Chapter 7 Houston
HOUSTON
Room service is easier than feelings. I order both.
Coffee. Tea. Fresh juice. Eggs every way, so no one has to pretend they’re not picky.
Pancakes, French toast, bacon, sausage, steel-cut oats with toppings.
A bowl of berries that actually tastes like berries.
Avocado, toast, honey, jam. Yogurt, granola.
Extra napkins. Real butter. Real maple syrup.
Three carafes of water. I ask for it all on warmers and a stack of plates so it feels like a choice, not a lecture.
My spine would have preferred the bed, though.
I knock once on her door, soft.
“Yeah?”
“It’s me.”
The lock clicks. She opens the door a few inches, hair messy, face clean, eyes clear in a way that tells me she slept.
“Hungry?”
“Maybe.”
“Good. I ordered breakfast and it should be here any minute.”
“Aiming for sainthood?”
I grin. “I’m shocked you can ask me that after last night.”
She rolls her eyes, but smiles. “I’ll put some pants on—”
“Entirely optional.”
She shuts the door, and room service knocks. They roll in two carts lined with everything they offer. It smells like heaven. Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day.
Once they leave and she emerges in shorts and a tank top, we make our selections and sit at the breakfast table near the living room. My first thought is to check in. “Any changes since last night?”
“No.” A small sip of air. “I feel…wanted. Not like a problem. That’s new. And—” She rubs her thumb over her palm like she’s wiping off a word. “Free of him. Finally. I’m not sure what I want next.”
“You can take next slow.” I keep my voice level. “First question is simple. Is it safe to go back for your things?”
Her mouth goes tight. “I think so. He leaves late. Sleeps late when he’s being a jackass.”
“I’ll go with you.”
She holds my eyes. “You don’t have to.”
“I want to.”
She nods once. “Then yes.”
Knox comes out of the den, hair a little wild, eyes steady. Salem doesn’t move.
I nod at him. “Ready for breakfast?”
Knox pours tea. He thanks me without words. He’s not a morning person.
Lou asks, “Are we gonna wake Salem?”
Knox snorts at the thought, and I smile. I say, “We could drop a bomb next to his head, and he might roll over, but that’d be about it. When he’s out like this, he’s gone.”
Lou wipes syrup from her lip with her thumb. “Does Troy ever notice what he does to people?”
“Not in time to stop himself.”
“Do you think he’ll try to make trouble if I go back for my things?”
“He’ll try to make noise. But that’s usually all he does.”
She glances away. “Yesterday, he started making fists before he stepped toward me. I don’t…” She sighs. “It’s over. But that freaked me out.”
I hate that I even have to ask this. “Has he ever hit you?”
“No. But yesterday was the first time I thought he might.”
I catch Knox’s eye, he nods once, and we both know what it means. Troy has gone off the deep end. Even if he never hit her before, women have a sixth sense about these things.
I hate this. But I won’t ignore it. And I won’t let her near him alone. “We swing by Sagebrush first.” I pour her water. “It’s on the way. And then we’ll get your things.”
Her mouth forms a small half smile. “Okay.”
“You make a list. We take it all. If he’s there, I handle him. If he’s not, we move quick.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
We finish eating. Knox collects plates without a word. Salem groans, rolls over, and immediately falls back asleep.
“Ready?” I ask.
“Give me five,” she says. “I want to brush my teeth and put on shoes that won’t make me hate myself.”
“Take ten.”
She disappears into her bedroom with a nod.
Knox leans against the bar. “You good?”
“Yeah.”
He looks at the door, then back at me. “We’re not heroes.”
“No.”
“I know how you are, Houston. You don’t have to be the white knight and save her. Lou’s strong. She can save herself.”
I sigh at that. “Yeah, I’m sure she can. She’s been doing it for long enough. But what if people didn’t have to save themselves all the time? Don’t you think she wants a break from that? A hand? Anything?”
His forehead lines with thoughts. “Yeah. Probably.”
“She’s on her own, Knox. No brothers to help. No sisters to cry to. No parents to lean on. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with letting her lean on us for a day.”
“You big Boy Scout.”
I snort a laugh. “Yeah, well. You know me.”
“I do. That’s why I’m bringing it up.”
Lou comes out in a tank top and leggings, hair up, simple makeup that makes her look like herself. Sneakers. That locket with the sad story. A glittering reminder of why I want to help her.
We take the elevator down. The hotel morning is a softer animal than the night. Fewer phones. More coffee cups. The valet brings the bike around. The engine wakes under me. She climbs on and fits her hands at my waist, and we roll out.
The city is honest in the morning. Palms. Sun. Concrete that doesn’t pretend to be marble. Lou’s grip settles. Her chin touches my shoulder once and lifts. We take surface streets. No hurry.
Sagebrush looks smaller in full light. Beige and heat. The sign is tired. The door sticks. Thankfully, the air inside is cool. Mismatched chairs that survived three economic cycles sit around, taking up space. The control room glass appears wavy when viewed from the side.
“No one’s here on Saturday at nine. That’s not a rule. It’s a fact.”
She snorts. “Artists.”
I walk her to the back hallway, where the wall is a museum of what used to sell.
Gold records. Newspaper clippings. A few of our first plaques sit to the side.
Our mother’s session photos. Her bass. A set list from a night we barely survived because the soundboard died, and we finished acoustic on the floor.
“We crashed here between sessions. On the floor. On those old throw rugs. Used our jackets as pillows. Ate whatever the vending machine had. It was good. We were broke and tired, and it was still good.”
Lou studies the wall, then studies me. “You look proud.”
“We were working.” I touch the frame of a photo where we’re eight kinds of exhausted and still smiling. “Working is easy to be proud of.”
She stands next to me and breathes in like the room has a smell she missed until now. “Thank you for bringing me.”
“Wanted you to see our version of this place. Maybe wipe out the memories from yesterday. I doubt that was a good impression of the studio. Vegas changes clothes every year. This place stays ugly and useful.”
“Ugly and useful,” she repeats, amused. “I like it.”
We loop the live room. The drum kit is under a drop cloth. The piano waits with its lid down. The red light over the door is off. Good.
Lou runs her fingers over the edge of a music stand like she’s feeling the nicked paint and the invisible history. “I could work here.”
“You could do anything here,” I say. “That’s the point.”
She turns. The quiet in the room changes shape. The light is soft. Her mouth does a small, uncertain thing that makes me want to fix the air. I step closer, but not too close.
This is going somewhere I didn’t expect. “We’re here because I wanted to show you the wall. We don’t have to do anything else.”
She studies my face like she’s calibrating a lens. “And if I want something else?”
“Then we can make out like teenagers until someone files a complaint.”
She throws her head back and laughs, then moves first. A step into my space. Hand at my chest, flat and warm, testing the give of the shirt and the muscle under it. I hold still and let her feel me take a breath.
She leans in. I meet her halfway. Her mouth is soft and certain and tastes like her sweet croissant from breakfast. The first touch is a clean press. I answer with the same. We both pause, a heartbeat of confirmation, then tip into it.
Kissing slides into a series of moments. The shift of breath. The temperature of a lower lip. I keep my hands high—shoulders, the back of her neck, the line of her jaw—with the lightest touch. She makes a quiet sound that changes how I’m breathing.
Her fingers curl into my shirt, then slide to my waist, then around my back, pulling me closer. I go willingly. Our bodies align, and soon she’s grinding on me, her legs around my waist, my hands under her ass.
Damn that ass.
I take a long breath through my nose so I don’t rocket ahead.
She catches it and smiles into the kiss like she appreciates restraint.
I reward her for noticing with a deeper pull, a slow stroke that says I’m not made of ice.
She answers with a small, involuntary exhale that I feel on my tongue more than I hear.
I angle us so her back finds the wall beside the plaques.
Not pinned. Placed. She tests the space and nods without breaking contact.
I slide one hand into her hair, careful of the locket, and the other to her hip, steady.
She lifts onto her toes to meet me, and I bend, and we find the level where neither of us has to strain.
Her palm cups my jaw. The pad of her thumb traces my lower lip. My eyes shut for a beat. Open. Her lashes are dark and wet at the edges. It’s just what happens when a person gets kissed right.
Hands go places. Over clothes. Under them.
When my fingers slip up the inside of her thigh over her leggings, she’s all too eager for me to reach where I want to go.
I keep it focused. Mouth. Breath. Hands where they belong.
No territory I can’t defend. No move I can’t take back if she changes her mind.
She doesn’t. She grinds her pussy on my fingers until she’s shaking.
We break to breathe and don’t go far. Forehead to forehead. A laugh that’s almost a groan. A sigh that’s almost a curse.
“Okay?” I say, quiet.
“More,” she says, and I give it.
She lets out a bloodcurdling groan, something that buries deep into my marrow, when she comes.
She tugs lightly at my ponytail. My stomach drops in the good way.
I chase the feeling and pull back just enough to run my mouth along the edge of her jaw, behind her ear, down to where her pulse is too obvious to ignore.
I don’t leave a mark. I don’t need to. She arches into it anyway and makes a new sound I’m going to remember later when the day tries to get loud.
“Houston,” she says, more breath than voice.
“Yeah.”
“Don’t stop.”
“Not planning to.”
So I don’t. I go back to her mouth and kiss her like I have answers and they’re all in the way our mouths fit.
We wind tighter. The room disappears. My heart moves from a steady line into a syncopation I know I can play without dropping it.
She shatters on my fingers again, shaking in my arms. I’d hold her all day—
A key turns in the front door.
We freeze.
A cart squeaks across tile. A whistled tune. Footsteps. The janitor.
Lou’s eyes go wide, then bright with mischief. I put a finger to my lips, and she shakes with a silent laugh against my chest. I back us off the wall, grab her hand, and we move fast and quiet to the side door like teenagers who know which stair doesn’t creak.
We make it into the hall and out the back exit without proof that we were ever there. The door closes with a soft click, and we stand in the bright morning like we committed a victimless crime.
She leans into me and laughs for real. “You called it.”
“We’ll finish what we started later. If you want.”
“Yeah. You better.”