“Mom, you sold the house?” I whined, sitting up straight while FaceTiming her as the Reagan Moore fleet traveled from Charleston to Raleigh.
A mountain of cardboard boxes containing our Irvine life towered behind her as she showed off the empty house where I grew up. Grandma and Gramps’s house. The last remaining thing we had left of them.
And she smiled at me as if this was an accomplishment. As if she was actually glad to rid herself of the home we spent ten years in.
“Why are you telling me this now that the whole house is packed?”
“Because I knew what your reaction would be,” she said and sat in Gramps’s computer chair with the vacant bookshelf behind her cleared of all his records and record player. Now, it really was only a memory.
“But it’s their house,” I said.
“It doesn’t feel like home to me anymore, and I don’t need a four-thousand-square-foot house just for me. It’s too much. You’ll love the condo I bought though. It has a loft.”
“You already bought a condo?”
“Yes, in Los Feliz. Oh, Blair, it’s so beautiful. You’ll have your own room when you come visit me.”
I couldn’t believe it. We spoke on the phone at least twice a week, and now I was finding out she was moving out of the Irvine house when the house was already packed up? I was furious at her. But as much as I wanted to yell and express my frustrations, seeing her smile beat all the angry emotions in me. As much as my gut twisted from moving on from the place that would serve as a time capsule for all my wonderful memories I had of my grandparents, Mom looked hopeful.
“Honey, I know you feel attached to this house because it’s your grandparents’,” she said with much more sympathy than before, “but if I’m going to live by myself, I’m not gonna do it in something too big for me. This is the first time in my life I’m able to buy something for myself, and it’s scary and exciting at the same time. I’m forty-four years old and haven’t had anything except for a Chevy Cruze in my name.”
She guilt-tripped me without really trying. Mom was right. She’d spent eighteen years trying to raise me as she matured throughout her twenties and thirties. Then right when she finally got her bachelor’s degree in business, after taking classes for years while juggling administration jobs, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she stayed in their Irvine house to take care of her rather than follow through with the plan of buying her own place. She didn’t want to leave Grandma, even though both of her parents insisted that she still move out. But she never did. After Grandma died, Mom wanted to keep her grieving father company since he was just as miserable without Grandma as I was miserable without both of them.
Mom spent the past twenty-four years taking care of everyone but herself. She’d never been married. Never had a serious boyfriend since my shitty father. In six years, she lost both of her parents to cancer. I guess I didn’t blame her for wanting to sell the house to start a new life in her control. I just really hated to let go of the one last thing that still smelled like my grandparents.
“Yeah, you’re right,” I said through a heavy sigh.
“Just because I’m moving out of the house doesn’t mean I’m forgetting about them, hon. It means I’m trying to move on and continue upward.”
“I know, I know. It’s just—I really loved that house.”
“I know you did. But selling the house is what I need to do. My therapist says I should consolidate because having all this space is a reminder of what I’ve lost. Oh, and guess what else?”
I pressed my lips together for a moment, hoping that she wasn’t going to deliver more bad news. “What?”
“I have a date later this week.”
My eyes widened. My mom had only dated two men that I knew of. My dad and then some guy named Mark for about a year when I was fifteen. The rest of her time she spent working her ass off, taking care of her family, finishing her education, and taking extra hours as a receptionist at the hospital.
“You have a date?”
“Yes!” She squealed like a little girl. Was this really my mother I was talking to? I could only remember the rage burning in her eyes when she found out I was suspended for three days because during a drug lockdown, one of those drug dogs sniffed the eighth of weed I had in my car. I didn’t think they were so cute after that. That memory of her jaw set firmly, eyes drilling in how disappointed and angry she was totally belied the shriek and school-age grin that consumed her face over a man. Gone were the days of tossing glares at her rowdy daughter, and hello to the days Mom acted like a little schoolgirl because she had a date. She informed me she actually had three dates with three different men the past three weeks. A lot of threes for me to remember. I’d never been prouder of my mother until hearing about all her dates. And here I thought my life was thrilling because Reagan Moore said I looked good in a bathing suit. But seeing my mom’s smile and her voice climbing up an octave was a great moment for me to witness.
I guess there was more to Mom than just being a mom.
Apparently, his name was Greg, a business executive who lived in Beverly Hills, which meant he was probably some obnoxious rich dude who voted for Donald Trump because of his “fabulous tax plan.” Mom lectured me about how I needed to stop assuming things about people who I’d never met.
While Mom’s love life was booming like a Fourth of July fireworks display, mine was utterly confusing. While the Reagan Moore fleet traveled up Georgia and the Carolinas, I couldn’t tell if it was my dreams causing me to act weird around her or if something started swelling between us. Since our time in Miami, our post-show wine chats brought us together on the same sectional couch in her bus, or she’d invite me to her hotel room. Each show, I’d noticed the space between us close the more comfortable we became around each other. Her insults became harsher, but still, that beautiful smile eased her words a little bit. In return, I’d playfully hit her arm or leg or whatever body part was closest to me because I just wanted to have an excuse to touch her.
As I tried forcing myself to go to sleep, still hearing murmurs from Miles and Corbin snorting in their sleep, my mind would go back to Reagan’s bus and she’d finally kiss me, like, push me up against the kitchenette, kiss me. Imagining those lips on me stirred the warmth underneath my clothes and jolted a flutter in my chest. Damn it, it really sucked living with two boys plus our bus driver because all those nights kissing Reagan over and over in my head really collected tension in my body that needed to be released.
* * *
To continue the nostalgia train that kept chugging in circles in my brain thinking about Mom moving, our next stop was the first city I ever called home: Nashville, Tennessee.
When I was thirteen, Gramps moved us from Nashville to LA when he started his label with his longtime friend and former bandmate. Although when asked where I was from, I always answered Irvine, a part of my heart still belonged to this city, and I was so glad to be back for the first time in eleven years.
It was also Reagan’s hometown, and my body craved being next to her so it could soak up all her attention, but her parents and two older brothers lived right outside the city in Franklin, so she was spending the day with them.
So, third wheeling it with Miles and Ethan, I showed those Southern California boys the very little culture that America had, and the best culture—in my opinion—was Southern culture. Forget about the animal-style burgers at In-N-Out Burger, fish tacos, and avocado toast, Miles’s stomach had never been introduced to proper barbecue or hot chicken before. And I didn’t know about Ethan, but the lack of twang in his voice and lack of knowledge about hot chicken proved to me that his stomach hadn’t fully lived. So, I took them to my favorite barbecue spot that Gramps always treated me to on the best days, indulging in slathered ribs, hot chicken, warm, buttery biscuits, and banana pudding with vanilla wafers.
We eventually waddled our full bellies down Broadway Street to a scotch saloon that served as our nightcap while we listened to live country music. I pounded back scotch after scotch, wondering what Reagan was up to, and how empty the Irvine house was, and reliving the first memory of Gramps introducing me to Nashville hot chicken and always laughing when I managed to get barbecue sauce all over my face.
I really missed his laugh. And all the scotch I drank filled my nose with the smell of Gramps. Nashville, scotch, and live music. If that wasn’t Gramps’s heaven, then I don’t know what was.
Everything leading up to that moment in the cramped, dingy scotch bar was great, so why the grief stacked on top of me like bricks when I was with my best friend in a city I absolutely loved and missed was beyond me. I sat there in my own corner of the table, watching Miles and Ethan carry on effortlessly. Actually, it felt as if everyone carried on effortlessly. Mom too, even though I knew that wasn’t the case, but her tossing that house to the side for a new one still clung to my brain. Even though I knew it was the right decision for her, and I was genuinely happy that she was excited about having a place to herself and finally entering the dating scene, it still made me wonder how she did it. I carried the weight of Gramps’s death with me every night, and anytime it became too much, I poured myself another large glass of wine while I was talking to Reagan after shows, or I pounded back another shot in the green rooms, or I lit a joint and relaxed into my seat, but none of those were working.
I wanted a breath from it all.
I told Miles I was going to go back to the hotel. He gave me that concerned look, reading my face perfectly like he always did. That kid was so intuitive and knew me like the back of his hand; sometimes it annoyed me when I wanted to suppress my feelings. But I gave him a small smile that I was fine, just tired and needed to go to sleep, encouraging him to stay out as long as he wanted.
Every time the days morphed into night, my mind spun around like a carousel. What was it about the night that made people overthink everything? Their whole lives? The meaning of their existence? Why the hell they did that one weird thing in third grade, and why were they dwelling about it now? It was only the bad memories that seemed nocturnal, insecurities and self-doubt that sprang to life at night, louder than they were during the day. Sometimes, I felt as if I couldn’t hide from my own voice.
When I got back to my hotel, I searched through my orange prescription bottle filled with Xanax, Ritalin, and the remaining eight ball of cocaine I scored a few days before I broke up with Alanna. Since I knew I wasn’t going to fall asleep, and I was going to continue to ride on that carousel in my mind, I took a Xanax and then passed out.
A breath from it all.
* * *
I spent the next day alone in my hotel room, relying on the cocaine to numb me in every way I needed it to. By the time we made it to our green room, I felt as if I was sunbathing on a cloud. I was so eager to get on stage and run around, jump on a five-foot-tall speaker, wail on my guitar, and soak up all the cheering from the fans.
After I tuned my Fender with fidgeting hands, Mom texted me a picture of a red-heeled pump on one foot and a black flat on the other, asking me which one was the best option for her date with Greg from Beverly Hills and the world of online dating. I stared at the picture, feeling the chemical energy controlling my body and mind. I had no idea what the hell kind of shoe my mom should wear. So, I used that as an excuse to see Reagan. I was in a pretty talkative mood anyways.
I marched down the hallway to her green room, letting the confidence from the two preshow shots and lines soak in my blood. Her green room door was always cracked open before shows. Usually, the only time I walked past her door was right after we got off the stage. The number one rule of live shows was that you didn’t disrupt a musician’s preshow ritual. So, I never bothered her.
But those rules didn’t really exist when I rejuvenated the depleted elation running through me. Plus, considering that she was the woman who built her career on three double platinum albums filled with love songs, I think my interruption was justified. She knew exactly the shoe my mom needed to find love.
When I poked my head through her room, I found her stretched out on the couch in her concert hair, makeup, and attire. An aromatherapy diffuser scented the room, and whatever the weird smell was, Reagan seemed to enjoy it, eyes closed, and hands folded over her sparkly bodysuit.
“Knock knock,” I said as I tapped the door.
“Oh, hey,” she said with a smile, pushing herself up on the couch.
“What’s the smell in here?”
“Clary sage. Helps calm your nerves, your stomach, and anxiety. You’re more than welcome to breathe some of it in since it’s our hometown show.”
Not like I really need to breathe in any more, but if it gives me an excuse to be next to her…
“Well, if you really insist. Mind if I come in?”
“Not at all.”
She moved her legs to give me room to join her on the loveseat. For whatever reason, she looked extra good today. I loved the natural shade of pink lipstick on her lips and the soft smoky shadow brushed on her eyelids.
“So, uh, my mom is going on her first date, in like, six years,” I explained, scratching the back of my head as Reagan’s beauty and the tension that kept following us around warmed my cheeks. “She doesn’t trust me with fashion, and I don’t trust myself in picking out the right shoe for her, so I’d thought I’d ask your advice on what she should wear on her date. Care to give it?” I wiggled my phone.
“Uh, always!”
As I opened my mom’s text message, I noticed the lack of space that separated us. She scooted over until there was only an inch separating our legs. While she studied my mom’s mirror selfie, I studied the tension reverberating between us. Instead of resisting, I let my leg follow the tension. It relaxed into hers ever so slightly, and the humming recentered to my knees. I couldn’t focus on anything else except the friction. I wasn’t the only one who felt it. Reagan completely lost interest in my phone. As I caught her stare, her gaze slipped down to my lips, and then her stare jumped right back up to my eyes.
“You smell really good,” she said while leaning forward and sniffing the air close to my neck.
God, the things I would have done for her lips to touch me. If only we could close the inch of space. Could we forget about my mom’s shoe dilemma just so she could continue to smell me? Maybe rest a hand on my thigh? Kiss the spot on my neck where I spritzed my perfume?
I swallowed hard. “Oh, thank you. New perfume.”
“You smell immaculate.”
“Don’t make me cocky.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s right. Your ego. It’s a thing.” The corner of her mouth tugged upward as her eyes went back to my phone screen at my mom’s mirror selfie. My mom, living her true, twentysomething self by taking an awful selfie with two different shoes on in a sexy black cocktail dress.
“Damn, your mom is hot,” she said with much surprise.
“Tone the libido. She’s all about the D.”
“Sorry. Sage is an aphrodisiac. I can’t help it.” She nudged me in the arm. Yup, that had to explain the tension sucking our legs together like a magnet. Or my wanting her lips on my neck and her hand crawling up my leg. The aphrodisiac. Nothing else.
“You guys look alike, you know that? You’ve got the same dark brown eyes and perfect dark eyebrows.”
“Are you saying I’m hot?”
It took a second for her face to turn bright red. “What?”
“You said my mom was hot, and then said we look alike, which means you think I’m hot.”
“I…you…I said you looked good in a bathing suit, didn’t I?”
“Oh, you did. I’ll never forget you said that either.”
“Just…shut up. Take a compliment and shut up.”
My face started to heat up too just seeing how bright her cheeks turned because of me.
Then she typed back to Mom at lightning speed. Red pumps! Black always needs a pop of color. Plus, the shoes are cute!—Reagan.
“Really? She’s going on a walking tour,” I said skeptically.
“Blair, they’re like three-inch heels. She will be fine.”
“You can go on a walking tour in three-inch heels?”
Mom replied back. Red heels it is! Thank you, Reagan! Hope you and my daughter have a great show.
Reagan handed me back my phone with a crinkle by her eyes when my mom sent her a winky face emoji. “See. Your mom loves me.”
“Mom loves everyone.”
“I should send some sage her way.”
“Please do. She hasn’t had sex in, like, eight years, and before that, the last person she slept with got her pregnant, and he’s a piece of shit.”
Her eyes grew. “I’m not sure what I’m more shocked about. The fact you know your mom’s sex life that well or the fact she hasn’t had sex in that long.”
“She’s my best girlfriend. We tell each other everything. If anything, she’s more disturbed by my sex life.”
Her eyebrow rose as she gave me an intrigued smile. “What’s so disturbing about your sex life?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know. The sage has gone to your head.”
She playfully grabbed hold of my knee, sending a jolt through my black leather pants and underneath my underwear. She started singing “You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon until a knock interrupted her.
My chest swelled with jealousy when I saw the person knocking, and from the corner of my eyes, I saw Reagan’s grin loosen.
“Jess?”
It was none other than Jessie Byrd herself, looking like a true hipster rock star: skintight maroon jeans that ended right above her ankles, a black leather coat, white V-neck T-shirt, and a black Panama hat resting on the top of her dark brown hair tousled in loose curls down to her breasts. Her lips stood out in bright red lipstick as a reminder that those lips once belonged to Reagan.
If I was amused in Miami about Reagan dating Jessie Byrd, I felt anything but amused sitting in that Nashville green room. It was one thing to imagine it—the sudden information about their relationship opened the door to all these scenarios in my head. But Jessie Byrd in the flesh? At Reagan’s show? I’d just spent a few minutes tweaking out a smile from Reagan that was all for me. Only me. And one sight of her debonair ex-girlfriend washed that smile away and really diluted my high.
No, I wasn’t a fan of it.
“Hey, stranger,” Jessie Byrd said in her sexy Australian accent.
I’d only listened to Jessie Byrd sing her indie folk-rock songs on Spotify. I had every song off her two albums downloaded to my phone. But I never heard her speak or went out of my way to watch videos of interviews so I had no idea she wooed girls with her accent.
Talk about a disadvantage for me.
“What…what are you doing here?” Reagan said, still completely baffled by the appearance. From the sound of it, she wasn’t a fan of the surprise leaning confidently against the side of the entryway.
“Seeing a concert. Is that all right?”
“You should have given me a heads-up or something.”
“I wanted to surprise you. I couldn’t miss out on this. You sold out your hometown show. It’s a pretty big deal. You got a wicked crowd out there.”
It seemed like the sage easily affected Jessie Byrd by how both of them looked longingly at each other. She either still had feelings for Jessie Byrd or was ODing on clary sage. I could almost see them practically undressing each other with their eyes from the apparent desire they still had. And here I was feeling excited that this beautiful, charming woman was giving me attention by grabbing my knee, nudging me in the arm, and telling me how great I smelled, only for her to completely melt at the sight of a girl who made her feel “fucking electric.”
All that magnetic force I felt when I sat next to her really wasn’t anything compared to whatever she had with Jessie Byrd. Their stares flushed me right out of there like the piece of shit I felt like.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” I said and got off the couch to breathe in something less sagey.
Reagan’s soft hand clasped on to mine as I stood, and just that one touch from her froze me in my spot and sent some kind of shocking force into my stomach.
“Wait, Blair, no, you don’t have to go,” she said, begging with her eyes for me to stay.
That feeling that she caused moved from my stomach straight to my heart. The hypnotic stare she gave Jessie Byrd for that split second had completely worn off, but it was still sketched in my mind for me to analyze for the rest of the night. As wonderful as it was to hold on to her hand for just that moment, I knew I had to let it go and get myself and my mind ready for our show. That needed my focus. Not something unrealistic as me kissing Reagan. I’d save the scenarios I played in my head right before bed, hoping they could turn into a wonderful dream.
“Blair Bennett, right?” Jessie Byrd smiled at me.
I swallowed the starstruck lump in my throat and retrieved my hand from Reagan. “Hey. Yeah. I really love your music.”
“Right back at you. I was listening to you guys on the ride over here. Studying for the concert.”
My cheeks warmed and I really hope they didn’t turn a traitorous red. I couldn’t let myself cave at the sight of her too. “Oh, thanks. I’ve had your music on my playlists for years. You’re phenomenal.”
“Oh, please. I only play guitar. You play every instrument in the book and loop. You’ve got heaps of talent, mate.”
You’re caving…that accent…that face…the talent…
I offered her a friendly smile. “We could probably go back and forth with compliments all night, but I gotta get going and get ready for this crowd. It was nice meeting you.”
“You too. Good luck.”
I needed to delete all those Jessie Byrd songs from my Spotify. ASAP.
Miles was in the bathroom when I got back to our green room. Already feeling my mind start to cave, and still uneasy from my depressive moment the night before, I fished out a Ritalin from my bag. I really wanted to savor the remaining coke, so I decided to switch it up for something very close. The doctors prescribed it when I was in high school. I couldn’t keep my mind occupied for too long. They said I had a lot of energy, and it would help me focus, which it did, but it also gave me some extra cash selling it to my classmates, and then occasionally, it was a nice high and break from reality.
I could feel the littlest things life handed me poke at my anxiety, so I thought to nip it in the bud and pop two Ritalin before we took the stage.
I usually watched some of Reagan’s show from the side stage, but I had no interest in doing that in Nashville, knowing that Jessie Byrd was on the opposite end of the stage doing the same thing, fixating her ravenous eyes on her. So, after our set, I headed back to the bus where I forced Miles to drink with me. But when he stepped onto the bus, he said, “I made some friends with some hotties. Wanna smoke with them?”
He had me at hotties.
We dug through the llama cookie jar for pre-rolled joints we stocked up on in Denver and met a guy and girl around our age wearing VIP lanyards and yellow shirts that said “Staff.” Both of them were pretty attractive, especially the girl, whose eyes skimmed me from head to toe.
I loved it when cute girls gave me that look. I knew how I was going to get over Jessie Byrd’s sudden appearance.
Naturally, with enough weed, clary sage, and plenty of time to spare, the next thing I knew, I tossed my Reagan Moore World Tour lanyard right outside the back lounge door, the universal signal that Miles, Corbin, and I used as a sign of hookups happening in the back room. We started making out on the couch, and since it had been at least three months since I had a girl’s mouth on me, tingles broke out all over every spot Weed Girl touched with her hands. I was currently going through my longest dry spell since the first time I’d ever had sex—Dana Bohlen—so it didn’t take much to prime me. It was even better because this girl was more dominant than I thought she would be. A girl who knew what she was doing and what she wanted in the bedroom was so sexy to me, so I welcomed any dominant girl in my bed…or tour bus, in this instance.
She clasped her legs around my waist to flip me over on top of her for better access to take off my shirt. Once she tossed it aside, she sucked on my neck, pulling soft moans from me as I relaxed on top of her body. She flung me on my back again, and I loved how physical she was, throwing me around so easily as if my body was a toy. She kissed down the middle of my body and then dragged her tongue across my skin above the waist of my leather pants. She flipped open the button of my pants like a pro, and it was quite the workout getting those skintight pants off me. But Weed Girl was determined to free my legs. Once they’d escaped, her lips attached to the side of my knee, and she slid her tongue up to my inner thigh. I slapped a pillow over my face, biting into the fabric as I muffled the noises I wanted to let out without Tony hearing us because, God, I had a lot of pent-up energy that needed to be released.
“Get rid of that pillow,” she said, gliding her hand on top of my underwear to assess if I was ready or not, and when she made the determination, she slipped my underwear off and then slid her fingers inside me.
I let out a sharp gasp at the sudden insertion, and her fingers undulated faster. The more I clenched the pillow, the harder and faster she moved. She was so assertive and rough with exuberant confidence that it all pushed me closer to the edge. I rocked my body against her as her thumb pressed against me. But with my eyes closed, the scenarios I thought of before I went to sleep played in my head. It wasn’t Weed Girl fingering me, helping me christen the back room of the bus. It was Reagan. Reagan’s fingers danced inside me; her tongue traced delicate circles on my inner thigh; it was her face I sandwiched in between my legs to hold her in place. It was her name I wanted to bellow as I climbed over the edge. Reagan was the one who made me combust after three months of celibacy as my fingers white-knuckled the pillowcase as I came.
But as I let my heart slow back down to a resting rate, I opened my eyes and saw some stranger between my legs, tasting my center as the aftershocks of my orgasm rang through me. None of that was the girl I kept thinking about.
To be honest, I wanted Becky gone. Was that even her name? Who really knew? Call me an awful person, I really didn’t care. As necessary as the orgasm was, it didn’t kick Jessie Byrd back to Australia where she belonged. It didn’t get Reagan out of my head.
I pulled my underwear back up my legs, flipped her over, and just as I was about to kiss her stomach, the girl tugged on my bra strap for me to come up to her mouth. She held the back of my neck to control me, so I followed her demands only for her mouth to feed me a sample of her tongue so I could taste myself on her.
I wasn’t a fan of it. No sir, I was not. I never was.
“I want your mouth,” she whispered into my ear before nibbling on it gently with her teeth. I tried not to seem too freaked out that my own taste was in me. If I couldn’t rub sunscreen on people without getting grossed out, then no, I didn’t want any part of what just sprung into my mouth. Now I wanted nothing more than for Becky to leave. I really had a good reason now.
But then, the bus started moving, rocking back and forth as someone stomped down the hallway, approaching my door. Thank God for that lanyard—
“Oh my God! Wow!” Reagan said. The door opened, and light shone down on me in my bra and underwear on top of a half-naked stranger.
I sprang off Becky, who remained casually on the couch, making no attempt to cover her red lace bra. Both of their eyes widened.
“Oh, shit! Oh my God, I’m sorry,” she said so quickly I barely made out the words until she was already running off the bus.
Becky’s face lit up in the shadows as if this was the greatest surprise that ever happened to her. “Oh my God, that was Reagan Moore? Holy shit!”
I rolled my eyes and recovered my shirt and leather pants. Becky finally got off the couch, and her foot stomped on my pants to prevent them from covering my legs like the modest woman I really wanted to be at that moment.
“Nuh-uh. It’s my turn,” she said in a flirtatious tone.
“No, we’re calling it a night,” I said. While she kept my pants trapped, I put my shirt back on. “Sorry.”
“But we just got started…”
I yanked on my pants to no avail. “And the show is over, and we have to head out. Sorry, Becky.”
Her foot released after I gave one last tug and stumbled backward until the wall caught me.
“Seriously?” she said with a glare that cut through the darkness. “My name is Brittany.”
Oops.
“Cool. Time to go, Brittany.”
She snatched her stuff off the ground and made sure I heard her huffs of displeasure. “Fucking musicians,” she muttered as she stomped down the bus steps and onto the asphalt.
Since those pants were too difficult to put back on, I found my pj shorts, threw them over my legs, and went to Reagan’s bus. Luckily, Beck—I mean Brittany—and her friend were long gone, so I had a clear path to find out what the hell Reagan was doing on my bus. Her bus was our home base. She’d never even been in mine. Not once. So, I needed to find out why the hell she stormed onto my bus without warning.
Her bus driver, Martin, let me in after I knocked. When I slid open the door to her room, I found her on her bed in her pj’s, knees tucked into her chest, and her forehead resting against her knees.
“Hey, you all right?”
She lifted her head. Her eyes hung in tiredness, and her face was cleared from that usual jovial smirk she always had on. It was the first time on tour she stared at me with the most maudlin expression. It killed me. Whatever reason forced her to come on my bus was bad enough to erode her beautiful smile.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt—”
“Eh, it’s fine. She needed to go anyways. Are you okay? You look upset.”
She studied me for a second as I took a seat by her feet. “I’m fine.”
“Really? Because you’ve never been on my bus before.”
She shook her head slowly, and I sensed her hesitation in telling me whatever was bugging her. Maybe Jessie? I wiggled her knee in an attempt to shake a little smile out of her, but I got nothing. Not even eye contact.
Something was seriously wrong with her. The most serious I’d ever seen her was that one moment while we were building our sandcastle on South Beach when she told me how she wished she was normal just for one day.
“Hey, talk to me,” I said. “Is it about Jessie?”
She drew out a long sigh that sounded as if it came from the pit of her stomach. “She showed up to my show unannounced,” she said, her tone annoyed, angry, and hurt. “Like, she doesn’t get to do that when she broke up with me for no reason. What in her right mind made her think she could just stroll into my green room so she could ask me out for drinks after the show to ‘clear the air.’ It’s a game. She’s playing a game. Clearly, she had nothing else to do tonight and wanted to watch me squirm.”
“Well…did you squirm?”
She shot me a glare. “I’m not in the mood for jokes.”
Damn, her tone was sharp. She really wasn’t in the mood for the usual sass we gave each other. I could tell she needed something to loosen up her mood. So, the speakeasy light bulb went off in my head.
“Wanna drink? I could grab some wine from my bus.”
“I don’t know what I want. She hurt me so much, and she’s acting so casual about it. Still. Just like when she broke up with me.”
“Well, she’s an idiot for breaking up with you,” I said. My sincere comment got her to look at me with wondering eyes. “Really.”
As much as it pissed me off that Jessie Byrd stole all her thoughts and I didn’t, I knew she needed someone to be there for her. So, I would be that person. Us girls had to stick by each other, no matter how much our stomachs twisted from hearing the juicy details of the lives we weren’t a part of.
“I have a bottle of Chardonnay in my fridge,” I said. “How about I go get it, and we can have a glass before we roll out of here, all right?”
As I got off her bed and headed out of the room, I heard a soft, “Blair,” coming from her.
I turned around, and Reagan’s eyes rounded at me like a whimpering puppy. It was the same eye look she gave me in her green room with Jessie Byrd behind me, begging me to stay. A sad Reagan Moore was really contagious, and if she wasn’t her bubbly, annoying, yet extremely adorable self, then life was a real bummer.
“What?”
“Can you, um, would it be weird if I asked you, uh, to spend the night? Here? I really don’t want to be alone tonight.”
Was I dreaming, or did she really ask me to spend the night? Even after having a long moment of deep eye staring with Jessie that I hoped to God was not deep eye fucking. I’d take it. She didn’t have to ask me twice.
“Will that make you feel better?” I asked, and she replied with a nod. My stomach did a celebratory backflip at the knowledge that my presence was the very thing to make her feel better. “Then let me grab that bottle of wine and my toothbrush. I can do an amazing job of taking your mind off her.” I stopped when I noticed her raising a suspicious eyebrow. “I mean—wow—that really didn’t sound right at all. I just meant that I’ve got wine and ears, and that makes a great combination of forgetting ex-girlfriends.”
Then her mouth curled upward, and my rambling that wasn’t supposed to be cute or funny instantly died at the sight of the smallest trace of a smirk. “I know what you meant, Blair. Do what you need to do. I’ll be here, processing the night.”
Out of the bus I ran. A pretty girl wanted me to sleep in her bed and keep her company. I would most certainly do that at record speed.
“I’m spending the night with Reagan,” I said as I took a quick hit from a joint.
“What?” Miles shouted as he threw his body forward on his bed, banging his head against the top of the bunk. He whelped and rubbed the pain out.
“Don’t get a concussion,” I said and inhaled another puff.
“You’re spending the night with Reagan? What does that mean? Are you guys gonna hook up?”
“I wish.” I snatched the toothbrush out of my bathroom bag to find him lying back down on his pillow, still rubbing out the pain on his forehead.
“Wait a minute…so you do want to hook up with her?”
“Dude, have you seen her? She’s hot.”
“Yeah, but…” He made a face, the kind of face that said I should know exactly what he was implying without saying the words.
“But what?”
“But should you? What happens if it gets weird on tour?”
“Blair,” Corbin said and poked his head out of his bunk, pulling out an earbud from his ear. “Are you seriously going to hook up with Reagan?”
“There’s not gonna be any hooking up tonight. Calm down, dudes. She’s upset that her ex-girlfriend came to her show tonight, and she’s distraught.”
“Because I don’t know if hooking up with her is wise—”
Miles’s eyebrows scrunched. “Her ex-girlfriend? She has an ex-girlfr—” Then it finally hit him, and his eyes lit up the same way they did when I told him I was gay all the way back in high school. It was exciting to know when someone was a part of our cool kids club. “Oh my God! Did she date Jessie Byrd?” He sprang back up and bashed his head yet again. “Jesus! Fu—”
“Gotta go. Snore as loud as you want tonight.”
By the time I got back to Reagan, she was curled up in the fetal position on the left side of her bed, staring out the tinted window. I had a feeling she’d decided no on the wine, which was fine with me. The Ritalin I popped a few hours before was still working, which benefited her because I was really all ears, ready to focus on whatever she had to tell me. I poured myself a large glass of Chardonnay, took a few gulps, topped off the glass, and then sat on the empty space that dominated her king bed, not going under the comforter because I wasn’t sure where the lines were drawn. We both liked women, we both found each other attractive, but allowing myself to fully sink into her bed could be a little too presumptuous. Maybe she’d think that I was trying to hit on her or something.
I didn’t need covers anyway.
“You can have some covers,” she said with a laugh. “I don’t bite.”
And then I felt stupid.
I crawled underneath, and as I positioned myself, my right leg brushed up against Reagan’s smooth, warm leg in her pj shorts; the touch of her ignited those butterflies inside me that didn’t come out once when kissing Becky—fuck, I mean Briana? It was a mere accident, and as much as I loved that my leg brushed against hers, I was the opener on her tour. It could be complicated. She was confused about her ex-girlfriend. My sole purpose for being here was to be a friend to her and listen to whatever she needed to say to feel just a little bit better. So, I retrieved my leg. Now wasn’t the time to acknowledge that buzzing between us—that always seemed to be between us. Now was the time to listen.
“You smell like weed,” she said and flung her body in a one eighty turn so she could face me instead of the window.
“Shit, I’m sorry. Do you want me to go grab some gum?”
She gave me a thin smile and shook her head. “No, you’re fine. I’m just going to use it against you.”
“Oh, great.” I let out a sigh. “It helps me relax. Especially now. My mind seems to wander a lot. So, it’s weed that helps me forget.”
“Your mind wandering because of your grandpa?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Being in Nashville is bringing up all these old memories of us around the city. That and the fact that my mom sold the house in Irvine and downsized, so I feel like I lost even more of him, you know?”
She placed her hand on my arm. I sucked in my lips to hold in that relieved sigh that was desperate to leak out of me. And then when her thumb started rubbing my arm, I almost disappeared into her bed.
Just listening was going to be pure torture.
“I’m sorry, Blair.”
“My dad abandoned my mom when she was pregnant with me, so my grandpa was much more than a grandpa. He was my dad and my best friend. It’s just…well…the past two days have been kind of hard, hence the smell of weed.”
“This is the first time you’ve said anything about him.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know what to say. He’s dead and never coming back.”
“I don’t know. I’ve never lost someone close to me, but I’m here if you want to talk about it. Don’t feel like you only need weed and alcohol to make you feel better.”
“I know, and thank you, but the weed helps me sleep and calm the fuck down in general. My mind gets crazy sometimes with thoughts and anxiety.”
She retrieved her hand and her rubbing thumb, but as that sigh seeped out of me, I could already feel an immense absence where her hand used to be.
“I mean, I get it,” Reagan continued. “Maybe not on a generalized anxiety level, but my job and trying to keep my life as normal and private as I can constantly takes up a lot of head space.”
“That must be really hard. Having such a successful job and loving it but hating that you can’t just enjoy going to the beach.”
“It is. Or if I wanna date someone, I freak out that it’s all going to go down like it did with Zeke. It was awful, Blair. Being stalked by adults, having to run away from them on the street; they have no respect for personal space, and they would literally get up in my face with a camera. Sometimes, I was afraid of getting hurt. God, I was so miserable. In a way, I was glad that relationship ended.”
“And that’s why you hid Jessie Byrd from everyone?”
“One hundred percent. The media would flip their shit if they knew I was dating a girl because that’s what they do, so the amount of stalking would skyrocket, you know? I don’t care if people know I’m dating a woman. It’s not the nineties anymore, but I do care that I’d lose even more privacy.”
Martin started up the bus, and the floodlights in the hallway flicked off. The only light illuminating the back of the bus was the small table lamp on the nightstand right next to Reagan. As the bus pulled out of the venue, beginning its journey to Atlanta, her eyebrows furrowed as if she was trying to solve the puzzle that was me.
“So…you hook up with fans a lot?” she asked with bold confidence.
Well, I knew that question was coming.
I rolled my eyes thinking about Bethany. Her assertiveness wasn’t sexy anymore. It was borderline creepy. “Not usually,” I said. “But every girl has needs.”
She laughed. “With fans?”
“Don’t slut shame me.”
“I’m not! I’m genuinely curious. We just talked about my dating life, and I never got the chance to put you in the hot seat. We have all the time now since I’m holding you hostage tonight. So, spill.”
“What do you want to know? I’m an open book.”
“Oh, well, this is gonna get good.” She lifted up to get comfortable for all the questions I could tell she crafted on the spot, tapping her fingers against her chin. It was pretty adorable, actually. I shouldn’t have smiled right before a hot seat questionnaire, but I did. “How many fans have you slept with?”
I sucked in my lips so my smile didn’t show. I loved how much she wanted to know about my sex life because the more she wanted to know, the more I knew she was interested in me, and the more my body floated up to the clouds with swelling happiness.
My goal was to be as vague as possible to make her squirm.
“Wow. A super personal question off the get-go. A few.”
Her face scrunched in a judgmental frown. “A few? Really?”
“The more you judge, the less I say.”
“Okay, okay. How many is a few?”
“Under ten. Next question.”
“Under ten! God—”
“Hey! No judging. This is a judge-free zone.”
She threw her hands up to surrender. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Not judging, just impressed…and slightly jealous?”
I laughed. “I’m well aware of the jealousy. Next question?”
A blush hit her cheeks, and she paused for a moment. “How long were you with your ex-girlfriend?”
“A year.”
“Why did you guys break up?”
“Because I wasn’t really into it. My life is kind of a mess right now, and I was going on this tour. It wouldn’t have worked out.”
“Okay, Jessie,” she said with an eye roll.
I opened my mouth to defend myself and then closed it. She was completely right. Jessie Byrd needed to focus on herself, and so did I. There was nothing wrong with that, and I think Reagan would have agreed if it wasn’t for the freshness of the wound Jessie gave her.
“And how was the girl tonight?”
I shrugged. “Okay. I got what I wanted. But you barged in just in time so I didn’t have to reciprocate.”
“You didn’t reciprocate? God, you’re an awful lay!”
I playfully hit her arm. “Whoa, I’m not an awful lay. If you’re gonna hook up with a touring musician, you gotta know there’s an itinerary they follow, so there might not be enough time.”
She let out a bellowing laugh. “You’re so full of shit. You just didn’t want to reciprocate.”
I thought about it for a hot second. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“Wow, never thought Blair Bennett was a pillow princess.”
“Whoa, not usually, okay? Tonight was different. I’m definitely not a pillow princess if I’m actually into the girl. This girl was someone to pass the time with.”
“You’re an asshole,” she said but still had a smile on her. She then lay back against the pillows. “Well, at least someone’s getting laid on this tour. I’ve already accepted the fact that I’m gonna die alone.”
“Have you looked in the mirror lately? I find it really hard to believe that you’ll die alone. You’re gorgeous as hell.”
Her eyes drifted to the liberal space between us. Through the dim lighting, I noticed her cheeks reaching peak pink levels, and my stomach did another twist. I guess even after running into her ex-girlfriend, I could still make her smile and blush, and I hoped that meant something.
“Oh, thanks,” she said and bashfully tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Still doesn’t shake the feeling off me though. Like, running into Jessie tonight—or I should say, Jessie hunting me down in my dressing room. That’s doing a really good number on me, making me think I’m incapable of finding someone good for me.”
“You looked at her like she was everything.”
“She’s not everything,” she said defensively. “I wasn’t even in love with her. I guess I was really infatuated. I think it was mostly physical.”
“She is pretty hot.”
“Yeah, I’m well aware. So, if I looked at her like she was everything, then it must be because I’m probably sexually frustrated, and I need to get laid.” That warmth on my cheeks radiated down my whole body. For a split second, that cliffhanger thickened in the room. And then when the moment fizzled, she looked at me with curious eyes. “So, you really think I’m gorgeous as hell?”
Her tone subtly begged for a compliment that was so easy to give, and she seemed genuinely shocked that I’d said that to her. I was genuinely shocked that she was really oblivious to it all. How did she have no idea how beautiful she was? Anytime that girl walked into the room, my body was overcome with so much warmth, I was shocked no one noticed.
“I told you in Miami that you have a really nice smile,” I said. “Was that not a hint?”
“Sorry, I’m having a moment right now. Seeing Jessie is making me all sorts of insecure and reminding me how long it’s been since I’ve been with someone, and it’s driving me crazy.”
“You haven’t been with anyone since her?”
“Hey!” She hit me in the arm again. “I thought this was a judge-free zone?”
“I’m not judging! I just find that incredibly surprising.”
“Do you understand why I’m frustrated now? I don’t even want to hear you complain about having needs. I completely know and understand more than you right now.”
Her eyes drifted off mine and found a random spot on the wall to look at. That was when a light bulb clicked on in my head, and as much as the rational part of me desperately reached to flip it right back off, the other part of me currently controlled by the weed, Chardonnay, and residual Ritalin wanted to leave it on. Let it grow brighter. It was risky, but with great risks came great rewards.
Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t say it…
“Well, you know, since we both have needs, maybe we should just use each other.”
Oh my God, no! You said it. How do we escape this moving bus?
Her eyebrows climbed up her forehead at the same time her mouth parted to the smallest degree. “Are you serious?”
“Uh…” Yup, tongue-tied now. “I mean—it was a joke?”
“Was it, though?” Her tone was skeptical. Even she didn’t buy it. I didn’t either.
“I didn’t mean for it to come off as creepy as it did…”
The more I babbled, the more her smile grew through her blush. The more she smiled and blushed, the more my face and body felt as if it’d been hit with menopause.
“Blair Bennett, are you coming on to me?” she asked, giggling.
“I, uh, were you coming on to me in the pool? When you said I looked good in a bikini?”
“Oh God, here we go,” she said and twisted herself to her other side to give me her back. With a turn of the knob, the nightstand light flickered off, and the two of us were draped in darkness with the occasional highway light sweeping by us in a blink of an eye. “Narcissism is contagious in Hollywood. I would stop going there.”
“It’s a legit question,” I said.
She flipped back over to face me, now mere inches away. “So was mine!”
“You answer first. You hit on me first.”
“How did I hit on you first? You allowed me to put sunscreen on your back.”
“I didn’t want second degree sunburn again.” I held back a grin, knowing that her diversion to my question gave me all the answers. The girl knew how to work the media and their questions. If she didn’t want to answer the question, she diverted. And boy did she divert. “Just answer the question,” I continued. “Were you coming on to me in the pool?”
“You literally just offered to give me an orgasm right now,” Reagan said. “You know what, you don’t need to answer my question. I already know the answer. You were coming on to me, and you’re only acting like this because you’re not sure how I took it. So, to torture you, I’m going to leave you with this: good night, Blair.” She tossed back over on her other side.
“What? No! You can’t do that!”
“Oh, I think I can.”
Silence. Nothing but silence and the faint humming of the bus engine. I let out a frustrated moan, knowing I wasn’t going to get my answer. Her PR team did a great job sealing up all her secrets and making sure that frontal lobe of hers never cracked under pressure. Sexual pressure included.
“Ugh, I shouldn’t have agreed to this,” I said. “I’m not gonna be able to fall asleep now.”
“You shouldn’t be going to sleep frustrated…or Random Girl isn’t doing you right.”
Everything below my underwear flared up with so much desire just thinking of Reagan doing me right.
I inhaled way too much clary sage that night in Nashville, Tennessee.