Ever since I made that horrible proposition that we sleep together, whatever weird tension that glued us together became even stronger. But weird in an exciting way, as if we had this secret we kept from my band, the crew, the fans, the press, and the whole world. And I loved that added thrill.
Since Nashville, Reagan asked me if I wanted to spend the night with her again under the guise of avoiding Miles’s snores, but I had a feeling it was more than that. If she felt anything like I did from our first sleepover, she was searching for the rush of exciting uncertainty of where the night would lead with the vulnerable backdrop of a darkened room and warm bed. Nashville to Atlanta to Birmingham, I found myself lying next to Reagan, discussing everything and anything. She told me about her life growing up in Nashville, the youngest with two older brothers, and how her oldest brother, Colton, who was five years older than her and was expecting his first child with his wife in November, and she went on about how she was going to spoil her niece and couldn’t wait to spend Thanksgiving with her family. She asked about my family, and I went on about my grandparents. How Grandma was the disciplinarian and the woman who got me into baking, who would always bake her amazing cookies for my friends who came over or for school bake sales. I told her how Gramps gave me different instruments to learn to distract me from getting so bored that I found trouble—like sneaking off with Dana Bohlen or pool hopping in all the ritzy neighborhoods with Miles and my other high school friends.
The morning we arrived in Richmond, I woke up to my arm slung over Reagan’s body, her back snuggled into my front, and my face buried in her shoulder blades. It took me by surprise, and as much as I wanted to push myself to the farthest corner of her bed, the more I adjusted to the knowledge that we were in a perfect spooning position, the more comfortable it felt. It pulled a smile from me as I caught the smell of her shampoo emanating off her. The sounds of her deep breaths I’d grown used to over the course of a week told me she was still asleep, but that was okay because it bought me more time to enjoy her in my arms. I held her for a few more moments, holding in my pee so it could last a little longer. By the time I returned from the bathroom, she was already stretching and smiling at me.
But that spooning session I’d keep to myself.
Since the start of the tour, Reagan and I had a collection of shared moments of secret flirting and the undeclared war we were playing with each other to see who would break in making the first move. Every night I crawled into her bed, I hoped that it would be the night we would have our first kiss. There were plenty of silent opportunities. When our eyes securely locked in between conversations, moments of playful arm slapping, subtle comments about attractiveness, and accidental cuddles. I wasn’t sure how long it would go on, but it was pushing me over the edge. My lips were screaming for the touch of hers. My body was screaming for the touch of hers.
Actually, every fiber of my being was screaming for her.
During our sound check in Richmond, Reagan was back at the soundboard with the sound technician, curiously watching him adjust the microphone and instrument levels as she sipped on her green tea through a straw. Miles and I already tested our opening song and planned on playing around with two more before our sound check was completed.
“Let’s warm up with a cover,” I told Miles.
Everything was already sounding good. The mics were at the perfect level. The instruments. The bass. Why not have fun?
“What are you thinking?” Miles asked behind his drum kit.
“‘Jessie’s Girl.’”
He frowned. “Really? Rick Springfield?”
Without letting him voice his opinion, I went ahead without him, strumming the opening chords on the Fender and making a face at him. He flipped me off, our usual banter. When I turned around to face the soundboard, I found Reagan’s stare on me as the muted chords spilled out of the speakers and filled the empty arena. When I sang the first lyric, I could feel her zero in on me quizzically. And when the bridge came around, she lowered her straw, crossed her arms, and squared her body to us with a wide smirk partially hidden by the bite in her lip.
It was a perfect song to warm up to. It was the perfect song to get Reagan’s damn attention.
But of course, we didn’t talk about it after the show when we ended the night drinking wine in her bed. I think she did that on purpose for more torture.
The next night in DC, a local restaurant catered food for us before the show, and all fifty-something of us loaded up our plates. Reagan waited her turn for the tongs as I plucked the right sized lemon-pepper marinated chicken from the tin catering pan.
“That’s a nice breast you have,” she said with a slight hesitation before she gestured to the chicken clasped in the tongs in front of my chest. Her tone sounded anything but innocent. Her single cocked eyebrow and the pull of one side of her lips insinuated that she knew exactly what she was trying to imply. The worst part was that she caught me so off guard with that comment I didn’t have anything to dish back to her. My throat went dry, my tongue was tied, and my cheeks felt so red; I handed her the tongs and scampered away to Miles so I didn’t have to look like an idiot that much longer.
During our performance, I told Miles I wanted to switch up our set list and do a cover. It was nice to change things up a bit, right? Since I spent a lot of time inhaling the faint clary sage permanently stuck to Reagan’s skin and hair, I told Miles I was going to play “Crash Into Me” by Dave Matthews while he stayed quiet on the drums. The song was about Dave Matthews’s wet dreams over a girl, which sounded a lot creepier than the romantic, sexy sound of the song. So, while the lights dimmed on Miles, I started the song off by adding a few layers to my looping machine to add some flair. The first loop was a lick on the Fender, and the second loop was a few slides of quarter notes. Then I quickly threw on the acoustic baby Martin and played the guitar part we all knew and loved against the loops. I could see Reagan in her concert attire, standing in the shadows of the side stage with her eyes glued on me as I sang to the twenty thousand people of DC. But really, I sang to her…even though I pretended not to notice her watching me.
In response to my impulsive cover, Reagan stopped halfway through her set list and checked in with the crowd, asking them how they were doing, and they responded in a roaring cheer.
“You guys don’t mind if I sing a cover, do you?” Their cheering told her they didn’t mind one bit.
A cover wasn’t part of her set list at all. She’d never played any cover since the beginning of the tour, and she didn’t even spice up her sound check to play a cover with her band. It was one thing for a two-person band to switch up their set list. It was an ordeal for Reagan to switch it up and tell her band, her dancers, and her crew that she would add a song they never prepared for.
She broke out into “Cool for the Summer” by Demi Lovato, a song that was sexual and all about girls hooking up with girls. But she sang and performed it with her usual innocent disposition. I never thought a pop song would turn me on so much. She made it a point to walk over to the side of the stage where I stood unnoticed as she sang. Hearing her sing those words made me so dizzy. The crowd on the floor pushed closer to her, tossing their hands up, begging for just a finger graze, and after she satisfied a few begging hands, she turned to the side stage, looked straight at me, and winked.
That pretty much did it for me.
* * *
After begging me to play the song all freakin’ day, I caved and granted Miles’s wish for the second cover song for our next show in Philly. As much I wanted to play “Electric Feel” by MGMT to passive-aggressively sing to Reagan, Miles vetoed because he said only seven people in the crowd would know that song, and we had to cover a song everyone could sing along to. So, on stage in front of our Philly audience, I first looped the jingle of a tambourine, followed by a few bluesy chords layered with some subtle synthesizers on the keyboard, and then the third loop was the famous bass line at the beginning of the song. On the acoustic Martin guitar, I played live a sultry fingerpicking melody with some Latin spice reverberating in each note. And that was how we created “You Drive Me Crazy” by Britney Spears with a Midnight Konfusion flair. From the sound of the crowd cheering and singing every word back to us, I could tell they enjoyed it too. Reagan followed our cover with “Dress” by Taylor Swift, wearing the sparkly purple dress she always wore during that portion of her set. I never heard the song before, but apparently it matched us to a T. Our secrets, how no one suspected anything going on between us or that I shared her bed. Since Miles was one of the biggest Swifties out there, he told me that not only was it a Taylor Swift song, but it was her most risqué song. According to him, when Taylor Swift first shared the song with her most fervent fans at her Rhode Island house, with her parents also present, her dad walked out because it was too much for his ears. I had no idea that Taylor Swift had the ability to do that to her poor father.
Of course, this new juicy knowledge drew my attention back to Reagan as she sang the chorus. She didn’t want us to be best friends; she dreamed about me ripping that dress off her. My mouth dropped to the floor. I totally got why Taylor Swift’s dad had to walk out now.
That purple sequin dress took on a whole new meaning that I would never be able to shake off.
I’d been buzzing from the past two days of intense flirting with Reagan. We had a day off in Manhattan before Reagan’s sold-out Madison Square Garden show. Since a bunch of lyrics clogged my head, I dedicated some of that time freeing those lyrics into my journal. I cracked open beer after beer to fuel my thoughts, filled the fresh pages of my journal with all the lyrics until I hit a good stopping point and my right wrist cramped up. That was when you knew you had an amazing writing session. Wrist cramps were good cramps.
The night before the big show, after a whole day of writing and resting, as I brushed my teeth before I surrendered to bed and sleep, my phone buzzed with a text from Reagan. The time flashed 12:18 on my screen with Reagan’s name right below it.
Her text read: Room 2213. I have 180-degree view of Central Park and the whole city. Plus, a Jacuzzi tub. Just saying.
I beamed as foamy blue toothpaste dripped down the sides of my mouth. As I clenched my toothbrush between my teeth, I typed back, Is this a formal invite?
My invite from Nashville never expires unless verbally addressed, which it hasn’t.
I responded to her eagerly. Coming.
And she quickly responded. I wish.
My toothbrush fell from my mouth and into the sink. Toothpaste splattered on the counter and my chin as I reread that message. Yup, she really said that. This was happening.
I sprinted to room 2213 without even cleaning up the mess.
On my walk to her suite, I prepped myself for what this could turn into because I knew exactly what this was. I was always so terrified of making the first move that I went through my whole twenty-four years of existence having never made it. Hence, why Reagan and I were in this game. All my past girlfriends? They kissed me first. It was great because I didn’t have to put too much thought into it. But Reagan was the first girl who stole all my thoughts and injected them with so much analyzation. I had a feeling that if I didn’t initiate a kiss, we’d be playing this game of cuddles, talking about orgasms, and singing songs about sex on repeat for the whole tour. I had to do something because I wasn’t sure how much longer I could let my brain keep wondering how her lips tasted.
When I stood outside her door, my pulse thumped against my skin, and I hoped that maybe we wouldn’t kiss tonight so she couldn’t feel the movements if she sucked on my neck. I was so nervous. The only time I remembered being this nervous with sweaty palms and my pulse twitching this rapidly was when I was about to lose my virginity to Dana Bohlen, and I hoped that my inexperience wouldn’t scare her away from me or sleeping with girls.
With a deep breath, I knocked on the door, and a few moments ticked by as I waited. I was hoping she would answer faster, then part of me wondered if she purposely kept me waiting to keep me on my toes. She always did a good job of that. And it worked because the longer it took her to answer the door, the more my pulse panicked under my skin.
She opened the door wrapped up in a white robe, her damp hair up in a messy bun, and her collarbone teasing me from underneath the cotton fabric. She let me inside her lavish suite which seemed even bigger than my apartment in West Hollywood. And sure enough, two floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked all of New York with Central Park right below us, the dark blob encompassed by glimmering building lights.
“Wow,” I said, taking in her suite, then taking in her in that robe. “And wow. You’re very forward.” I gestured to her robe.
“I was just about to change into pj’s.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“No?”
I shook my head. “You can sleep in your robe.”
“I could. It’s really soft. Feel it.”
She tugged on the front of the robe just a bit for my grip to catch. Her tug teased me, showing more of her collarbone and the swell of her breasts. She wasn’t doing this to show off her robe. She was doing this to tease me. This was the lasso to pull me into her lips.
“It’s really soft,” I said through my arid throat, and I couldn’t keep my eyes from trailing the soft skin down to her breasts. “Feels comfortable enough to sleep in.”
“Well, if you really want me to sleep in this, as my guest, I’ll do what you want.”
“Then as your guest, I get dibs on little spoon.”
Her eyelids relaxed into a side eye, and she blew out a long sigh as if granting my wish took up all the energy inside her. “Okay, but it’s only because you have a nice face and nice sleeve.”
I flashed her a smile before I jumped on the left side of the bed, burying myself underneath the white duvet and curling my body into a perfect little spoon position. When Reagan joined me, the leftover heat from her warm shower wrapped me up with her embrace, and the smell of the hotel shampoo and body wash permeated the air around us. Her body fit snug around mine, and my stomach fluttered when her arm hung in front of me, then wandered around until she found my hand to hold.
When our fingers interlocked for the first time, I could feel my insides ready to burst. I should have just kissed her. I mean, she laid out all the clues face-up as if showing off her royal flush, knowing she was going to win the whole pot. She was in her robe with nothing underneath, and I was one knot away from seeing what I could only imagine was the most beautiful naked body—toned from yoga and dancing, with pores cleared from clary sage. All I had to do was roll over and kiss her, but knowing that all the pressure and control was on me, I froze. Was it because I’d never made a move before? Was that the real reason why girls kissed me first? Because this whole time, I’d thought it was because I didn’t have to try, and instead, I really was just too much of a coward to do it myself, and those girls knew it, so they had no other choice but to kiss me?
She clasped my fingers tighter as her forehead pressed between my shoulder blades. I knew if I didn’t take advantage of this moment, I’d be walking into Madison Square Garden the next day—the most famous arena in the world—beating myself up because I didn’t kiss her when the perfect opportunity presented itself. My mind would be more wrapped up in blaming myself for missing an opportunity to kiss her than taking in every moment I should while performing in front of a sold-out Garden. I’d rather have my mind clouded with the wonderful feeling of her lips dancing on mine than the ghost of them.
I flipped over to face Reagan. Through the darkness, I watched as her eyes narrowed on me as if I was the only thing in the room. I looked down at her full, kissable lips, then at her collarbone and where the robe met in front of her chest.
Don’t overthink. Just do what you want to do.
I grabbed the robe, feeling the soft Egyptian cotton in between my fingers as they slowly trailed down the hem toward her breasts, barely grazing her skin. “I liked your song choice last night,” I said softly.
“Oh, you did?”
Instead of full confidence embodying her tone, it sounded like it wilted down to half. Darkness blanketed us, a romantic view of the city adding speckles of light outside. Our faces were mere inches from each other, and the more I felt the robe in between my fingers, the more the silence pushed itself into bed with us.
“Yeah. I liked both song choices, actually,” I admitted. “They were pretty direct.”
“I feel like I have to be direct with you.”
“You do? Why?”
“Because I’m lying here in my bed, completely naked underneath this robe, and you still haven’t kissed me yet.”
My heart actually skipped a beat. It stuttered multiple times in a row, and in that moment of stuttering, my brain and stomach did a synchronized flip like Olympian divers off the ten-meter platform.
I finally reached the knot in front of her stomach and began untying it. Slowly. Because she had no problem going slow with me. “Because you never answered my question.”
“What question?”
“The one I asked you after the Nashville show.”
The knot fell open, and I glided my hands onto her warm, naked skin. At the touch, I heard her suck in a gasp. I felt the little abs as I slid my hand down her flat stomach to her upper thigh. Just doing that, the air around me heated considerably.
“And I responded with two weeks’ worth of cuddling,” she said, and I could feel her tense up as if holding in any other gasps that needed to come out. “Thinking that maybe one of those nights, you would actually do something and make a move.”
I stopped exploring her skin. “Seriously? It was all on me?”
“Hey, you were the one who proposed it.” The tension evaporated from her tone, and full confidence took over. “Like, I know for a fact now that I’m going to die alone because I’ve, like, aged twenty years just waiting for you to make a—”
I jumped on top of her pelvis, pinning her to the bed. She finally stopped yapping and looked up at me with shock. Thank God. Reagan Moore stopped running her mouth. To reward her, I let the robe fall to her sides, finally revealing her beautiful body, and I reminded myself that I needed to keep breathing if I wanted to enjoy more of her. But it was so hard to when so many things were happening in my stomach, and I couldn’t focus on what to take in first. Her perfect breasts that I knew would fit right into my palms. Her perfect stomach. Her perfect collarbone. God, how was someone this beautiful? I had no idea.
I moved my hands up her stomach to her chest so I could skim my thumbs over her nipples, and her breasts did fit perfectly in my palms. Gently. Slowly. Her nipples hardened against my fingers as I traced the tops of them. I swear, all Reagan had to do was lie there naked, her stare tracking mine wandering over every inch of her body. She elicited a rush that made me shiver, and she hadn’t even undressed me yet.
She reached for my T-shirt and slid her hand underneath so her fingertips ran along the waist of my shorts. Closing my eyes, I pulled in my lips and released a pleasured sigh, trying to revel in the wonderful and thrilling anticipation of the first kiss. She pulled my shirt toward her, and I lowered myself on top of her, studying the way her eyes begged me to stop teasing and to finally kiss her. But I wasn’t done taking her in yet. Someone as beautiful as her needed to be appreciated.
Patience.
I could feel her nipples pressing into my shirt, and God, did I want my shirt off so I could fully enjoy the touch of them against my own. My cheek moved hers to the side so I could finally kiss the soft skin of her neck. Inhaling the clean smell of the body wash, I worked my way up her neck, nibbling, running my tongue in circles, and then moved to the other side of her neck to do the same thing. Her hands clasped on to my back, and with one suck at the right spot, a muted moan stopped at her tightly closed lips as her fingers dug into my back.
My heart raced as I kissed underneath her ear and then her cheek and then finally her lips. Those lips I spent weeks fantasizing about every night finally kissed me back. My whole body ignited like I’d taken a drug I’d never tried before, a drug forever superior to all the ones I had. The kiss quickly turned passionate, picking up aggression and speed, proof of how ravenous we were for each other. Feeling her tongue against mine sent a sharp warmth to my center. She breathed a faint moan into me, and hearing the sound of pleasure coming from her forced me to position my leg in between hers to elicit more. That was when she aggressively pulled my shirt over my head as if it was the most insulting thing she’d ever touched. Finally, I was topless, and wasting no time to close the gap so my nipples could meet hers, and God, her warm skin touching mine was even better than I imagined. I found her lips again and sucked in her bottom lip before caressing my tongue with hers, feeling how much we needed each other with every movement. Her fingers slipped into my hair and firmly held a bunch of it, demanding me to continue kissing her and welcoming the subtle, undulating rocking my waist made against hers. Her tongue trailed across my bottom lip before sucking it into the grip of her teeth, and the feeling her kiss injected into me was something so wonderful and warm and rousing, I had no idea what to do with all the feelings raging inside me other than to pull my mouth away from hers so I could kiss all the other parts of her body. Because it needed to be done.
My chest burned with all these different desires: all the ways my hands wanted to touch her, all the ways my lips wanted to kiss her, and all the ways I wanted to move my body against hers. As I thought about the infinite possibilities, I went straight for the source that spiraled a jolt of electricity through my whole body, her breasts. I took them into my mouth and lightly sucked on each until my suction pulled a moan out of her, and then I moved to the next one to do the same thing. With each movement my mouth made, her head tilted back a little more into her pillow, and she let out sighs while her nails raked along my back.
“Blair,” she muttered through a moan. I glanced up at her, and she clasped desperately on to my face. “I really need you. Right now.”
“Patience. I’m busy.”
“I’ve been patient. For seven months. And then some.”
“You need to be properly warmed up.” I lifted upward to kiss her collarbone while I played with her hard, protruding nipple. “I gotta fuck you right.”
She let out an erotic whine and then tossed her arm over her eyes in defeat. I kissed her body from her neck to the valley of her breasts down to her flat stomach, and then slid my tongue across her waistline. At that, the fist she had in my hair became tighter, and her whole body relaxed.
I drew circles around the fabric of her underwear, teasing down to her center where I realized she wasn’t lying when she said she didn’t need to be warmed up anymore. Feeling the wetness I was shocked I could give her, I pressed my thumb into her, and her lips parted to expel a groan. Her fingers tightened in my hair as I bit the top of her underwear and used my hands to assist my teeth in taking them off. After I tossed her pink panties aside, I spread her legs open, positioned my body comfortably on the bed, and started kissing the inside of her thighs as each kiss led the way closer to her.
And when I put my mouth on her, she let out a loud gasp, pulling my hair in the sexiest way, and her back arched off the mattress.
I swirled my tongue in circles on her, alternating between motions and pressures, but each stroke generating a different sound and movement from her body. When I knew she was ready, I glided my fingers into her and felt myself become wetter the more I felt her. She secured my head right where she wanted me, and I relished each aroused cry and undulating movement against my mouth. The whole time I went down on her, I could hear my heartbeat drumming in my ears. My throat was so dry, the exact opposite of what was happening underneath my underwear. I felt insecure, even though the way her hips moved against my mouth, how her hand applied more pressure on the back of my head, how she breathed and vocalized her pleasure should have been an indication that there wasn’t a reason for me to be nervous or insecure.
“Oh God,” Reagan belted out, and that plucked me away from worrying and back to the present.
Her breaths got shorter. The movements of her hips became faster, circling around my mouth, searching for what she’d been needing for seven months. She clung to the headboard, and the sounds I was able to pull from her went straight to my center; it was almost as if she was pleasuring me through her noises. And just as I moved my fingers faster and sucked on her, she let out the release she’d been waiting for, the release I’d been waiting for. The sounds she made caused me to melt into her bed, and a part of me was disappointed that it was over because I wanted to listen to her longer. She shivered as she rode out the rest of her orgasm, until her body collapsed. I waited for her to gather her thoughts, kissing the inside of her thighs while I enjoyed the lingering, pulsating movements around my fingers still inside her.
“Oh my God,” she said breathlessly while resting her hands on her forehead. “God. Seven months I’ve bottled that up.”
“Hopefully, it was worth the wait?”
“It was…it…yes…worth the wait.”
“Let me do you again.”
Her head tilted downward, and I had to admit that her gaze looking past her breasts and in between her legs was the best viewpoint a lesbian could ask for. I lightly kissed the top of her, wanting so badly to replay the last five minutes all over again.
“But I want to do you—” she said.
“No, I need to get you off about two more times. And prove to you I’m not a pillow princess.”
She tossed her head back, acquiescing. “God, I’m gonna die tonight.”
Her hand slipped through my hair and gently directed my head back down to her to shut me up. I loved how she still took the reins and told me what to do in the gentlest and not so gentle way. I could have melted and died at that point. She could direct my head wherever, and I would have equally been aroused.
I gave her two more, and by the end of it, I couldn’t wait anymore. I swear one more moan from her or one more rock against my fingers and mouth, and I would have lost it.
After I kissed from her center up her stomach and to her lips, she wrapped her sexy legs around my waist, flung me on my back, and stripped my underwear off. Then she paused. As her bare bottom sat on my pelvis and pinned me to the bed, her eyes took in my naked body, as if she really needed this moment before she could continue. The way she scanned my body sent a powerful hum to every nerve ending that comprised me. She reached for my dream catcher tattoo, and those delicate fingers sent chills all throughout me as she traced the feathers up to the dream catcher, where she drew invisible circles over the ink. Just as I closed my eyes to fully enjoy her touch, her fingertips went to my sleeve and skimmed along the designs of flowers and geometric patterns until they cut off at my shoulder. Her hand kept going, flattening so she could feel my collarbone and my neck that wouldn’t stop twitching from my pulse. Her palms ran across my breasts, slowly, going back to the nipples to feel them once more.
“You’re really pretty,” she said so softly, and something inside me burst open, hearing the vulnerability in her voice. If I wasn’t already ready for her, that would have done it completely.
“No, that’s all you,” I said, and once the words left my mouth, I hoped to God she couldn’t hear the subtle tremble in them.
She shook her head and continued to wander all over my body. “Nope. You know I’ve always had a crush on you, right?”
“What?”
She nodded. “I mean, I always thought you were hot, and the fact that you’re so crazy talented made it better, but when I saw you again in Vegas, I felt like I couldn’t stop looking at you.”
I was so glad it was dark in the room because my cheeks warmed up. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact Reagan Moore thought I was attractive.
“Kiss me,” I said and caved in to the overwhelming desire to kiss her.
She lowered herself on top of me, and our naked tops met once again as she kissed my lips. As the kiss deepened, her bare center grinded against me. I could still feel her arousal as she rocked back and forth on my thigh, lighting me up in erotic shivers from the surface of my skin to my bones. Just a few moments of grinding against me, she knew I was ready. Her damp hair and sturdy lips trailed my skin until she finally made it past my stomach, my waist, and spread my legs apart.
“Who would have ever thought that Ms. Insults was going to sleep with the very person she was insulting?” I said as Reagan kissed my inner knee.
She pressed her thumb into my clit and triggered a surprised gasp to fly right out of me.
“Fuck,” I yelled and tossed my head back into the pillow to surrender myself.
“Do you ever shut up?” She rubbed circles on me as if it was my punishment for speaking out of turn. My fingers curled over the pillow. God, she was touching me. I didn’t have to fantasize about it anymore. She was touching me; she was sending warm shivers up me from the firm circles she pressed into me. “The noises I want to hear coming from you don’t involve words.”
“I can give you that if you just go—”
I sucked in my breath when her warm mouth took me in, and her tongue replaced her thumb, deepening the circles. After going down on her three times, my body had never been more ready. Moments later, another gasp left me when she slid her fingers inside me. Honestly, it didn’t take long for me to come. She knew exactly what she was doing, when to speed up, when to go harder, when to change up motions. It was as if my body and her mouth and fingers spoke the same language.
Our bodies just fit together perfectly.
And then I lay there, completely defeated, out of breath, and depleted from the release of all the frustration that had accumulated inside me. She kissed my inner thighs again before slowly inching up to me as her nipples grazed my skin.
“There,” she said softly, and I could hear the smile in her voice. “Now you can talk.”
I shook my head. “Can’t.”
“Good. I did you right, then.”
* * *
I was up at the crack of dawn. Processing. There was a lot of processing. I guess we were a little too distracted to pull down the blinds to hide the morning sunlight that shone right on us. The rays pouring into the room streamed on Reagan’s face nestled on my right boob, arm across my stomach, and breathing the adorable heavy puffs she did in her sleep. As much as I wanted to enjoy her, my mind went straight to what today was. A sold-out Madison Square Garden show. The pinnacle of every musician’s dream. The most famous arena in the world. And I was playing on that stage tonight. Without my grandparents or my mom in attendance.
The thought quickly made the bed uncomfortable, despite it being a king with a fresh duvet and the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. After an hour of twitching in my spot, I noticed that my lungs suddenly became smaller; the breaths became shorter. I darted into the bathroom, locked the door, and sat on the toilet, wrapping my hands around my head. A powerful heat overcame my body as the blood pounded in my ears and the anxiety snaked around my chest. It terrified me. I lost the ability to breathe regularly. I automatically started crying as I tried to keep my heart pumping, but it was as if my lungs wanted none of that.
I flipped the faucet on and splashed my face a few times with cold water. When I saw myself in the mirror, it was like looking through a fish-eye lens. I blinked several times to push away this distorted reality feeling. Closing my eyes tightly, I leaned against the bathroom counter as I took deep breaths to familiarize myself to where I was—in the hotel bathroom, water dripping down my face, fingers wrapped around the sink counter—trying everything to slow my pulse to the right rhythm.
It took a few moments to go back to a regular breathing pattern. I tiptoed out of the bathroom to find Reagan still passed out in the same position I’d left her in, which lifted one of the weights off me, knowing I didn’t have to explain myself.
It was hard explaining a panic attack to someone when you didn’t even understand it yourself.
I found my phone and decided to tell Miles what happened. Even though we met because of weed and started a friendship because we were both queer, our friendship deepened because of our anxiety. He got attacks more frequently than I did, so he was my rock when I had one. We made a promise to each other junior year that we would say anytime we had one because that meant we had pent-up anxiety we probably needed to talk about. I was still confused as to why I’d had one, but panic attacks came up over the smallest things. It was performing at the most famous arena in the world without my family that was the kerosene to the fire I kept suppressing for the last few months.
I texted Miles. Just had a panic attack. I’m fine now but still freaked out.
He responded right away. Seriously?! What’s wrong? How are you doing? Need to talk?
Me: I think performing at MSG tonight is making me miss my grandpa and my family even more. He always talked about MSG and how huge it is for any musician. Just wish he was here to see it.
Miles: I’m sorry, Blair. Where are you now?
Me: …Reagan’s bed.
Miles: As in finally naked in Reagan’s bed?!?
Me: Yes…which makes this so much worse. Like, how can I have a panic attack after the wonderful sex I just had? Wtf is wrong with me?
Miles: OMG I’m dying! I need all this info! Go drink water. Eat something. Take a few more deep breaths. Maybe lie down and close your eyes. And then give me ALL the details!
Since Miles knew all too well about panic attacks, I listened to his advice, needing some kind of food in my system to regulate my blood sugar. After I popped a Xanax, I went downstairs to fix up two plates of breakfast. When I got back to Reagan’s room, I found her in the exact same position as I left. Still passed out, curled in the fetal position, facing the indent of my body on the bed. I started the coffee and mindlessly ate a banana while staring out at Central Park waking up along with the rest of the city and feeling so empty that I couldn’t share this huge night with my family.
The sounds of stirring came from the bed. When I turned around, I watched Reagan sprawl out in a full body stretch with her eyes squinting from the morning sun and tiredness. Even the little grunt she made as she stretched tugged at the corners of my mouth.
“Oh, hey,” she said in her dream-drenched voice, so casual it made me laugh. “Do I smell coffee?”
“Oh, hey. Yes, you do. Want some?”
“Yes. Two creams and two sugars, please.”
I fixed her coffee exactly as the princess ordered, bringing her plate that consisted of a spoonful of a fruit salad, a banana, a hard-boiled egg, a scoop of scrambled eggs, and three sausage links.
“Coffee and breakfast,” I said.
Her eyes widened as she propped herself up. “Oh God. You treat all your girls to this the morning after?”
“Actually, no. You’re my first.”
“I feel so special. What a wonderful way to wake up. Hot coffee, hot breakfast, and a hot girl.” She accepted the cup and plate, and I grabbed my coffee and food to join her in bed. “Thanks for getting this for me. That was really sweet of you.”
“We have a big day, so I thought it should start off right.”
And, you know, make up for the panic attack.
“You sound stressed,” she said, swallowing her first bite of scrambled eggs as she reached for my knee. “You all right?”
“I’m fine,” I lied. She didn’t need to know about my panic attack. She had a big day too, and the last thing she needed to worry about was me. “Just a little nervous. It’s Madison Square Garden.”
“I’m right with you. I’ve never headlined a show there, and my stomach is already starting to hurt. I was going to do some yoga and meditate after breakfast. You can join me if you want.”
“You’ll be wearing yoga pants, right?”
She winked. “Right.”
“Count me in.”
In the silence, the sounds of the city from twenty-two floors below vibrated between the steel giants outside. Angry cab drivers. Sirens from police cars and ambulances. The two of us nibbled on our breakfast and nursed our steaming coffee, and she gave me crap for drinking my coffee black. She said serial killers drank their coffee black, and I shouldn’t be trusted now. But once I finished everything on my plate, the Xanax started to kick in, bringing the nerves from a boil to a simmer. The things I would have done to bake something at that point. Something more difficult than chocolate chip cookies. I needed to make French macarons in five different flavors. I probably would have given up the opportunity to see Reagan in downward dog in tight yoga pants just so I could bake to ease my mind. It helped distract me. Sometimes, if I couldn’t sleep, no matter the time, I’d bake. I baked those lemon bars before the start of the tour because I couldn’t keep my thoughts still enough to go to sleep, and hey, they came in handy when I gifted them to Reagan.
“You know what we haven’t done yet on this tour that we need to do?” she said as she peeled the banana.
“If you asked me this question twenty-four hours ago, I would have thought of a few things, but since we accomplished that multiple times last night, I honestly have no idea.”
“Can we take two seconds to talk about last night?”
“And how amazing it was?”
She looked at me with a playful smirk. “Yes. Exactly that.”
“It was amazing.”
“So, the answer to your Nashville question is: yes. I would like to use you for that.”
“I think I finally got that when my mouth was on you.” This made her smirk grow even more coquettish. “And do we keep doing it until we verbally agree to end it?”
“Correct.”
“Man, I’m really liking this tour thing.”
She set her plate and banana aside and then cuddled up to me. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders as she sank into my body. As I rubbed her arm, goose bumps popped up on her skin, and I grinned knowing that I was able to give them to her.
“But really,” she said, “something we haven’t done that we definitely should do: play together. That would be fun, right? At Madison Square Garden? Merge our love for covers on the most famous stage in the world?”
“Um, definitely.”
“We can quickly whip something up this afternoon at sound check, right?”
“Absolutely!” I said. “We’re professionals.”
She shifted so she could face me. I loved how raw her face looked in the morning sun. Free from makeup and showing the perfect light blemishes that speckled across her face. A good night’s sleep glowing on her skin. She was so beautiful. She could have asked me to sing some 1970s disco song right then and there, and I would have agreed to it in a heartbeat.
And I hated 1970s disco, for the record.
“We’ll need something really fun,” she said, luckily not noticing me saving every beautiful detail of her face in my mind. “A song everyone knows and can sing along to. A song that will just get you, me, the guys, and the audience all on the same page in one giant bonding moment.”
“I already know the song.”
“Well, that was fast. What is it?”
“‘Piano Man.’”
People loved singing the song. It swept you up into a cloud of happiness. People went to dueling piano bars, holding their breath as they sat on the edge of their seats so they could hear the pianist finally play the song.
She grinned. “Perfect, Ms. Piano Girl.”
* * *
My stomach really brewed the nerves that night the more I thought about how significant this show was for all of us and how I desperately wished my family was here to see it. No one was even on stage to entertain them yet, and we could already hear the roaring of the crowd through the cinderblock walls.
As Miles ran in and out of the bathroom, I downed my third tequila shot because my nerves were so strong, SoCo wouldn’t tame them, and I seriously debated smoking a second joint. The last time I felt like I wanted to vomit before a show was my first piano recital when I was seven, and then about five minutes later, I butchered Pachelbel’s “Canon,” and refused to play in front of anyone until high school. If tonight was going to be a repeat of that, my music career would be over, and I would be a laughingstock at Madison Square Garden.
From the corner of my eye, Reagan popped in the doorway, in full concert attire and makeup, looking the same kind of beautiful she had always looked on tour but with an extra glow tonight. Maybe because a memory of her naked under me the night before swept through my mind, or because I knew someone like me was able to get a beauty like her, or maybe her face still glowed from sex.
“Hey, where’s Miles?” she asked, leaning against the doorway all confidently and sexy; it made me blush.
“Where do you think?”
“He really gets that nervous before shows?”
“Yup. It’s even worse today. He’s got the gits.”
“The gits?”
“The Garden shits. And my stomach is ready to implode.”
“You doing okay?”
“No, I’m completely mortified. My hands just started shaking.” I held out my right hand to show the proof.
God, here it was again, the same feeling from the morning. The choking in my lungs. The shortness of my breath. The warmth blanketing my body, and not the good warmth that should have been there with Reagan showing off those legs and cleavage in her black, sparkly bodysuit. This was a suffocating kind of warmth.
She took a seat next to me and clasped my shaking hands. Something settling ran through me just a little bit. The same kind of settling the tequila I downed a few moments before gave me.
“Oh, Blair, you’re really that nervous?” she said, her eyes giving me sympathy.
“I had three shots of Patrón.”
“Okay, maybe you shouldn’t drink before you perform.”
I could feel Reagan’s eyes quizzing me but in a different way than before. Before, she looked at me as if she was stripping off my clothes in her head. Now, she looked at me as if she knew something was wrong with me, and I tried everything to keep from crying out how badly I wanted my grandparents—or even my mom—at this show. It would have meant so much to me for them to be there. Gramps always told me that one of the biggest moments in a musician’s career was playing at the Garden. And here I was without the fans that meant the most to me: my family.
It didn’t seem as thrilling as he made it seem. Probably because when I envisioned myself performing here, he, Grandma, and Mom were always somewhere in the audience.
The way Reagan looked at me, so concerned, free from that impish grin that she always wore, officially cracked me. I let out a long, deep grunt and ran my hands down my face, keeping them there so I could hide my stinging eyes.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” she said, rubbing my back with her gentle hand. “Blair?”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. Talk to me.”
“I just really wish my family was here tonight, that’s all. My mom couldn’t get off work, and my grandparents…”
I couldn’t and refused to let myself cry in front of the girl I just slept with for the first time. It was way too soon in our hookup for me to cry on her shoulder, even though that was all I wanted to do.
She put her arm around my shoulders. “Aw, Blair, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not. You have a reason to be upset. But you know that your grandparents would be so proud of you.”
“I know. That’s why I wish they were here to witness it.” I lifted my head out of my hands and stared at the cinderblock wall. “My grandpa always talked about Madison Square Garden, and how he would throw parties for his friends when they had their first Garden show. And here I am, about to perform in front of a sold-out Garden, and he’s not here.”
Her arm rubbing my back pulled me into her body for a half hug, and I accepted, resting against her. She smelled so good. The very faint smell of the familiar hotel shampoo and bodywash I spent hours rolling around in during the very early hours of the night mixed with a splash of whatever designer perfume she spritzed onto her neck.
“I’m so sorry, Blair. I know that must be upsetting for you, but you better believe he’d be so proud of you. I’m proud of you, if that means anything.” I could only shrug because of a lump restricting my ability to speak, but yes, it meant something to me. “Hey, I have an idea.”
“What’s that?” I choked back the cry hanging in my throat.
“How about we FaceTime your mom? I can get Finn to do it from the soundboard, or we can get him to go where the press is. Or I can do it from the side stage. So she can see your performance. So you have family here to enjoy the show with you. How about that?”
My heart felt as if it dropped into my stomach. The cry in my throat flew right out of me as I studied her to see if she was serious. “Seriously? You would do that?”
She gave me a kind smile. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
“That…that would be really great.”
“Okay, then, it’s settled. Finn and I got you, don’t worry.”
My blink broke the seals, and I quickly wiped my face to preserve the fresh makeup and so Reagan wouldn’t notice. “Jesus, I’m so sorry for getting emotional on you.”
“Don’t apologize, Blair. Seriously. It’s okay, and you’re going to be okay, and you’re going to kick some ass tonight like you’ve been doing every show on this tour. Just take a few deep breaths, all right?”
I nodded and spent the remaining time with my eyes closed, practicing the deep breaths Reagan taught me before she left me alone to prepare. But as much as it was settling to know how much Reagan cared and went out of her way to do something so important to me, the feelings in me were too virulent to get rid of in a snap of a finger. My body craved something stronger to replenish the energy that had been depleted from me since the morning.
So, I did two bumps of the cocaine I had hidden in my book bag.
Just to get through this performance, I reassured myself, knowing I would feel guilty about it. You take shots to get you ready for the show. How is it that different?
Reagan’s manager, Finn, stood in the gated-off front row with the press photographers, holding up my phone while my mom watched all the way back in Los Feliz. She was able to witness how the Garden gave us the most hyped up, loudest crowd we’d ever sung to. Depending on how the crowd was, especially at the larger venues, determined if I would jump on the floor and be a part of the first-row audience or stay on the stage. But this New York crowd really showed up, singing along and head banging the whole time. Everyone on the floor pushed each other toward the stage throughout our set list, which I know annoyed some fans, but I loved it because it was a sign that our music got them hyped up. So, on our fourth song that had an upbeat, bluesy sound, I fully melted into the high and jumped to the ledge that ran along the front of the stage so I could only be about six inches taller than the first row.
They held their hands out, singing, chanting, spilling out all the excitement inside them with cheers and smiles. As I walked along the ledge to the other side of the floor, some of the fans tried grabbing my skinny jeans and shirt. Even though it was jarring to be yanked, I secretly loved it because I could feel their enthusiasm in that little tug. But security didn’t enjoy it because they sprinted over to shove the extending hands behind the metal railing. Once I made it safely to the stage, I thought the whole thing was fucking awesome.
When I did the usual, “Are you ready for Reagan Moore?” pump-up talk two songs from the end, I heard how loud twenty thousand eager Reagan Moore fans sounded, and it was even louder when Reagan took the stage with her opening song about Jessie Byrd. She always sang the first verse in total darkness underneath the stage, and then when the chorus came, the lights ignited with flamethrowers attached to the front, and she popped up from the elevator underneath the stage, and the crowd erupted in what I liked to call the concert sonic boom.
I always loved watching her opening song because I loved how hysterical the crowd was at the first couple of minutes of the show, still adjusting to the sight of her. The girls in the front row started crying, throwing their arms over the metal gates, their mouths open from screaming, which was drowned out by the sound of Reagan’s voice. She strutted around the stage as if she owned it in the same way we all owned the stage back when we were younger, locking ourselves in our bathrooms, lip-syncing our favorite songs into hairbrushes. Except she did exactly that inside Madison Square Garden, in front of twenty thousand screaming and crying fervent fans. Her confidence was so attractive, it had me glued to her during her whole performance of her angsty breakup song.
And Miles noticed.
“You’re smitten,” he said into my ear, over the music. I told him about what happened the night before while we got ready, when Corbin wasn’t in the room. I didn’t want to hear his lecture about how I should be careful. That would be another layer of anxiety I already didn’t need; plus, I wanted to feel good about it. “One lay and she has you completely smitten.”
I didn’t respond because there was no use in lying. He read me like a book from the very first day he met me. Plus, I knew I could trust Miles with any secret. He was the only person I allowed to read my songwriting journal. So, I gave him an answer by not really answering, just sucking in my lips to hide my grin.
“Knew it,” he said with an arm nudge.
Halfway into the show, Reagan told the Garden we were coming back on; they gave us the same kind of thunderous energy as before when we stepped back onto the stage. Once I took a seat at her black baby grand piano, I positioned the harmonica holder around my neck, placed my hands on the keys, and looked up at Reagan walking over to me as she adjusted her in-ear.
“I’m following your lead,” she said with her smile directed at me. “Whenever you’re ready, Piano Girl.”
She winked, and my body suffered an intense hot flash.
I inhaled a deep breath until I could feel the oxygen reach the bottom of my lungs. When I was ready, I tickled the keys to my own rendition of the intro, and hearing the echoes of the hammers and strings expelling the notes into Madison Square Garden sent goose bumps down my arms and legs. Then I exhaled the deep breath I just held in and breathed out into the harmonica as I banged away on the chords. While playing the harmonica part, I remembered that this very song was the reason I wanted to learn how to play the harmonica. Nothing seemed more badass to me than playing the instrument and a complicated piano part at the same time in a song that made everyone want to get on their feet and sing as loudly as they could. It took me at least a year to nail down the song as perfectly as a non-Billy Joel could get. Hours upon hours of playing this song on the piano to the point where my mom and grandparents begged me to play something different.
“I’d rather you take up the drums than play that song again,” Grandma said, a slight teasing in her voice, but she was ninety-nine percent serious.
So, that Christmas, I asked for my seventh instrument, a drum set, so I could learn my favorite song when I was sixteen: “My Generation” by The Who. By New Year’s, my grandma begged me to play “Piano Man” again because she was so sick of the drums.
Mom later told me that she and Grandma begged Gramps not to give me that drum set because they knew I’d put it to good use, and everyone would lose sleep over it. Even me because I would constantly be on the cushioned seat, banging away on the snare and the toms. But Gramps—being a stubborn, music-obsessed guy so desperate for me to stop finding trouble—ignored them and fed into my obsession of musical instruments.
It all paid off on that Madison Square Garden stage.
Reagan took control of the first verse, resting her elbow on the piano while looking at me with those wonderful eyes as if she was singing just to me. I sang the second verse, and we alternated back and forth but sang together in harmony during the chorus. I was so amazed by how my own playing sounded in the arena and how it was even more wonderful to hear the audience react the way they did to the beloved song. They sang every word in a unified roar, and the second time we got to the chorus, they were so loud that there was really no point in Reagan and me singing. She turned to them and used her microphone to conduct their singing.
Then when the time came, I broke out into an improvised piano solo that wouldn’t come close to what Billy Joel did every time he played the song, but it was the best I could do, given my piano skills. I practiced my own version of the solo for hours on end. I think that was why Mom and Grandma got sick of the song. Trial and error weren’t really pleasing to the ear. But all that practicing, again, paid off when the crowd grew louder after I ran my fingers up and down the piano.
Our cover of “Piano Man” generated an all-time peak of energy during the whole show. Usually, there was only one concert sonic boom per show: when Reagan first took the stage. But after our cover, for the first time ever in my life, I witnessed two concert sonic booms, and it was one of the coolest things I’d ever experienced.
I still heard Gramps whenever I played the piano or the Hummingbird. And I hoped that in his world, when I played, he heard me. When I walked off the stage in Madison Square Garden, a heavy weight hung in my chest but in a good way. Like a hug. And maybe that was a sign that both of my grandparents heard me, and I knew for a fact that if they did, they both sang along and were proud that their granddaughter was in the middle of it all.