Chapter 13 #2
“Clearly I do,” Renee said, noticing her cheeks. “Look, you don’t even have to talk to anyone. You can just hang out with me. It’s up to you. Okay?”
“Okay,” Lola conceded.
T O L OLA ’ S SURPRISE , she did have fun, and not just with Renee, but with everyone.
She tried not to apologize too much for missing everyone’s sets and let herself float along the fringes of conversations with no pressure to participate.
Renee took care of the socializing, so Lola didn’t have to.
Renee chatted easily with everyone, telling them how she and Lola were childhood friends, and asking about everyone’s favorite films about the music industry.
It was easy—nice—feeling like she and Renee were a pair.
Eventually Lola contented herself with sitting on the edge of a wide, flat hammock, sipping her second hard seltzer, and lazily taking in the scene around her.
Her eyes kept wandering to the most buzzed-about act, an edgy Korean girl with a long black ponytail, who performed as Saint Satin.
Her name was Chloe, and she was just twenty-one years old.
Earlier, she’d approached Lola—a bit starry-eyed but playing it cool—and confessed that Seventeen Candles had inspired her to start writing songs as a twelve-year-old.
Now, Chloe was chasing a gorgeous young woman through the party.
She had plastic butterfly clips hidden through her short afro and pink glitter on her round cheeks and she wasn’t very hard to catch.
Chloe trapped her in her arms, and Butterfly Clips pressed her laughing mouth to the underside of Chloe’s jaw.
As Lola watched, Chloe raised her vape pen to Butterfly Clips’s lips.
Pinned happily against Chloe’s chest, she took a hit, then slowly exhaled it into Chloe’s mouth, before the pair broke apart giggling amid pale tendrils of smoke.
It was a little exhausting, but Lola couldn’t stop watching Chloe.
She floated among the picnic tables, swigging a beer, careening into the arms of her friends then belting out a random song line, and every so often, finding Butterfly Clips for an instant of reassuring affection.
It sent a strange ache through Lola’s chest. Chloe looked radiantly young—younger than Lola had ever been.
When she was Chloe’s age, she’d already released her second album.
Renee walked up and handed Lola a fresh seltzer. Her eyes followed the line of Lola’s gaze. “Someone’s having a great time.”
“Her first album comes out in a few weeks. This is probably the biggest show she’s ever played.”
“ That’s why she’s so happy.” Renee settled into the hammock beside Lola, setting it swinging wildly. “I thought it was the weed.”
It stuck in Lola’s throat. Renee was right. Chloe did look happy—that’s what Lola had missed. The singer straddled Butterfly Clips on a picnic bench and leaned down to kiss her deeply, as someone yelled, “Your trailer’s right there!”
“I wonder if anyone ever said anything to her,” Lola said.
It wasn’t just that Chloe was queer. Saint Satin’s whole image was queer.
Her songs were unapologetically queer, and her fans were even queerer.
She got called a “queer breakout artist,” a “queer rising star.” It was that pigeonholing that Lola had been taught was dangerous: that if she strayed too far from the path of straightness, she’d get covered in the muck of her bisexuality and no one would see anything else.
But Chloe didn’t seem trapped.
Lola felt Renee watching her. “Did anyone ever say anything to you?”
Lola pressed the tab of her seltzer can against her thumbnail. “They didn’t have to. I got into the industry ten years ago. Things are probably different for her than they were for me.”
“Why can’t they be different for you too?”
Lola shrugged. “Success makes things more complicated. The stakes keep getting higher. But that’s a good thing, isn’t it? It means I’m lucky, right?”
There was a soft, sad look in Renee’s eyes. Suddenly, Lola needed Renee to agree with her, because otherwise—she wasn’t sure, but her chest had gotten tight, her pulse ticking higher as she waited for Renee to recognize that what she’d said was true.
But Renee just said, “I have an idea.”
She heaved herself off the hammock and went over to Chloe, whose side of the exchange was hyper-enthusiastic nodding. Renee came back brandishing the vape.
“ Renee! ” Lola cried as she dug her feet into the ground to steady the hammock for her.
Renee fell back and set them swinging again. “We’re in Colorado. It’s legal. Wait—don’t tell me you’ve never smoked weed before.”
“Of course I have. I’m not a nun.”
Renee narrowed her eyes. “Are you sure? Sometimes I get nun vibes.”
“Because God sent you here to test me?” Renee broke into a delighted smile, and Lola grinned back. “I take a gummy now and then to sleep. It’s just … we’re in public.”
“We’re surrounded by security, inside a chain-link fence, which is also surrounded by security, and we’re fifty feet from your personal bodyguard. That’s not what I call being in public.”
“There’s an entire industry set up to catch people like me in the wrong moment.”
“Lo, the only person here, other than me, who gives a fuck if you smoke weed is Saint Satin. I think she’s going to frame this vape when I give it back to her.”
Lola groaned. “She’s a fan. I’ll have Cassidy send over a gift to thank her.”
Renee took a deep pull from the vape. A froth of vapor flowed from her lips as she said, “Let no good deed go unpunished, right?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That girl could not have been happier to share this with you. You don’t need to send her an Edible Arrangement with a thank-you note.” Renee took another hit. “Anyway, if someone did leak a photo of you smoking, it would probably help your image.”
“And what image is that?”
“Uptight. No fun. Good girl.” Renee winked. “Now stop sulking, and hit this.”
T HEY ROCKED IN the hammock.
The night felt crusted in sugar, the cafe lights twinkling, the woodsmoke from the fire, little bugs zipping happily through the air.
Against her, Renee was a solid weight. The hammock pressed their bodies together no matter how they lay.
For stability’s sake, they’d settled on Renee on her back, with Lola curled against her side—“You’re a koala,” Renee had said.
“And I’m your tree”—making them both laugh so hard they nearly flipped the thing over.
One of Lola’s legs had hooked itself over Renee’s and her face was pressed against her shoulder.
Renee smelled intoxicatingly like men’s deodorant and musk and salt from the long, hot day, and the sleeve of her T-shirt was rucked up.
Those arms that Lola couldn’t stop herself from staring at.
Lola slipped her hand around Renee’s bicep. Her knuckles grazed the side of Renee’s breast. She should move them.
She didn’t.
“Feeling good?” Renee asked.
Lola felt warm and loose. She tried to say something clever, but all that came out was “Yeah,” and a giggle, as she buried her face in Renee’s shoulder.
She wasn’t really high enough to be acting like this, was she?
But thinking about it only made her tremble with laughter.
It didn’t matter, because Renee was there. Renee wouldn’t let anything bad happen.
Lola lifted her head and peered at Renee.
Renee was grinning.
Lola wanted to run her tongue over those teeth.
“God, you’re adorable.” Renee’s voice was syrupy as Lola’s head fell back against her shoulder. “I want to make a movie about you.”
“You are making a movie about me.”
“Am I?” Renee sighed. “Sometimes it feels like there’s none of you in it.”
“What d’you mean?”
“Who you were onstage, who you are right now—that girl vanishes when the cameras are on. I want to see you on film the way you are when we’re alone.”
Lola angled her head to see Renee better. Her green eyes were heavy-lidded, her lashes barely curled, but her brows were low.
“Then film me when we’re alone,” Lola said.
Renee gave her a faintly devious look, then twisted her body against Lola’s to pull her phone from her pocket.
The motion set the hammock swinging again, rolling Lola into her, and Renee’s arm slipped under her, holding Lola against her chest. They were too close together for a good angle, so Renee filmed them both with the front-facing camera.
“Not what I meant,” Lola whined, although the grainy, half-lit image of the two of them was transfixing. “I’m a mess!”
“You’re gorgeous. You’re perfect,” Renee said. “You always are.”
Lola watched herself smile in the camera. It wasn’t her normal smile. It was a little silly and off-kilter—and Renee was beaming at her like she’d never seen anything so glorious.
“Introduce yourself for the audience,” Renee said.
Lola tried to force herself into a straight face, and failed, then finally managed to say, “I’m Lo. I’m a songwriter, and a singer.”
Their eyes met through the camera and Renee let out a slow breath.
“Yeah, I want you like this,” she said in a low voice.
Then have me—kiss me, right now. The thought was clear and sky blue and felt like the ring of a bell, loud enough that Renee must have heard it. Lola’s gaze glided away from the camera as her knuckle traced along the line of Renee’s jaw.
Someone coughed.
“Sorry to—interrupt or whatever. Can I get my vape back? We’re heading out.
” Chloe was bashfully scratching the back of her head.
Butterfly Clips stood a few feet behind, knotting her fingers with impatience at their separation.
Renee shifted on the hammock to hand the vape back.
Cool air flowed like creek water into the new gaps between them.
Lola’s mouth went dry as her head came back together. What had she been thinking ? To kiss Renee in front of all these people?
“We should go too,” Lola said. She stood as gracefully as possible when one was a little high, a little drunk, and lying in a hammock.
Renee headed back to the trailer for her stuff, while Lola said her goodbyes. As Butterfly Clips pulled Chloe away, Lola heard her say, “They make a hot couple.”
Were they talking about her and Renee?
Did she want them to be?