TWENTY YEARS, HUH? MY MASTER PLAN is working. My heart almost fell right out of my chest when she said that. She’s never referenced our future that way. In terms of decades spent together. She’s thinking marriage, right? I’ve been thinking marriage since . . . let’s just say it isn’t a new concept to me. In terms of time, we haven’t been together too long.
I know.
How else would I measure how long we’ve been together other than time? I measure it in terms of every private joke we shared in a roomful of people. In every kiss that feels like the first time over and over again. I measure it in how much better I want to be when she’s in my life. In those terms, we’ve already got eons together.
“You’re awfully quiet back there.” Kai burrows her back deeper into my chest, looking up over one shoulder, her smile brighter than the dim lamp light.
I fold the length of her hair over one shoulder, baring a stretch of naked skin to feather kisses down her neck and between her shoulder blades. She flips onto her back, reaching up to brush the hair out of my eyes. Without skipping a beat, I shift my kisses to the front, dusting across her collarbone. I open my mouth wide over her breast, laving the nipple with my tongue until she arches up, her breath hitching and her fingers clenching at my scalp.
“Your nipples are absolutely perfect,” I mumble into the underside of her breast. “Have I ever told you that?”
“Once, twice, five, maybe seven times.” She laughs, her Southern drawl even slower, her breath still jagged, nipples tight and wet under my tongue.
“But that was in the throes of passion.” I dip to kiss the tattooed prayer wrapping around her ribs. “I’m saying it completely sober, so you know it’s true. Not in the throes.”
“Will you stop saying throes? No one say throes.”
“I just said it.” I lift my head, teasing her with a glance. “You’re saying I invented the word throes?”
“No, not invented, just that people don’t use the word . . .” She rolls her eyes. “Shut up and get back to my nipples. You were saying?”
My hands roam her flat stomach and one sleekly muscled thigh. This girl and her dancer’s legs are gonna be the death of me. I flip her back onto her side and spoon my body around hers until that tight ass is pressed against me as I reach around to cup her breasts. I know she’s self-conscious about them.
“How could you ever think these breasts were anything less than perfect?”
“They’re tiny,” she whispers. “Most men—”
“Don’t matter since I’m the only one who’ll ever see them.” A horrible thought blackens my brain and I turn her onto her back again. “Pep, you still want to act?”
“You know I do. Eventually. Malcolm already has an acting coach lined up.”
Fucking Malcolm. Not even going there.
“I mean, you know you can’t do nudity, right?”
“Rhyson,” she groans. “Don’t you dare start with this.”
“And no sex scenes.” Okay. Compromise. “I mean I guess, kissing is okay. Like closed-mouthed kissing.”
She turns those tilted eyes my way wearing her “gimme a break” face.
“Name the last movie you saw with closed-mouthed kissing, no nudity, and no sex scenes, Rhys. In recent memory! A Wonderful Life doesn’t count.”
I mull that over because there’s gotta be something she can do.
“Frozen.” I can barely get it around the laugh swelling in my throat. “They had it on the plane.”
“Dude, you just said Frozen.”
“That’s it. I just solved our problem. Animation. You’d make a great Pocahontas. Or who was that other one? Mulan?”
“Diverse Disney princesses.” Her shoulders shake with the laugh. “That’s what you’re leaving me? And by the way, you don’t have to physically resemble animated characters to play them.”
“But it would lend a certain authenticity, don’t you think?”
“We’re not having this discussion any time soon.”
“Animation could be a great way to ease into acting, Pep. I think you should consider it. Because if you start acting before you’re good, I’ll rotten tomato you.”
“You would rotten tomato your own girlfriend?”
I shrug, turning down the corners of my mouth and linking my hands behind my head.
“If you suck, you’d leave me no choice.”
“If you rotten tomato me, I’ll never give you another blow job.”
Even knowing she’s pulling my chain, my heart stops for a second at the possibility of those lips never wrapped around my cock again.
“You, my lady, are the most powerful woman in the universe.”
She laughs so hard she curls her legs up and grips her stomach under the sheet.
“Blow jobs make me the most powerful woman in the whole universe?”
I lift up on an elbow, turned on my side, pushing the hair back from her face.
“Nope. Just in mine.”
Our eyes hold until the laughter evaporates.
“You’re crazy, but I adore you,” she whispers. “You know that?”
When someone says they adore you, it’s like love with a heap of cherries on top. You could love someone and kind of hate them. But to adore them, you have to like them a lot. And still it seems a pretty flimsy word to describe what I feel for this girl.
She lifts off the pillow far enough to give me a quick kiss that I waste no time taking deeper, licking into her mouth and nudging my thigh between her legs.
“Don’t start again,” she says, the words husky against my lips. “Or we won’t get to talk.”
“And that’s a bad thing?” My hands skim over a naked hip beneath the sheet.
“Yes.” She pulls back to look at me. “You haven’t even told me how this happened. How you came to be here with me.”
“Maybe if you hadn’t started humping my leg as soon as I walked through the door.”
“You’re so conceited.” She chuckles, tracing the musical notes over my ribs. “How long do I have you?”
“Just tonight.” We stop smiling as that sinks in. That when we wake up in the morning together, it’ll be the last time for a while. “I checked the mistletoe schedule and realized you were headed for Berlin. Since Kaos lives here, I suggested coming to him instead of him flying to LA. I’m going to his home studio in the city tomorrow, and then I gotta fly back to work on Marlon’s album.”
“I’m glad you came.” She drops her eyes from mine, biting one corner of her mouth. “I needed this.”
So did I. I had to flip the world upside down and spin it around a couple of times to make this happen, but I’d do it again if it meant having this. Just one night. If anyone had told me a year ago I’d cross continents for one night with a girl, I would have laughed that person out of my face. And yet here I am. One night only and feeling no regret.
“How’d you get into my room?” Kai wears a frown at the top of her face, smile at the bottom.
“Luke told your road manager he was playing a joke or a prank and needed to leave something in your room.”
Her fingers go still against my chest, and she looks up, smile gone.
“Luke?” She pulls back. “Luke got you into my room? He knows you’re here? Knows we’re together?”
“I know you don’t want us public right now, but Luke’s not public.” I brush my thumb over her lips. “We can trust him not to tell anyone.”
“Yeah, I know how close you guys are.” She closes her eyes briefly before opening them again, finding mine in the half light, reluctance all over her face. “He, um, well, he saw something earlier today that he may have misunderstood. I need to tell you about it.”
“What happened?” My hand falls away from her face.
“So he, uh, saw Dub kissing me backstage.” She grips my biceps right away, probably because she already knows I’ll find Dub and kick his ass all the way back to Ireland’s fields of green. “I didn’t kiss him back.”
Volcanic heat scalds my face and neck, lava red hazing my eyes. She’s still talking, but I couldn’t tell you what the hell she’s saying. I haven’t heard a word since she said Dub kissed her.
“What the fuck, Pep?” I toss the sheet back and turn away from her, planting my feet on the floor, squeezing the edge of the mattress. Holding on to my control. My fingers rake through my hair as I struggle to check the rage pumping hot through my veins.
“I didn’t kiss him back.”
I glance back to see her sitting up against the headboard, eyes wide and lips still swollen from our kisses, from being wrapped around my cock.
“He kissed you? You let him?”
“No, as soon as he grabbed me—”
“Grabbed you?” I stand and face the bed, searching her arms for bruises I might have overlooked. “Did he hurt you?”
“No, not like that.” She tips her head back to study the ceiling like it might help her get me to understand before she looks at me again. “It happened so fast. One minute he was asking me to dinner and the next—”
“Asking you to dinner?”
Like on a date?
“He asked if I wanted to go out, which wasn’t a big deal. Then he said he knew I was still getting over you, but he thought we’d be good together if I would give him a chance.”
“What kind of chance?”
“You know what kind of chance, Rhys.” She pulls the sheet taut over her legs before looking at me. “He hasn’t said anything like that while we’ve been on tour, and he’s never tried anything before. Nothing’s been going on. He pulled me in for a kiss and I jerked back immediately, but Luke saw.”
I snatch my jeans from the floor, zipping and snapping them, long, swift steps taking me toward the bathroom.
“You’re not hearing me,” Kai says from the bed behind me. “Nothing really happened. I just didn’t want Luke to think something did and tell you and . . . you know.”
I look back to see her standing on her knees in the middle of the bed, sheet wrapped haphazardly, barely covering her breasts, dark hair spilling around her shoulders. She looks so damn delicious I want to bury my head between her legs and eat that sweet pussy ‘til the sun comes up. I still taste her, and the thought of Dub ever . . .
“Fuck!” Anger sets the expletive off in my mouth, and I walk into the bathroom. “I need a minute.”
“Rhys, just listen—”
“When you need space, I give it to you.” At the bathroom entrance I face her, arms overhead, gripping the doorframe. “So give me a damn minute.”
I close the door with more force than I intend, sitting on the edge of the tub, the insulated quiet of the luxurious bathroom denting my fury. There’s nothing to this. I’m sure that’s what she’s trying to tell me, but I can’t hear it right now. Dub kissed her? He grabbed her? He asked her out on a date? A tiny voice in the recesses of my mind warns me not to trust her, tells me there’s got to be more to this. That where there’s smoke, there’s gotta be fire. That voice can shut the hell up. What do I give a damn about smoke? Kai’s all I want, and I’m fooling myself if I think as soon as I’m on the other side of that door I’ll be able to resist her.
It’s not even the kiss. The actual kiss. I can’t help but remember those images of the two of them on Instagram having fun on this tour. Just because she loves me, doesn’t mean she doesn’t like him. They have a lot in common. I’ve seen them dance together, and their chemistry is undeniable. They’re friends. I shouldn’t begrudge her that connection.
But I do.
He likes her. He wants her, and for him to have taken a kiss . . . Every kiss is mine. That’s an intimacy he doesn’t get. Ever.
Damn thief.
The door cracks open, and Kai sticks her bed-rumpled head in, an unspoken plea loud in her eyes.
“Your minute’s up,” she whispers. “Can I come in?”
When are you ever out?
I nod, studying the cold tiles under my bare feet. She steps in wearing the wife beater I had under my sweatshirt, so big on her the collar slides off her shoulder, barely covering her breasts, and the hem hangs to mid-thigh. The sight of her in something that still smells like me, may even still hold the heat from my skin, softens the hard knot of rage in my chest.
She sits on the floor, back to the wall, knees pulled up to her chest, hands wrapped around her ankles
“You know I wouldn’t kiss Dub, right?” she asks softly. “And you can only blame him for so much because I didn’t tell him we’re together. If you want to be mad at someone, be mad at me.”
She looks up, shoulders tensed like she’s braced for a blow.
“I’m not comfortable with this arrangement anymore,” I say after a few seconds I use to calm down a little more.
“What arrangement?” Caution takes over her expression.
“You working so closely with Dub.”
“Rhyson, I don’t get a say about that. It’s Luke’s tour, not mine.”
“It could be. You could come to Prodigy and have your own tour.”
“Oh, you mean you could gift me a tour out of the goodness of your heart.” She shakes her head, dark strands of hair clinging to her shoulders. “When will you get that I don’t want you giving me anything. I don’t want a hand out because I’m your girlfriend.”
“This is a useless conversation because we won’t see eye to eye.” I grip my knees, holding onto my control. “And I didn’t cross the Atlantic to spend the one night I have with you fighting.”
She nods, looking up from the floor, the stiff lines of her face softening.
“What do you want, Rhyson?”
I shake my head, a weary sigh crossing my lips.
“Don’t ask me that unless you really want to know.”
“Tell me.”
“Okay.” I shove my fingers through my hair, looking her dead in the eye as I lay it all out on the line. “I want Dub out of your life. I want you off this tour that’s wrecking you. I want you on my label where I can take care of you. And I don’t want to pretend we aren’t together. How’s that?”
She gives me a look that’s half helpless, half frustrated.
“Those are all things I can’t change right now, Rhys.”
“Won’t,” I correct. “Things you won’t change. Not can’t.”
She presses her forehead to her knees, muffling her words.
“Then I don’t know how to make you happy.”
I’m not handling this well. Neither of us is. We take turns hurting and pissing each other off. I brush her hair back and cup her chin, bringing her eyes back to me.
“Kai, I have you back. We just had amazing sex, and I get to fall asleep with you in my arms tonight. Believe me—I’m happy.” I force a smile. “You asked me what I want. That’s something different.”
“Most of what you want is out of my control.” She grabs my hand stroking her hair, turning my knuckles to her lips. “What can I give you?”
Such a dangerous offer. If she’s not careful, I’ll take everything she has just because I can’t stand the thought of anyone else having any of it.
“Tell him.” I slide down the tub rim until we’re close enough for her to rest her head on my knee. “The media is one thing. I get that. We won’t go public until the tour is over, but Dub needs to know we’re together and that what he wants won’t ever happen.”
“I can do that.” She lifts her head and meets my eyes. “I’ll tell him.”
“I’m sorry if you think I’m overreacting, but—”
“I don’t.” Her short laugh bounces off the bathroom walls. “While you were in here taking your minute, I thought of how I’d feel if some other girl kissed you. I’d respond the same way.”
“Really?” I never think of Kai as jealous or possessive, but I like it. A lot. It’s nice to not be alone in this.
“I’m yours and you’re mine, right?” On her knees she crosses the space between us until she’s between my legs, her elbows resting on my knees. “No one else gets to touch you either.”
She claims me with a look before leaning in to add a kiss. Maybe she means for it to be quick, but I can’t let her go. My hands at her hips urge her closer. I deepen the kiss until we lose minutes in one another, our lips clinging, hands clutching, breaths catching. The thought of someone else tasting her like this sends a chill across our passion. I’m chilled another degree when the image of Jimmi naked in my shower a few weeks ago revisits me. If I’m expecting full disclosure from Kai, I can’t give her any less.
“Hey, I need to tell you something, too.” As much as I’d rather just scoop her up and tuck her in, because the signs of exhaustion show all over her face the later it gets, I need to say this. I owe her that.
“Talk.” She yawns, covering her mouth, eyes watering. “Sorry. Early morning. Long day.”
“I’ll make this quick so you can get some rest.” I haul in a breath and dive in. “You know Jimmi and I have been friends a long time, right?”
“Since high school.” She nods, coughing a little.
“Yeah, since high school.” I slide down off the edge of the tub until I’m on the floor, bare back pressed against the side. “Well, there was one night when we were, uh, more than friends.”
I let that sink in before meeting her eyes. She’s gone still, a small frown gathering on her face.
“The two of you—”
“It was one night,” I cut in. “I was on her tour for some dates last summer. We got drunk, and I barely remember it. It meant nothing.”
Better revise that.
“Well, it meant nothing to me, but Jimmi, she . . . it meant something to her.”
“You never thought to tell me this before?” she asks quietly, studying the dark paint on her toenails that’s started chipping.
“I didn’t think it was important.” I shrug. “It happened before you and I were even together, and I thought she’d gotten over it.”
“But she hasn’t?” she comes back right away. “What happened?”
“Couple of weeks ago she came by my place because I was supposed to be working on a song for her. She could see I was, um, missing you.”
No need to detail how I was basically off the grid and living under my piano because Kai wouldn’t talk to me. A man’s gotta maintain some self-respect.
“That’s when she showed me the pictures of you and Dub on Instagram. Started building a case that we should give it another go since you had moved on with him.”
“I don’t even manage that account, Rhys. Malcolm wanted me to have a presence on social media. One of his interns posted all that stuff. She took a ton of pictures in a few days and just spread them out over several posts.”
“Whatever. Doesn’t matter.” It really doesn’t right now. I need to get this out. “I told her I didn’t believe that, and that you and I . . . well, there was still an us.”
“As much as I fought it,” she says, eyes softening a little. “There was always still an us.”
“Glad we can agree on that.” I bite the inside of my jaw before continuing. “I went upstairs to grab a quick shower, and she snuck in behind me.”
“In the shower?” Kai’s eyes go wide. “She was in your shower? Were you naked? Was she? What happened?”
The questions fly past my head, and I try to field them as they come.
“Yeah, in my shower where I was naked and so was she.”
“And what happened?” Kai demands.
“Nothing.”
Give her all of it, my conscience screams at me.
“Okay, something small happened,” I say. “I pushed her away immediately, though.”
“You mean like how I pushed Dub away immediately?”
“I don’t appreciate the parallel, but yeah. Like that.”
“She just kissed you?”
“Um, no, she actually didn’t.” I hesitate before giving a mental what the hell and coming out with it. “She grabbed my dick.”
All is quiet for a moment, and I’m not sure she heard me.
“Pep, I said she—”
“No,” she cuts me off, wrapping her fingers around my cock through my jeans. “She grabbed my dick, and if she does it again, she’s gonna get herself slapped. You should convey that to her.”
This is so damn hot. It shouldn’t be, but yeah.
“I’ll make sure to tell her.” I barely breathe lest she take her hands away from my very happy place.
“Seriously, Rhys.” Kai scoots away, taking my stiffie with her, sitting back against the wall, displeasure in her frown. “Not cool.”
“So maybe we’ll call it even since she thought we weren’t together just like Dub did.” I consider her across the small space. “But you’ll tell him, right?”
“Right.”
“I’m just glad this tour is almost over. I understand you working with him on Luke’s tour. It’s Luke’s right to choose who he wants on his team, but you won’t be working with Dub for your project, right?”
She’s quiet and avoiding my eyes.
“Kai, right?”
“I don’t know.” She straightens her legs out in front of her, leaning forward. “Once Dub knows we’re together it won’t be a problem. I think it’ll be okay, Rhys.”
“No, it won’t.” I give an adamant shake of my head. “He still wants you. I’m not cool with you working together beyond the tour.”
“He’s the best in the business. We’ve already started brainstorming stuff for my videos.”
“Then un-storm. There are other choreographers out there.”
“Jimmie went further than Dub did today, and I’m not asking you not to work with her again. For that matter, did I ever ask you not to work with Petra?”
“That’s the thing. You could. At any moment you could say ‘Hey, Rhys, could you please not work with the girls you’ve fucked,’ and I wouldn’t.”
“But I trust you, so I don’t need to do that.”
“Don’t make this a trust issue. It’s not.”
“It absolutely is. If you trust me, then working with Dub shouldn’t be a problem.”
“I don’t trust him. It’s about eliminating any threat to the most important thing in my life, which is this relationship.”
“That’s not fair, and you know it.”
“No, I don’t know it. What I know is that I’m prepared to put you first, and you’re not prepared to do the same.”
Voicing this hidden frustration is freeing, but I hate the hurt that shadows her expression at my words.
“You think my career is more important to me than this relationship?” Her eyes add a demand to her question. “More important than you are?”
“What am I supposed to think? You want to continue working with a guy who tried to kiss you today because it might help your career.”
“A guy who thought I was single. I told you I’ll tell him I’m not.”
“True. This wouldn’t have happened if you would tell people we’re back together. Again, a move you’re making with your career in mind.”
“You said you agreed with that. Understood it, and you’re going back to it like it’s a strike against me now? If it came down to it, you know I’d choose you. But it doesn’t have to come down to it. That’s what I’m saying. Dub’s not a threat, and everyone will know we’re together after the tour. Are you good with that or not?”
I actually am. I don’t know why we’re fighting. Why I’m pressing this when I don’t have to. There’s this part of me still aching from the two months when she wouldn’t even take my calls. I made one wrong move and almost lost her. That part of me has been left uncertain, afraid I’ll make another wrong move. Or that she will. That part of me is afraid our love is as fragile as it is strong. And that part of me is about to fuck things up all over again. It makes me say and do dumb shit that will only keep pushing her away.
“I trust you,” I answer after a moment. “I guess I was just thrown by the kiss. I didn’t handle this well. I’m sorry.”
“Neither did I. If I—” Before she can finish, a rough cough rattles in her chest, making me feel like an inconsiderate asshole.
“Hey, up off that cold floor.” I sit on the edge of the tub again, gesturing for her to come to me. She climbs into my lap, looping her arms behind my neck. We’ve gone from snarling to snuggling in under sixty seconds flat.
“You may not believe it,” she says, caressing the back of my neck. “But you’re first. In all of this, you’re first, Rhys. I’ve dreamt of this chance, worked for this shot my whole life. I just want to do it right. It’s not worth losing you, though. Not worth losing this. You believe that?”
I look down at her, huddled close against my chest, shivering and heavy-lidded. She’s done. Exhausted from the rigors of today and the days before it. She has rehearsal in the morning and a show tomorrow night, and I have her up late arguing about shit that doesn’t even matter. Is this the lesson I should have learned the last time? Hold something you love too tightly and you’ll crush it? I can’t go through that again, and I won’t put Kai through it either.
I stand up, hoisting her light weight against my chest, walking back into the bedroom.
“I said do you believe that, Rhys?” Kai mutters into my shoulder.
“I do, baby.” I lay her down on the bed, crawling in behind her and pulling the down comforter over us both.
“You’re not just saying that?”
“Nope.” I turn off the lamp, plunging the room into darkness I hope will push Kai over the edge of exhaustion into the deep sleep her body craves. “I believe you.”
“Are we done talking?” She turns over to face me, her breathing slowing down to a sigh over my lips. “We can talk some more if we need to.”
“Let’s try not talking.” I pull her in, stroking her back until her body relaxes against me.
“I like it when we don’t talk.” Her voice gets softer the closer she gets to sleep. “I can be quiet with you.”
“Then do it.” I drop a kiss into her hair. “Be quiet with me, baby.”
And after a few minutes, the only sound in the hotel room is her deeper breathing. I lie perfectly still for a long time, but my thoughts remain in constant motion, our argument replaying in my head. I need to stay out of her business. I know it’s best for our relationship, but I can’t ignore my need to protect her from sharks like Malcolm and guys like Dub. There has to be a balance. Maybe I’ll ask Dr. Ramirez next week in our one-on-one session the best way to find it.
Once I’m sure she’s not waking up, I carefully roll out of bed and close the bedroom door, making my way to the front of the suite. Earphones plugged into my phone, I prop my feet up on the coffee table and submerge myself into Schumann. Chopin’s unconventional, whimsical compositions always creatively unstick me because he erased so many existing lines and drew his own. Schumann is for soul searching. He was a man divided, who literally created two personalities for himself, the dreamer and the rebel, and would sign his compositions based on which of the two helmed that particular piece. “Davidsbündlertänze” soothes one side of me and incites the other. One faction wants to protect Kai and intervene at every turn, and the other cautions me to give her space, to simply be there when she needs me. I’m still not sure if either side knows best as the song on repeat lulls me to sleep.
A firm knock on the door startles me awake. I gather my bearings, disoriented. I’m not under my piano, but I spent most of our one night on the couch. I’m cursing the waste when I peer through the peephole.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
According to my watch it’s barely eight o’clock, and Dub stands outside Kai’s hotel room. My hand is on the knob and turning before I think twice about it. Kai’s going to tell him about us anyway, right? She said it last night. Not to mention I can’t wait to see his face when I open this door.
This may not have been the right call, but it’s so worth it to see the shock, followed quickly by displeasure, his expression gives away.
“Gray.” His eyes narrow at the edges, his face pinching into a scowl. “What are you doing here?”
“You mean in Berlin?” I fight a smile, but it might come through just a little. Smugness is so classless, but I can’t help it. “Or in Kai’s room? I’m thinking neither is any of your business.”
Dub visibly stiffens, and I know if he could, he’d wrap those ham-sized hands around my throat.
“Look, I don’t mean to be an asshole about this . . .” I lean against the doorjamb.
“You don’t mean to? Oh, it just comes naturally, does it?” he asks. “So it’s a gift.”
Enough pleasantries. This son of a bitch kissed my girl yesterday and has the nerve to show up at her room first thing in the morning. Over-eager bastard. He needs to state his business and be on his way.
“What do you want, Dub?”
For a minute the look on his face is so exposed I have the answer to my question even though he doesn’t say a word. He wants my girl. Sorry. Shit outta luck, dude.
“I need to talk to Kai.”
“She’s still in bed.”
We watch one another for long seconds while the intimate implications of that statement sink in.
“I didn’t know you two were back together,” he finally says. “She never mentioned it.”
“Yeah, we wanted to avoid the media attention while she’s on tour.” I shrug. “Like I said, she’s still asleep, but I can give her a message for you.”
“I don’t need you to deliver messages for me.” He laughs, crossing his arms over his wide chest. “I assume you’ll be leaving soon, and I’ll still be here with her. You hate that, don’t you?”
“What I hate is the fact that you want my girl.” If he wants gloves off, they can come off. “And you can’t seem to grasp the fact that it’ll never happen.”
“Maybe you hate the fact that she just may like me, too.” He leans forward, squeezing his thumb and index finger together. “Just the tiniest bit. Maybe just enough.”
“She’s your friend, yeah. No accounting for taste.” I turn my mouth down at the corners, outwardly calm, inwardly feral. “But if you think there’s more on her end, you’re mistaken.”
“Ya sure about that, are ya?” His Irish accent thickens and his smile grows wider. “Seems to me you have a habit of foockin’ up, and maybe all I have to do is be around at the right time. And maybe I will be, yeah?”
Before I can form words to even tear into this asshole, a sound behind me catches my attention, and I’m sure Dub’s too. Kai shuffles into the suite, rubbing her eyes groggily, my wife beater hanging off one shoulder, a perky, rose-tipped breast exposed, dark hair clinging to her arms and shoulders.
“Baby, was someone at the—”
“Kai, get back in the room!” I snap, shifting to block Dub’s view.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know . . . I . . .” Her eyes get wide when she catches a glimpse of her choreographer in the hall. She drags the strap up over her shoulder and turns to dash back into the bedroom, the door slamming behind her.
When I turn back to face Dub, his mouth is set, expression grim. Maybe seeing her drove home that I’m the only one who gets to see her that way, who has her that way, and he never will.
“I hope you enjoyed the view.” Irritation still roughens my voice. “’Cause that’s the closest you’ll ever get. I promise you that.”
“Tell Kai I came by in case she wanted to grab breakfast before rehearsal,” he says, not addressing my promise. “We have a production meeting at nine, so make sure she’s not late.”
Without another word, he turns and walks down the hall. I close the door and head back to the bedroom. Kai sits on the edge of the bed, head buried in her hands. She looks up when I enter, cheeks pink.
“I had no idea he was here. Oh my God.”
“It’s okay.” I sit beside her, dragging her onto my lap and pressing a kiss to her lips. “He got an eyeful of what he’ll never have.”
She pulls back, searching my face.
“So I guess he knows we’re together, huh?”
“Sorry. I was asleep and didn’t think twice about answering the door. He was gonna find out anyway.”
“Yeah.” She nods, laying her head against my shoulder. “I’ll talk to him later. Explain what’s up. He’ll be fine.”
“He has no choice but to be fine.” I pause, looking for a way to say this without sounding insecure and jealous. “I’m serious about you not working with him beyond this tour.”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” She slides off my lap, standing at the foot of the bed.
“We’re at the bridge, Kai.” I wrap my hands around the backs of her thighs, bringing her back to stand between my legs. “He as much as admitted he’s just biding his time. Waiting for me to fuck up again so he can make his move.”
“He said that?” She frowns, pushing one hand into my hair and cupping my face with the other.
“Pretty much.” I lean into her palm. “Look, I can’t make you do anything. I’ve seen where that gets me, but I can tell you when someone in your life wants me out of it. And Dub wants me out. You do what you want with that information.”
She stares at me unblinkingly for a few moments, and for the first time, I think I may have handled this the right way. I think the wiser part of me won this round because she nods, a thoughtful expression on her face.
“Okay,” she says softly. “I’ll tell Malcolm we need to find someone new.”
There is so much inner fist pumping going on, but I keep a cool front, just nodding like I haven’t won this round.
“I overslept.” She climbs up on the bed, knees on either side of my legs, her ass in my lap. “I need to shower and get to this production meeting. I guess you have to go?”
“Yeah.” I press her back until we’re heart to heart. “Supposed to meet Kaos at his place around eleven.”
“I can’t believe you came all this way for one night.” She peers at me, a small smile on her lips. “Was it worth it?”
“You mean were you worth it?” I whisper into her hair.
After a second’s hesitation, she pulls back to study my face and nods.
“I’ll always move heaven and earth to be with you,” I assure her. “When it makes no sense. When it wastes time. When it’s hard. Doesn’t matter. If you ever wonder if you’re worth it, the answer’s always yes.”
Maybe every time I’ve said that before, it hasn’t gone much further than her ears. It hasn’t made it past her head to her heart. For some reason today I think it sinks in that I mean it. That there’s nothing in my life I wouldn’t forfeit to be with her. As crazy as it sounds, as quickly as it happened, it’s just there. It’s just true. And there’s nothing I would do to change it. Maybe it’s that realization that makes her mean it, too, because for the first time I believe her when she answers.
“And there’s nothing I wouldn’t give up for you.” She rests her forehead against mine, her eyes sober and set. “I live you.”
I didn’t know what it would mean to me when she said it that way for the first time again, our way, but it unlocks something inside of me. A certainty that I didn’t imagine our love the way it was before. No matter what Dub or Jimmi or the media or damn Instagram would lead me to believe, I never lost her. What’s between us won’t be destroyed by one fight or two months apart or anything else that’s thrown at us.
“I live you, too, Pep.” I flatten the words between our lips. “God, so much.”
And that’s all that counts.