30. Emerson
EMERSON
How am I supposed to go to sleep when I’m pretty sure I just heard Mateo groaning?
And not in an I just laid down in a comfy bed after a long day sort of way.
In an I just got off type of way.
Did he actually bring someone home?
My stomach drops as jealousy burns through me. I have to force myself to unclench my teeth before I crack a molar, something bitter and possessive rearing its head before I can shove it back down.
No.
I know this hotel room has a third bedroom, but I didn’t actually think he’d bring someone home tonight.
Not when Crew is here sleeping.
Not when I’m—
I cut the thought off before it can fully form.
It’s none of my fucking business what Mateo is doing in his bedroom right now.
I turn over in my bed, cranking up the volume of the next Cross My Heart album, making sure the “repeat one” setting is enabled, not wanting to wake up in silence again, but also needing to avoid what’s on the other side of that wall.
But sleep completely evades me, my mind wandering back to Mateo every time I try to close my eyes—even when I pretend it’s not his voice I’m listening to.
As if that’s ever worked before.
I press the heels of my hands into my eyes until it starts to hurt.
I know what Mateo sounds like when he comes—I know the sound intimately well.
And that’s what I just heard.
And now I just heard his bedroom door opening.
Before I can think better of it, I’m throwing the comforter off with the full intent of making sure he’s alone—I won’t be able to sleep otherwise.
For reasons I don’t want to consider at the moment.
When I open my bedroom door, Mateo freezes, shoving his hands behind his back.
“What are you doing?” I whisper, looking towards the open door of his bedroom but not seeing anyone at first. “Is someone here?”
Mateo gains some of his composure but keeps his hands behind his back. “No,” he says quietly, and we both pretend we didn’t hear the voice crack. “No one’s here.”
“I thought I heard you—” I stop myself, not wanting him to think I was laying in bed listening to him…
Listening to him do what?
Jack off? That’s the only explanation for what I heard, but I’m not about to outright ask him that. That’s fucking bold, even for me.
On the other hand. “Were you just masturbating?”
Mateo’s entire body goes rigid, his entire face going beet red—something I’ve never seen before. And it’s answer enough.
“You know what,” I offer, holding my hands up in surrender. “Never mind.” I wait until I turn around to let the smile threatening my lips come out, shutting my bedroom door behind me before falling back against it. Exhaling a long breath at my own stupidity.
And my relief.
This is going to be a long couple of months.
It’s been a week since the Maine show, and it’s flown by.
This leg of the tour ends with multiple days of back-to-back shows, and it’s safe to say everyone is exhausted.
But there are still a few more days until the bands have more than twenty-four hours off, so we’re basically all running on fumes.
“But I don’t want pepperoni,” Crew whines from the kitchen counter. He’s in a pair of white pajamas with candy corn splattered all over them.
He asked if we could stay home tonight instead of going to the concert, so we are having a little pajama party. But just like the rest of us, Crew is feeling the consequences of long travel days and sleeping in a different bed each night.
“That’s what you asked for when I ordered it,” I tell him, placing a slice of pizza on a plate and trying to hand it to him.
Crew shakes his head, crossing his arms. “I want cheese pizza.”
I take the plate back, picking the pepperoni off and handing it back to him. “Okay, here. Cheese pizza.”
Crew looks at the pizza, the cheese coming off with the pepperoni leaving a saucy mess. His bottom lip juts out, and I hear the cry before it comes.
Crew is a very even-tempered kid, but these last few days have had a lot of tears with how tired he is. It also doesn’t help that Talia has been so busy with work that she can’t come visit this weekend like she initially planned.
When Mateo broke the news to Crew, it was clear that not having his mom around is weighing heavily on him.
“Now it’s all messed up!” he screams through his cry, his little hands going to his eyes as his face goes red.
“I’m sorry, champ,” I say, feeling my own patience thinning, but I try to keep my composure.
“You wanted cheese pizza,” I repeat, keeping my voice low.
“The pepperoni came off, and it got messy.” His initial cry fades into soft sniffles, and he looks at me through the tears clouding his eyes.
“And now look at this sorry excuse for a slice of pizza?” I place the plate down on the table, grabbing it by the crust and taking a bite.
“But you know what?” I say between chews.
Crew perks up. “What?”
“It still tastes pretty good.” I hold the slice up to him. “You want to try?”
He must be starving in addition to being overtired and missing his mom. I need him to just take a bite, and hopefully this tantrum will subside.
Crew considers my offer for a moment, his eyes going from me to the pizza in my hand. And then he leans in, taking a bite and chewing slowly. A wide smile blooms on his face, and it has my heart clenching.
He takes the pizza from me and completely devours it. Only pausing between bites to ask for another. Only this time, I can leave the pepperoni on—his words, not mine.
Later that night, I don’t even give Mateo time to put his backpack down. “You need to fly Talia out here.”
He stops mid-step, the door quietly clicking shut behind him. It’s only ten o’clock—right on time as always. Crew fell asleep at least an hour before his bedtime, and I’ve been sitting here waiting to hear the beep of the hotel lock since.
“Okay,” Mateo replies, stretching out the word.
“I know she said she’s busy with work, but Crew needs his mom. He was a mess tonight, and not only is he exhausted, but he needs her.” Emotion clogs my throat at my own words.
Because there are some things no one else can replace.
A scraped knee can be kissed better. A nightmare can be soothed. A tantrum can be fixed with patience and a slice of pizza.
But when a kid needs his mom, there’s a certain kind of ache that only she can ease.
I know that better than anyone.
There isn’t a minute that goes by that I don’t want my mom.
To hear her voice, to feel her arms around me, to have one more day where I didn’t know what it felt like to lose her.
“I’ll make sure she sees him,” Mateo says, and I realize he’s standing just inches from me. I don’t even know when he closed the distance between us.
“Good.” I nod my head once, ignoring the prickle in my nose and pretending it doesn’t mean what I know it does.
I missed this week’s therapy session in the chaos of the tour, marking the first time in three weeks that I’d gone more than seven days without one—and by the way I’m feeling right now, it’s safe to say that it shows.
I make a mental note to email Dr. Hannah and confirm next week’s virtual appointment, making sure the time still works around Crew’s schedule.
In most cases, we wouldn’t be able to continue our sessions since I’m not in Wisconsin, but she was able to make an exception since I’m technically traveling for work.
Taking a deep breath, I realize it’s the first one I’ve managed since Mateo walked in. Maybe since I carried Crew to his bed.
Mateo’s eyes bore into mine, and the air instantly thickens. My chest rises and falls as my breaths come in more evenly. The room suddenly feels smaller as my shoulders tense and my throat tightens.
I can feel the warmth of his stare, the weight of the silence between us, and the way my body braces itself for whatever comes next.
Then I blink, and Mateo is across the room, like Edward when Bella was about to get hit by the car—only Mateo is running from disaster rather than towards it.
“I’m going to bed,” he abruptly says, and then he disappears behind his bedroom door, closing it quietly since Crew is already asleep in his bed.
The emotional whiplash is enough to leave me reeling.
What the fuck just happened?
A few days later, the three of us are sitting on the tour bus, Mateo and I sipping on coffee while Crew lounges across the couch, watching something on his tablet while finishing his breakfast.
It’s the kind of morning that has come to feel normal. Familiar. Comfortable.
The bus hums beneath us as it rolls down the highway, the low rumble blending with the quiet sounds of Crew’s show playing in the background and the occasional clink of a coffee cup against the table.
Mateo sits across from me, relaxed in his seat, one ankle resting over his knee as he scrolls through his phone between sips.
Crew’s legs are stretched out beside him, completely content in his little world, occasionally pausing his show to ask a random question or hold up his tablet to show us something he finds funny.
These are the moments that remind me how easy it is to fit into this life.
How natural it feels to be here with them.
To exist in this small, chaotic bubble where Crew’s laughter fills the space and Mateo and I fall into an unspoken rhythm of passing snacks, sharing glances, and taking care of whatever needs to be done.
Except something has shifted.
No matter how normal everything looks, I still feel the distance between Mateo and me.
It’s subtle—the way our conversations don’t linger as long, the way his eyes meet mine for only a second before looking away, the way I’m suddenly aware of every inch of space between us.
Nothing is wrong, exactly. He’s still kind. Still attentive. Still Mateo.
But ever since that night I heard him in his bedroom—when I accused him of masturbating before going to bed and waking up like I didn’t make a complete ass of myself—there’s been something hanging between us.
Something neither of us has acknowledged, something that changed the way I see him and the way I feel him watching me.
And now, even sitting across from him in the comfort of our usual routine, I can’t stop noticing the space he’s keeping.
I shouldn’t question it.
It’s exactly what we both agreed on.
Yet I can’t stop wondering what caused it.
What I did to cause it?
“Do you have any laundry to send out?” Mateo asks me, setting his phone down in his lap as he takes a sip of his coffee.
I shake my head, still caught off-guard by the few and far between moments of Mateo reminding me how rich and famous he is—with a laundry service.
The tour has people for everything, including someone who comes by to collect our bags of dirty clothes, sorts everything by person, washes and folds it, and returns it to us wherever we’re parked or staying next. “I’m good.”
Mateo nods in acknowledgment before going back to his phone.
But the question reminds me. “Has the laundry service ever lost any of your laundry?”
“Maybe the occasional sock or something. Why? Are you missing something?”
I wave my hand. “Just a pair of underwear. I’m sure it got lost in—”
Mateo freezes, his fingers still wrapped around his coffee cup as his eyes flick up to mine. The sudden shift in his expression catches me off guard, and the rest of my sentence dies on my tongue.
“Why do you look like that?”
“I–I don’t look like anything,” he stumbles out.
“Yes, you do,” I argue, and then everything clicks into place.
Now that I think about it, I haven’t seen one of my black thongs in weeks.
Since that night in Chicago, when the bus broke down.
When Mateo and I had sex.
My eyes widen, my jaw unhinging with how hard it drops open. “You didn’t.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Mateo says, setting his coffee cup a little too hard, causing it to splash over the rim.
He had something behind his back that night in the hotel room.
After he—
I wouldn’t have made the connection if it weren’t for the way he was reacting right now. Just like that night, his entire face is so red it almost looks purple.
“Daddy didn’t do what?” Crew asks absentmindedly, his eyes still on his tablet.
“I think Daddy took something that didn’t belong to him,” I answer Crew, but he’s back invested in whatever video he’s watching, taking advantage of the thirty minutes of screen time I allow in the mornings.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mateo says, grabbing a napkin to clean up the coffee he spilled. His gaze levels with mine. “And now is not the time to be talking about this,” he grits through his teeth, his voice low and directed to me and me only.
“I’m not the one playing with something that doesn’t belong to me.” I sit back in my seat, crossing my arms over my chest.
“I wasn’t playing with—” he pinches the bridge of his nose, crumpling the napkin in his hand as his fists clench. “I don’t believe this.”
“Well, believe me, rockstar, it is very real.” I lean across the table, whispering so Crew can’t hear me. “And that is my favorite black thong.”
Mateo leans in too, and I’m surprised by the smirk on his face. I thought for sure he’d be struggling to even look me in the eyes right now. “Yeah?” he whispers, “well, it’s mine now.”