what I understand, there are some things we can do today, but talking about it last night wasn’t imperative. So it seemed okay to wait until the light of day to discuss it more rationally.”
“I am perfectly rational, and I was perfectly rational last night, too.” Raji’s heart fluttered. “Yeah. Andy’s right. I can do something about it today.”
“Which is why I’m telling you. I’m sorry. I would have stopped if I had known, but we were going at it so hard that I didn’t notice until afterward.”
“Look, I need to know what else I need to do today. Do I need to start a course of acyclovir or triple cocktail or antibiotics? Have you been tested for such things?”
Peyton held up both his hands, as if in surrender. “Andy tests us for everything that will come up on a blood test every couple of months. I had to have a physical for insurance reasons three weeks ago. Everything came back clear. I can have Andy order more tests just to double check, but just so you know, I haven’t had sex with anyone else, not since I met you.”
“But you can’t tell Andy that you were with me. You can’t tell her that we are seeing each other. Why would you suddenly need tests for AIDS or other sexually transmitted diseases if you aren’t seeing me?”
Peyton’s blue eyes widened, startled. “Well, I suppose—I think I might—I could just tell her I fucked a groupie.”
Raji pressed her hands on the table on either side of her plate to keep them from shaking. “Yeah, a groupie. That’ll work, right?”
“Sometimes rock stars fuck groupies, I’m told. Surely it seems plausible, right?”
“I think so.”
Peyton told her, “I can sell it. I’ll make sure Andy never connects anything to you.”
Raji nodded. Peyton had kept their secret for over two years now from everyone in Killer Valentine. If he had slipped even once, Andy would have been calling Raji’s phone within seconds, demanding an explanation and details.
She sat back in her chair and sipped her coffee. The black brew was too hot and scalded her tongue. She coughed, and Peyton was around the table and rubbing her back as she spit the coffee into a napkin and hacked.
He asked, “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. I’ll just get some Plan B today. I’m sure it will be fine.”
“I admit, I was kind of hoping you were on the Pill or something.”
“I was last year, but the hormones got to be too much for my body. It was interfering with my concentration at work.”
“I can see where that could happen.”
Raji said, “It will be fine. I’ll make sure it will be fine.”
He rubbed her back. “We’ve got hours before our flight. We can find a drug store here that carries it. If you tell me exactly what to get, I’ll get it for you. You don’t even have to leave the room.”
“I’ll get it from the hospital pharmacy. It’s cheaper on my insurance, and you never know what’s going on with a retail pharmacy.” God, retail pharmacies. She might as well buy some M&Ms on the street from a teenager. “I’d rather get it from my Pharm-D’s tonight.”
“I thought timeliness was important?”
“It’ll be fine.” She added up her cycle, and she wasn’t even due to ovulate for another day or so. “Trust me. I’m a doctor.”
He laughed. “In that case, I think we need a hearty breakfast to fortify us after last night.”
“We’ve got hours until our flight leaves,” Raji said, tucking in some eggs even though she had suddenly lost her appetite. “I know I was drunk last night, but I distinctly remember that you promised to play me some of your songs.”
Peyton ducked his head. “I have a new Killer Valentine song to work on. We are going to debut it in a club next week. I should practice that.”
“Nope, you’re not getting out of it that easily this time, buddy. You won’t let me fill out a spreadsheet with your career goals and metrics to attain them, but you definitely promised me that you would play all of your new songs for me today. Get your guitar.”
Peyton laughed. “Yes, ma’am.”
Raji drank coffee and lay on the couch while Peyton Cabot, the rock star, serenaded her with three sweet, lilting love songs. He ended up sitting on the floor beside the couch, his guitar resting on his rock hard stomach as he sang. Raji played with his blond hair, combing her fingers through the silken strands.
When one died away to silence in the hotel room, Raji insisted, “More,” so he played a few more.
By the end, she was floating dreamily, just listening. “Those are beautiful, Peyton. Even I can tell that they’re phenomenal. I can’t believe Xan Valentine gave them a pass.”
Peyton loaded his guitar into its case. “He hasn’t heard them.”
“You have to play them for him.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Oh.” Light dawned. Horrible, horrible light. “They’re about Georgie, his wife, aren’t they? Yeah, I can see where the alpha male lead-singing rock star with the precariously balanced psychiatric problems might not be your ideal audience for beautiful love songs about longing for his wife.”
Peyton snapped the latches on the guitar case and grabbed Raji around the waist, hauling her bodily off the couch, while he laughed. “They’re not about Georgie, silly.”
“But they’re about love and stuff,” she protested. Something stupid quivered in her chest.
Peyton bent his head and whispered, “I’ve been over Georgie for years. When I said that she belongs with Xan, I meant it.”
“Oh, so who—”
“You, my darling, my favorite little lizard person, you. I wrote all those songs for you.”
“But we can never see each other because you’re on tour. And I don’t have any time because I’m doing a residency and can’t ever leave the hospital.”
Peyton pressed his lips to her temple. “When I’m on the road, locked in yet another beige hotel room, staring at the television and some ridiculous piece of commercially produced art on the wall, just before I go to sleep, I imagine you, lying on the other side of the bed and smiling at me. I reach out and take your hand, kiss your fingertips,” his soft lips brushed her knuckles, “and then I can close my eyes and sleep.”
“Every night?” she asked him, a little breathless at the thought.
“Every night.”
“What if there’s someone else there?”
“There’s never anyone else there.”
“Never?”
“Not since I met you. Never.”
“I will, too,” Raji said. “I’ll think of you before I go to sleep, too.” She already had been.
Peyton smiled. “It’s just a few weeks, this time. We’ll go to your hospital’s masquerade in under a month. I’ll see you again soon.”