Chapter 16
Erin is lying on her back, awake for about twenty minutes.
She's naked, the sheet pulled up only to her waist, one arm resting across her stomach and the other tucked under her head, staring at the floor-to-ceiling window she forgot to close the curtains on last night, letting the morning light wake her without mercy.
Lexie is beside her, lying on her side with her hair fanned across the pillow and her expression completely relaxed.
They didn't waste time. They didn't stop for a drink when they got to the hotel, and they barely said more than a handful of words in the cab that brought them there.
When they walked into the room, Lexie backed her against the wall and kissed her while pulling her shirt out of her pants and sliding her hands underneath the fabric.
It didn't take Erin long to get into it.
Lexie is attractive, close to her own age—that was one of the few things she'd managed to learn on the way over—the journalist is thirty-four, not Mia's twenty-six, which sometimes feels like an uncrossable distance.
"I liked you from the first second," Lexie had whispered against her neck while she undid her pants, "when I saw you standing next to Mia…"
Erin had caught her by the jaw and pulled her mouth up to hers.
"Try not to mention her, okay?"
Lexie had half-closed her eyes, dark with want, and nodded before sliding her tongue into her mouth.
She didn't mention the singer again. What she did do was bury her face between Erin's legs and do a job Erin catalogued as impressive, concluding that Lexie was very skilled with her tongue and very good at reading what she liked most. Erin came smothering her moans against her own fist, and later, already in bed, she smothered Lexie's by pressing a hand over her mouth while her fingers unraveled the journalist with pleasure.
Lexie never brought Mia up again, but Erin thought about her more than once.
The singer kept surfacing in her mind every time she heard noise in the hallway, wondering if she'd arrived yet and whether she was alone or with the woman who'd been all over her in the dressing room.
And it was Mia's eyes flashing in her mind that stopped her cold right when she was about to have her second orgasm—she froze so completely in that moment that Lexie had to work a lot harder to get her there.
She turns her head for a moment and sees her there, the journalist still asleep, and Erin checks the time.
She needs to get up, shower, and go check on Mia.
The thought sends a strange flutter through her stomach—not anxiety, not fear, nothing like either of those—something else she can't quite name, though if she could, she'd realize it's equal parts irritation and jealousy.
"How long have you been awake?" Lexie's voice comes out in a low rasp, and Erin nearly jumps out of her skin when she feels her hand on her hip.
"A while."
Lexie covers her mouth to yawn and pushes herself upright, raking her fingers through her messy hair.
Erin doesn't move, just watches her. Last night was pretty good, Lexie's presence doesn't bother her, and she feels like she did what she needed to do—but she feels just as empty as she always does.
"You okay?" Lexie glances over at her.
"Yeah. You?"
"Amazing," she says, and smiles with a hint of mischief.
Erin smiles back and swings her legs over the side of the bed, planting her bare feet on the floor.
"I'm guessing you have to work," Lexie says.
Erin nods without turning around.
"Yeah, I need to shower and then check on Mia in a bit, but I've got time for breakfast if you want—just pick up the phone and order whatever you like," she says as she stands.
"Room service." Lexie lets out a low whistle. "I can't afford this kind of thing."
"Then take advantage."
When Erin comes out of the shower, breakfast is already set up on the table by the window and Lexie is dressed, having asked permission to use the bathroom while Erin was still under the water.
"Should we meet up in—" Lexie pauses, trying to remember the next city.
"Philadelphia, I think," Erin says.
"Right, that. Meet up there?"
"You're covering the tour, Lexie. We're going to see each other everywhere," Erin says, breaking off a piece of toast spread with strawberry jam and folding it like a sandwich before taking a bite.
"That's true. I mean this. You and me in a bed," she clarifies, amused.
"Maybe." Erin smiles.
She likes Lexie, and she really likes what she does with her tongue.
"So mysterious," the journalist teases.
The doctor's eyes lift as she watches her.
"I'm not trying to be mysterious, but I'm not looking for anything serious, or anything that ties me down."
"Wow." Lexie leans forward, resting her arms on the table. "On top of being attractive and good in bed, you're honest. Watch out, Dooley—you're quite a catch."
Erin can't help but laugh. She feels comfortable with this woman, more than she expected to, and part of her is bothered by that, because something inside her is blocked. She can't figure out what it is when she tries, but what she does see—every single time—are Mia Wilder's blue eyes.
"Well." Lexie checks the time, wipes her mouth with the napkin, and stands.
"It's been a pleasure." She walks over to Erin, who hasn't had time to get up, and leans down with one hand on the back of her chair and the other on the table.
"A very exquisite pleasure," she whispers against her ear before kissing her right there.
"I'm heading out. I have to swing by my hotel to grab my stuff and check out, then I'll come back here to pick up my credentials for the next show. Maybe I'll see you."
"Maybe," Erin says again, and Lexie laughs, trails a soft touch along her neck, and leaves.
Erin feels something squeeze in her stomach when she hears the door close. She can't shake the thought of someone seeing Lexie walk out of her room, because for some twisted reason, she doesn't want Mia to find out that the journalist was here.
She finishes breakfast and stays a while staring out the window without really seeing anything, just struck by how clear the morning is considering it was pouring last night when they left the concert.
She runs a hand along her jaw and winces.
Lexie bit her right there and it felt incredible when she did it, but now it hurts when she touches it and there's a small red mark.
Nothing to worry about—it's tiny and it doesn't scream one-night stand—but she doesn't like marks.
She gets up, stretches again to finish waking up, and decides today she absolutely has to find time to hit the gym.
It's exactly nine o'clock when she steps into the hallway.
She's not entirely sure whether to use Mia's room key or knock to avoid walking in on something she'd rather not see.
She goes with the second option, just in case, but after knocking a couple of times and getting no answer, she swipes the card and walks in.
She freezes just inside the entrance, scanning the floor for scattered clothes, but there's nothing, so she moves quietly toward the bedroom, not wanting to wake Mia if she's still asleep.
She pushes the door open and finds so much light she has to blink.
The bed is unmade—on one side only—and the bathroom door swings open and Mia walks out in shorts and a bra, toweling off her hair.
Erin's lungs empty all at once and she drops her gaze. She can't react this way to the singer's body, especially not after last night, which left her very satisfied—but she does. Something vibrates low in her stomach and drops between her legs like an uncontrollable wave.
"Hey," Mia says, tossing the towel over a chair and looking for a shirt to put on.
"Good morning," Erin says, running a hand through her hair, fighting the urge to pull at a strand.
The singer pulls on a basic t-shirt and walks over as the doctor watches.
"Did you smoke?" Erin asks, having caught the smell of weed the moment she walked in.
"Yeah, a joint. You already know that."
"I don't know unless you tell me, Wilder."
Mia raises an eyebrow.
"Do I have to report every single thing I do? You know I smoke after a show—it relaxes me. I didn't think it was the first thing I needed to tell you the next morning, or that it's even relevant to—"
"Everything matters," Erin cuts her off, though gently, reaching out at the same time to take Mia's hand and check her pulse. "If you smoked, your baseline is altered by the effect. You might feel relaxed right now when you're actually not."
The singer doesn't even fully follow what she means by that, but she doesn't bother trying to work it out, because right now all she can think about is that the doctor's fingers are on her skin, and Mia's whole arm tingles and she feels a faint pull in the center of her chest every time that happens.
"What time did you smoke?" The doctor releases her hand gently and pulls the small notebook from her pocket.
"I don't know, around two in the morning, give or take."
"And what time did you go to bed?"
"Right after. I smoked it and lay down—I don't think it took me long to fall asleep," Mia explains, watching her write and watching the lines of the muscles in her forearm shift as she does.
"What time did you wake up?"
"That's quite the interrogation, Dooley.
" Mia tucks her hands into the front pockets of her shorts and Erin looks at her for a second, landing on the conclusion that this girl doesn't have to do a single thing to be attractive.
Even in those casual shorts, a basic t-shirt, and her hair still tangled because she hasn't brushed it yet. Mia Wilder is pure temptation.
"It's part of the job…"
"I know," the singer says, pushing her hands deeper into her pockets and pulling her shoulders up like she's trying to tuck her head between them, like she feels vulnerable in Erin's presence right now.
Erin is about to ask if she's okay, if something's bothering her, but lately they can't make it through a conversation without it turning into a fight, so she decides to keep her mouth shut.
"I slept about five hours, if that's what you're trying to calculate."
Erin presses her lips together. It's not enough time—not what Mia needs—but she's always more flexible after a show.
"What did you do until two in the morning?"
It's too late to take back the question she shouldn't have asked. Knowing the answer hardly matters unless Mia tells her she ran a marathon and wore herself out even more than she already was—but the singer has just fixed those blue eyes that follow Erin everywhere directly on her.
"I was here, thinking." Mia nods toward the armchair in the room, which Erin only now notices is turned to face the window.
She wants to ask if she was alone while she was thinking, or if the woman from the dressing room was there helping her concentrate.
Erin chokes on her own saliva and decides the woman doesn't matter right now.
It doesn't matter whether she was between Mia's legs or simply wasn't here at all—what really intrigues her is knowing what Mia was thinking about, what kept her sitting in that armchair for hours.
But she closes her mouth the moment she opens it.
"What?" says Mia, who has caught the dazed, restless look on the doctor's face.
She's dying to know how Erin's night went too, and she wants Erin to give her an opening to ask, because she doesn't want to fight either—and she knows that if she asks whether Erin had a good time with Lexie Farhall, a fight between them is unavoidable.
The singer has a knot in her stomach she hasn't been able to unravel since last night, a suffocating feeling that presses against her throat and shoots bursts of anxiety into her chest every few minutes.
She'd left her dressing room a little late, after the woman had come twice and she hadn't at all—and not for lack of trying on her lover's part, but the version of Mia who used to blank her mind and enjoy every woman she chose, without anything getting in the way of a good time, had not been in that dressing room last night.
The woman kissed her and she felt foggy-headed and numb all over.
At first she panicked, thought maybe her brain was about to shut down and leave her on the floor in front of her stunned lover, but she quickly realized that wasn't it: the problem was her own mind—because even though she was turned on, it wasn't that person's hands or mouth she wanted on her body.
After she showered, she'd walked out to the hallway with her bodyguard and made her way to the car, where Noah was waiting along with a guy he was spending the night with.
Her assistant had introduced him, but Mia doesn't remember his name, because right after that she'd asked about Erin—who usually rides with her after an event—and her best friend had answered quickly, like the subject made him uncomfortable, that the doctor had left over an hour ago with Lexie Farhall.
Mia had nodded and turned to look out the car window, because she didn't need to ask anything else.
She knows Lexie only sleeps with women—she herself has slept with the journalist a couple of times—and she felt so suffocated thinking about Lexie getting what she herself is denied and wants so badly that she'd had to unzip her Wild tour hoodie and tug at the collar of her shirt, hoping it would help her breathe.
"Nothing," Erin says, almost in a whisper. "We have the day off today. I'd like to ask you to use it to rest. I'm not saying lock yourself in here, but…"
"I was thinking about hitting the gym after. I've still got energy left over from last night—if I don't do something, I'll have trouble sleeping tonight too."
"Fine, but no cardio. Stick to weights and don't go heavy." The doctor takes a step back.
Mia wants to stop her, ask her not to leave, ask her to stay a while and tell her if she feels something for Lexie, if she'll see her again, or anything at all that doesn't leave her with this bitter feeling of knowing she could be anyone except the one.
"I'll behave," she says, and Erin looks at her again.
In some ways, with that almost-shy posture so unlike her usual self, Mia reminds her a little of Noah and his lost-puppy expression, and she feels uneasy because she senses the singer needs something from her that she doesn't dare give.
She can't even afford to be her friend, because she knows herself, and she's starting to realize there's a very thin line between what she thinks she feels and what she actually feels.
She keeps insisting it's nothing, that it's just curiosity, but the more time she spends with Mia, the more uncertain she becomes—because sometimes it's hard to put the brakes on the pull she feels toward her.