20. Trinity
Trinity
Romi
The production office was the size of a large closet was and as breathable as one.
By the time I got there, the air had been pulled through five nervous interns and two full cycles of panic.
The walls were covered in layers—old paint, overlapping schedules, and the riot of Post-its our creative producer fired off whenever the plan changed (which was always).
A table ran the length of the far wall, littered with La Croix cans, coffee, and a tangle of laptops and extension cords that made the whole machine go.
I smelled the crisis before I saw it. The creative producer, a woman in all black with a voice like a cigarette, was running a verbal pit stop on the next three hours of show.
Cam and Stacks were perched at the end of the table, still in street clothes.
No Skye. I clocked it before anyone said a word.
The producer's eyes raked over me. "There she is," she said, not quite a welcome. "Sit. We're starting."
"Okay. So. Skye is out with a 'viral infection." Finger quotes sharp enough to draw blood. "Not my problem until it becomes my problem. We need to reassign the opener, duet, and closer. Solutions."
Stacks grinned. "Didn't know viruses hit that hard on a Saturday."
Cam kept her head down, tapping a rhythm on the table. The line of her jaw was tense.
I sat. "I can cover her verses," I said, easy as oxygen.
"That's my preference," the producer replied. "But let's talk optics. Tribute show—do we want Stacks last or the duet?"
An intern piped up, like none of us was in the room. Weird. "We could switch the order—put Stacks first, then the duet."
"Stacks's medley should kick things off," the producer said. "She can handle it."
"Can do it with a hangover and two hours' sleep," Stacks added.
"And have," Cam guffawed.
The producer cut her eyes to her. "You good with the handoff for the opener?"
Cam looked up. Eyes bloodshot, but clear. "It's Romi's song. Give her the verse. I'll tag in where needed."
A stylus clicked across the producer's iPad. "Fine. Romi, opener and closer. Cam, you and Stacks on the bridge. Nobody leaves until transitions are clean."
She walked out mid-sentence, answering her next call.
Silence.
Stacks leaned back. "That's one hell of a way to start a day."
I gave her a look. "You got the tea?"
Stacks flicked her nails. "You know that hoe ain't sick. Word is they're investigating the leak situation. Show's calling it a 'reconfiguration' but…" She shrugged. "Label's being real careful with the wording. They gave her an out, and she took it."
Cam didn't react. Didn't look at me either. She scrolled on her phone, oddly calm.
I thought about the garden, the confessions, her mouth on mine. Less than twenty-four hours ago, and now we were supposed to act like nothing changed between us.
Stacks watched us, amused. "Y'all ready for this, or nah?"
Cam's voice came soft. "Let's get through today."
I nodded, grabbed a highlighter, started marking Skye's lines to give my hands a break from wanting to touch her instead.
Cam caught my eye for half a second, then looked away like the light hurt.
Stacks grinned. "You two are cute. Obvious as hell, but cute."
"Not cute," I said. "We're professionals."
Stacks zipped her lips. "Sure, Queen."
Nobody said another word, but the air buzzed with everything we weren't letting out.
Show night. There's no other animal like it.
Our green room was the only calm left backstage. Stacks had claimed the corner by the space heater, water bottles lined up like trophies. She was mid-stretch, scrolling through videos on her phone.
Across the room, Cam was pacing. A straight shot between the mini-fridge and the window, back and forth, surely trying to wear a trench in the carpet. Her hair long and curled, her face beat but with the mandatory powder and a single sweep of black under each eye. A shock of red on the lid.
She was in this sequined thing that pretended to be a dress.
Corset up top, waist snatched, shorts underneath that showed every result of her gym habit.
Hips. Thighs. That ass that refused to quit.
All glitter and nerve. Shiny, bare legs, tattoos catching the light like they had something to say.
Heels that made her taller than my excuses.
She was trouble I'd already said yes to three times.
And somehow, I still wanted another round.
She didn't stop when I came in, but I saw her clock me in the mirror. Two more passes, then she turned, eyes dragging over me.
For a hot second, I pictured her crossing the room, walking me back into the wall and kissing me like we were trying to settle a fight. The thought hit low and hard, and something in me jumped like it heard its name. I told myself it was caffeine, not her.
I blinked it away. Straightened my spine. Pretended I hadn't just pictured the one battle I'd lost.
Her mouth curved. Then she moved. Quick. Close enough that I caught the sugar off her gloss, the warmth of her breath making my skin hum. She hesitated for half a second—gave me time to pull away.
I didn't.
Her lips met mine. Soft, fast, certain. Over before I could think to kiss her back.
My brain went white.
Stacks was still talking, still rapping under her breath, completely unaware.
Cam's thumb brushed my jaw—quick, sweet—before she turned and went back to pacing. Same stride. Same route. But I caught the smallest twitch of her mouth, fighting a smile she couldn't quite kill.
The tension was a living thing, heavy as a comforter and twice as suffocating. Stacks cut through it, spitting a verse from "Juiced" low, double-time. She turned away to grab her phone—two seconds, maybe three—but the air was already charged up.
"You know, I heard they're betting on us backstage," she said. "Which one of us cracks first on live TV. Odds are on Cam, but I got money on myself."
I cleared my throat, and my hand flew to my neck. Tried to reset my expression into anything that wasn't "just got kissed silly and forgot how to function." "I wouldn't bet against you."
Stacks shot me a look—curious, not suspicious. Yet. She grinned. "See, that's why you're the Queen. Never underestimate the competition."
There was a PA system overhead, but the noise in the green room was enough to drown out the actual calls. I checked the clock—twelve minutes to curtain. My pulse started ticking up. The vibration from the main hall hummed.
I sat, forced myself to run the centering routine again.
Three breaths in through the nose, out through the mouth.
Shoulders up, then down, then a roll to crack the tension out of my neck.
I muttered a line under my breath, "They can't touch you unless you let them.
" Mantra from my mother, years ago, but it still held.
Someone knocked. A voice from the hall: "Five to places!"
Stacks hoisted herself off the couch, stretched her arms over her head, and made a show of yawning. "Let's get this," she said, but the way she bounced on her toes said she lived for this shit.
I stood, smoothed my dress, and fixed my eyes on the mirror.
My hair was perfect, every braid in place, the edges crisp enough to cut.
The makeup was soft but lethal, the line of my cheekbone sharp as a blade.
The eyes in the mirror looked ready. If I didn't recognize the woman staring back, that was fine. She'd get it done.
Stacks hit the door first, Cam second, me last. The hallway outside was even louder now, the bass so thick it made the walls vibrate.
The smell of hairspray hit me like a wall—someone in makeup had gone full fire hazard prepping the next act.
Beyond that, I smelled the synthetic, sour note of fog fluid, clinging to every stitch of my clothes.
A runner waved us to the wings, earpiece squawking. "You're up next! Stacks, you're red X. Cam, blue. Romi, white mark. Hit your cues."
We lined up in the dark offstage, where the only light was the blue run strip along the floor. Cam's silhouette was two feet in front of me, shoulders set and fists balled at her sides. I caught the tiniest jiggle in her right hand, just for a second.
Behind me, the PA's voice echoed down the hall: "Stand by. House down in ten. You're clear on the music cue."
There was a hush, the kind that means everything's about to go off at once.
I let the last bit of tension slide out of my shoulders, forced my hands to unclench, and stepped up to my mark. The world shrank to the space between the curtain and the lights, between one breath and the next.
They couldn't touch me unless I let them. And tonight, I wasn't letting shit through.
The stage manager gave a three-count, then the lights went hot. Stacks walked out first, shoulders back, head high.
There was a half-second of silence, then the opening chords hit: a seismic stomp, the drums blasting through my chest like a car accident at sixty miles an hour.
The runway blinked to life, a ribbon of cold white lights, and Cam strode out, every muscle in her back moving underneath the tatts.
I stayed hidden behind the wall of backup dancers, heels biting the stage, eyes on her silhouette as it shrank in the glare.
The audience didn't know yet. They expected Skye for the trade-off. You could hear it. The anticipation, the ripple of confusion as the cue hit and nobody came.
Instead, I turned through the dancers and stepped up to the mark, and I hit the opening word with enough force to make the monitors peak. The crowd gasped—loud, messy, instant.
Cam spun, hit her verse hard, threw every line at me like a challenge. I stepped up, gave it right back—cleaner, sharper, meaner. We circled each other, closing the distance with every bar. The choreography said keep it clean, keep it safe. We were doing neither.
She came at me. I met her halfway. Close enough to catch her perfume, see the glitter on her lids catching the stage lights. Two bars back and forth. Then one. Then half a line each, finishing each other's sentences like we'd been doing this for years.
The rhythm locked in so tight it felt like breathing.
We were chest to chest now, faces inches apart, trading lines fast and furious. To anyone watching, it looked like a fight about to pop off. Two women squaring up, ready to swing.
Only we knew the real danger wasn't our fists.
In rehearsal, it was practice. Up here, under the lights, it was something else. We locked eyes, and for a second, I saw the rose garden, felt her hand on my knee, and the moment before her mouth took mine.
It threw me off. Just for a beat. She saw it, too. Her smirk went soft, then came back harder. Challenging me to slip again.
The crowd lost its shit. Every phone was up now, screaming out the lyrics. I looked up and caught my own face, three stories high on the Jumbotron, mouth doing something I didn't remember doing. Exposed.
Cam saw it and shot me a look. Her mouth twitched. Genuine, not for show. She knew what I was thinking about. I wanted to freeze the moment, frame it forever, but the next line was coming and I had to catch it or crash.
Stacks hit her cue and slid in for the last verse, voice big as a freight train. The chorus came, and all three of us lined the edge of the stage, arms thrown wide, mics up. The sound hit back at us from the rafters—a stadium's worth of noise, all for this.
Final chorus was a blur: ad-libs, call-and-response, every line bolder than the last. Stacks hit that double-time section we'd heard in rehearsal, but live it was something else entirely. Syllables flying so fast the crowd popped off.
The beat dropped, the lights went brighter, and we all froze at the front of the stage, sweat and adrenaline holding us in place.
The applause was loud as hell. Bigger than any show I'd done in two years.
Phones flashed, people screamed, and for a minute I was deaf to everything but the thud of my heart.
Cam turned, right next to me, and smiled, the one I'd seen in the garden. My mouth quirked up. Not the full queen-bitch grin, but a softer one I didn't have words for.
The audience caught it. The noise doubled, then tripled, as if seeing me break character was the wildest shit they'd ever witnessed.
At the blackout, we held the pose for a breath, then rushed offstage. The wings were chaos. Techs clapping, stagehands beaming, three different producers trying to get our attention.
Cam walked beside me offstage—close, heat radiating. My pinky brushed hers. She didn't look over, just tangled her fingers with mine.
For a second, I nearly said something about her mouth and my hands. But I didn't.
Stacks's silly ass bounced up, grabbed both of us in a bear hug, then peeled off toward the green room, singing under her breath.