Chapter Twenty-Three #2
Lemon nods. “Keep her close. I knew a girl who had a hard time once, too, and I wish I’d realized sooner how much she needed a friend, not another set of eyes to judge her.
She can’t go backward, you know? Sometimes you must lie in the bed you made and hope there’s someone there beside you when it’s all said and done.
The great thing about beds is they can always be remade, no matter how mussed they get. ”
“Hm.” Shaylyn bites her bottom lip. “Thank you. I hadn’t thought about it like that.”
“Anytime.” She smiles. “Now, I know you were planning to attend that event, but I think you’ve got a concussion, baby doll. It’s my duty to advise you to seek emergency care…and have them run an MRI to check for internal damage, okay?”
“It can do that?” Shaylyn’s eyes go round.
“You hit your head.” Lemon holds Shaylyn’s hand. “Even whiplash can cause a concussion. I think you’re fine, but you have a big old contusion forming. You should see a doctor.”
“Isn’t that what you are?”
“No. I wish I was that smart. I’m just a chick with a lot of certifications and no direction. But I also happen to know you need medical care. Do not sleep anytime soon, and you should get lots of fluids because it can make you—”
Vomit erupts out of nowhere from the popstar’s mouth all over us, chunks of stuff I don’t want to identify, spattering the pavement at our feet.
“I’m so sorry!” Shaylyn sobs, hair sticking to her still-glamorous face.
If my daughters only knew what I was up to right now.
It’s gross, I won’t sugar coat it, but just when I think Lemon could finally show that true billionaire entitlement I keep holding my breath over, she wraps Shaylyn in a hug, unfazed by the bodily fluids or the chaos, and lets the popstar rest her snot-bubbling nose on her shoulder to cry.
“It’s okay. We got you. I was about to explain how a concussion can make you throw up.
It’s normal. Nothing to be worried about.
” She rubs her back, like I’ve seen her do with my girls, and I can’t take my eyes off her.
It’s not the first time the thought of Lemon raising my children crossed my mind.
But it’s an unfair expectation if it’s not what she wants.
“Shh, it will all be all right.”
“It might not,” Benji says after his third attempt to dial roadside. “I can’t get signal, and we can’t go to the event, let alone the hospital, which is ten miles farther, without a tire.”
Lemon’s brow pinches. “Just change it to the spare.”
I chuckle at the irony of it all. The juxtaposition of the spoiled rich girl being the one to think about changing her own tire. Here we all were waiting for roadside assistance or goddamned Batman to swoop in and save us, and she’s already rolled up her puke covered sleeves.
Benji frowns. “I’m sorry, Miss Tryst. My dad owns this company, but he’s always giving me the dumbest tasks.
I wanted to prove I’m worthy of our last name, but I didn’t expect a tire to blow, or to be this underprepared when it did.
” He shakes his head. “I can’t even change it for you.
I don’t remember the first step.” He sits on the curb and hangs his head.
“Hey…chin up. I get it.” Lemon pats his shoulder.
“I have a difficult father, too. Sometimes dads can really fuel your fire. Cause a chain reaction, can’t they?
” Lemon swipes her eyes my way with a sly smile.
“Let me teach you how to change this thing, and then you’re going to get my bestie here to the hospital and show your dad how responsible you were in an emergency. ”
“Really?” He perks up.
“Really.” Lemon nods to the limo. “Do you have a jack, at least?” I almost laugh aloud when he winces at the question and her nostrils barely flare. She masks her annoyance but shoots me a look that says it all.
It’s not lost on me how we can speak entire sentences with our eyes.
“You know what, don’t worry about it,” Lemon says. “I have one.” She retrieves it and heads to the back of the limo, throwing a wink over her shoulder. “You just gonna stand there and watch, Mr. Nashville?”
“You know what I like,” I tease as she bends over the trunk.
“Nashhole,” she mumbles, hefting the tire out and lowering it to the ground on a perfectly formed squat I wish I could sit beneath.
Who am I?
She turns back, like she can hear my earlier thoughts, and I get a front-row view of my girl, sexy as hell in an evening gown with a slit up to her thigh, kneeling by a jacked-up, two-ton vehicle, changing the tire like a professional.
“Full of surprises.” I shake my head. “I can’t look away.”
“Be careful,” she teases. “Remember it’s rude to look if you’re not gonna…”
Our eyes dance beneath the stars.
“It’s past dark. We’re late for the event.”
“No, I think we’re right on time.” Lemon angles her head to Shaylyn, searching for a phone signal.
“I can’t reach my agent,” she huffs. “I was supposed to meet him at the venue. Almost insisted on riding with me and hiring a whole-ass bodyguard, but I said it’d be fine.
” Worry glosses her eyes. “We had a fight before this at the hotel. I just needed to feel normal for little. Not just a popstar with entourage. But now, he’ll think I stood him up.
That I don’t want this record deal. He set this up specially for me to meet the head of the label.
It could launch my career to the next level, and I blew it. I completely blew it!”
“But you didn’t blow it.” Lemon smiles. “Accidents happen. And your health is more important than a record deal, because you are a normal person, Shay, not just a popstar.” Lemon braids the young woman’s hair off her face, and warmth spreads over me, remembering how she did that with Bryar.
“Now,” she says, in a motherly way I can’t seem to stop noticing, “who did your agent want you to meet that can’t wait until your head’s done oozing? ”
“Emil Perkins.” She sighs. “Do you know Perkins Global Records?”
Lemon kicks my butt from behind, and I squeeze hers back.
“It’s the biggest label on the East Coast,” Shaylyn continues, “and now he’ll think I’m not serious.”
Lemon smiles, shooting me a look, and then I’m smiling, too. The irony of being in the middle of the mess but exactly where we need to be is almost too clandestine, and before we know it, we’re laughing.
“What’s funny?” Shaylyn’s gaze bounces between us as we struggle to compose ourselves.
“You’re right,” Lemon whispers, “no way this is a coincidence.”
We all jump when a loud clap booms from above, cool summer rain spilling from the clouds.
I search the sky, Lemon’s infectious spirit altering my senses, connecting the time we share like constellations in the stars.
Brightness worth chasing.
“Shaylyn?” Lemon grins as water droplets hit her face. “What if you could sign with Perkins Global from the convenience of your puke-covered limo?”
Amelia was right; she sparkles in every sense of the word. But this time, it’s me grinning wildly.
And that’s no coincidence.