Chapter 11 Mabel
MABEL
“Wow.”
The word comes out in a whisper drenched in awe as I climb out of the SUV, then I spin in a slow circle, taking everything in. Rolling green vineyards and wild eucalyptus stretch for miles, their silvery-green leaves shimmering in the afternoon light.
And the scent.
I close my eyes and inhale. Crushed herbs, woodsmoke, the faint sweetness of flowering gums. It smells clean and untouched. Unburdened. It’s so different from the air back home.
I turn to Sav. I knew she was up to something the moment we stepped off the jet, but renting out a luxury eco-lodge on top of Adelaide’s Mount Lofty isn’t at all what I expected.
“Do you have surprises like this up your sleeve for the whole tour?”
She smiles, almost shyly, and shrugs. “You like it? You wouldn’t rather be in a five-star hotel?”
I huff out a breathy laugh. “Savannah. This is fucking gorgeous. It’s perfect. Seriously. I feel like we’ve stayed in so many hotels that they blend together at this point, but this...”
I trail off and shake my head, lost for words as I admire the romantic facade of our home for the next week. It’s all native stone, warm timber, and sweeping glass. Modern, but not sterile, and it feels almost as if the building wasn’t built on the hillside, but rather molded from it.
“Yeah,” Sav says, “that’s what I was thinking, too.
I never got to go on a vacation as a kid.
I know you and Tor really didn’t either, and Jo.
..Well, nothing he did with his family was ever a good experience.
Now that we’ve got Brynn and Teddy...I don’t know.
I want to make it good for them, you know?
Memorable. We’re able to do something most people only dream about, and I want to make the most of it. For them and for us.”
Her voice cracks, and my eyes sting with the hint of tears. I glance at her with a smile.
“Family vacations from now on?”
She meets my eyes with a smile of her own. “From now on.”
One of the unforeseen perks of our front woman also being the CEO of our record label is the intentionality she puts into everything.
No more long, grueling tour schedules with no time to breathe or sleep between shows.
Now we get to enjoy the travel. We get to rest and adventure and experience everything.
Family vacations from now on.
“Thanks, Savvy.”
She smirks. “The Caveat Boys don’t know how good they have it.”
On cue, Ezra whoops as he hops out of their SUV, and then he grunts as if someone socked him in the gut.
“You should have put them up in a hotel.”
She sighs. “Probably, but I didn’t want to separate them from Callie. Band bonding and all that.” She turns to look at me. “I’m sorry Kat couldn’t stay.”
I shrug but I say nothing. I don’t even know if I’m sorry she couldn’t stay.
We fought before she left. Things were tense, and I’m still not sure how I feel about all of it.
This weird friendship with Kaz has always weighed on me, but it’s been feeling heavier lately. More crushing and harder to carry.
I’m questioning if it’s all worth it.
If she wanted to, she would.
But do I want her to? The answer evades me. I’m not sure what I want right now.
My eyes drift to Aurora. She’s standing between Hammond and Payton Jones, her newly appointed security guard, and they’re chatting about something I can’t hear.
I’m certain she’s been avoiding me, and while that bothers me, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was a bit relieved, too.
In her absence, I didn’t have to analyze things I wasn’t comfortable acknowledging.
I could pretend that it didn’t sting to hear that she was married.
That I wasn’t hit with a wave of disappointment so strong that I was momentarily shocked.
This morning, though...
This morning, I woke up feeling...I don’t know.
..Pulled to her, I guess. I couldn’t ignore the itch to talk to her.
To see her. She sat next to Ham on the jet, then rode in an SUV with him and Jones, so I haven’t had a chance to talk to her.
I haven’t seen her since Friday morning in Sav’s suite, and now it’s like I can’t stop looking at her.
She’s wearing another dress—this one maroon with capped sleeves—her hair is in a loose French braid, and she’s got her orchid held snuggly in her arms. I smile. Arthur Orchidaceae. It might be the lighting, but he’s looking a little greener than he did last time I saw him.
Then she laughs at something her security detail says, and I feel another prickle of jealousy.
Jones is a tall guy with curly brown hair and tattooed sleeves.
He’s one of our more attractive guards. I wonder if this is her type.
A guy who is lean and toned with full lips and a strong jaw. A young guy. Someone closer to her age.
I bristle and tell myself to stop being ridiculous. Aurora is married. She’s not interested in Jones. Then I frown. Married.
She’s married, and I’m in a committed relationship.
None of it should bother me.
All of it does.
When she catches me staring, I wipe away my frown and replace it with a small smile. She smiles back, and I find my feet moving before I can think better of it. I reach her side just as our group starts walking toward the lodge entrance.
“Are you feeling better?”
She glances at me quickly, then looks away. “What do you mean?”
“You weren’t at the shows this weekend. I haven’t seen you.”
It’s not fair to bring this up, but I can’t help it. She shrugs.
“Yes. I’m feeling fine.”
I study the side of her face. She’d be taller than me if I were barefooted, but not by much. It would be a comfortable height difference. Kat’s taller than me, and she hates it. Says she’d be forced to wear flats if we were ever out in public. I wonder if Aurora would hate it, too.
“How tall are you?” I ask, and her lips quirk up.
“I’m five-seven. How tall are you?”
“How tall do you think I am?”
She looks at me, and it makes me nervous in an exciting way. Her eyes drag from the top of my head to the bottom of my platform combat boots. Then, she looks from her shoulder to mine and back. She purses her lips and thinks for a moment before speaking.
“Five-one?”
“Five-two.”
“I was close.” She drops her eyes to my shoes again. “I’d fall on my face if I wore those.”
“I have, like, fifteen years of practice.”
Aurora huffs a soft laugh, and I change the subject.
“Is it just me, or is Arthur looking happier?”
“Oh, no, it’s not just you.” Her answering grin is contagious.
“He’s definitely perked up, which is surprising, you know, because I thought I would have trouble regulating the humidity and temperature being in hotels and such, but so far—judging from Arthur, of course—I guess it’s not been hard at all.
His leaves are greener and plumper, see?
And if you look at his roots—well you can’t see them while he’s in the planter, but I can show you in a second if you want—they’re finally getting that healthy silvery green color.
He’s been waffling between, like, yellows and browns and papery whites.
Like too dry and too wet, you know? But he’s doing good right now.
And Uncle Wade said that this lodge has really precise climate controls in the suites, and the sunlight is perfectly filtered outside, too, so I think he’ll be able to spend some time in the fresh air. Oh, and look!”
She holds the planter out so it’s inches from my face, then points at one of the stems.
“See that bud there? I think it’s growing. Just a little. Usually, by this point, he’d droop and lose the bud. That’s called a bud blast. It’s so disappointing, but I’ve gotten used to it. It’s not happening right now, though. At least not yet.”
She pulls the planter back to her chest and beams up at me with a wide smile.
She’s beautiful when she smiles like this, and I can’t help but smile too.
Her cheeks are flushed, her blonde hair is wisping around her head like a halo, and the green in her hazel irises seems to sparkle.
She’s breathtaking, actually. She’s radiating joy.
“I like when you talk about your orchid.”
Aurora’s brows jump at my confession, the flush on her cheeks grows darker, and she folds her lips between her teeth as if trying to tame a smile. Her eyes bounce between mine, and when she speaks, her voice has lowered. Spoken just between us.
“Why?”
“You light up. Your smile is unbidden. You’re not self-conscious. You seem real.”
Her lips part, and she blinks several times before she breaks our eye contact, dropping her gaze to the ground in front of us. The mood shifts, and my shoulders fall when I see hers droop.
“Oh.”
“Hey. What did I say? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know, actually.” She shrugs, but she won’t look at me again as she forces out a quiet, almost sad laugh. “I don’t know anything right now.”
I have no idea what to say to that. I want to touch or hug her. I want to make her talk to me. I do none of it. Then Ham’s voice breaks into our bubble, and we both turn to face him as he addresses the group.
“All right, listen up. We’ve got the whole lodge for the week.
It’s just us, so you have access to all of it.
The restaurant is staffed from six a.m. to eleven p.m. for us, and they’ll be stocking refrigerators in the lounge for after hours.
The spa is also staffed, but they do ask that you make an appointment if you want to use their services.
The estate is thirty acres. On the grounds, there are six spring-fed hot pools, an infinity pool, a wildlife enclosure, several walking trails, and a tennis court.
You can book tours with the front desk or explore the estate on your own, but if you want to leave the grounds, check in with me first and take security with you.
I’ll give you a map and an information sheet with the key to your suite. ”
He focuses his attention on someone behind me, and I don’t have to look to know it’s Ezra and Crue.
“Look at the map and information sheet before texting me with your questions, and just because we’re the only guests here, doesn’t mean we don’t have to act with decorum.
You’re still public figures. You still need to be professional.
You still need to be respectful of the staff, the grounds, and each other.
I do not want another incident like we had in Amsterdam. Do you understand?”
I smirk as the Caveat boys grumble their agreement, and I bet Crue and Ezra resemble scolded puppies.
In Amsterdam, the two of them got fucked up on mushrooms and somehow dyed the water in the pool and hot tub blue.
They have no recollection of how they did it, but Ham found them in the sauna giggling like idiot smurfs with their skin dyed bright blue from the nipples down—dicks and all—five hours before their show.
Rock Loveless Records, Sav’s label, had to fork out a fuck ton of money to replace the hot tub, fix the pool, and keep the staff from running to the tabloids.
The boys earned themselves another security guard after that.
Sav was less pissed than Ham, but that’s because she’s no stranger to making dumb decisions.
I told her this is karma for her pre-sobriety days, and she just laughed.
In the boys’ defense, they didn’t expect the mushrooms to be that strong.
And also, they’re morons.
“You’ll have your usual roommates,” Ham continues, and I feel Aurora stiffen beside me. Then Ham looks at me, and I understand why. “Rossi, I put you with Aurora. I already spoke to her about it.”
It’s not unlike Ham to do things like this without consulting us. He definitely lives by the ask for forgiveness, not permission philosophy. Though, he doesn’t ask for forgiveness, either, come to think of it. He just changes things and expects a thank you.
I give him a thumbs-up, then glance at Aurora.
“You good, roomie?”
Her throat contracts with a swallow. “Yep. Good.”
I nod. “Great. Me too.”
That foundation of truth is feeling a little unsteady under my feet.