“Dad, how long are you going to let Scott keep working these kinds of hours?”

“I think ‘let’ is the wrong verb,” Tessa’s father replies.

Tessa runs a hand through her hair, sighing as she sorts through her clothes. She never packed anything date appropriate. She never thought that she would need to. Most of her clothes are businessy or smart-casual. The few nice clothes she’d packed were there because she’d hoped to hang out with Dash. She’s got a couple of nice shirts, some skinny jeans, and a short skirt that can work for clubbing. But she never packed anything first date appropriate.

“Is he getting enough sleep?” Tessa asks, throwing the last T-shirt from her bag onto the bed and stifling a growl of frustration.

Dad sniffs. “Of course he is, honey. You think this is my first day as a dad?”

“He’s probably sneaking Netflix on his phone.”

“Jackie changed the password. None of us can get onto the account until Scotty’s finished his finals.” Tessa snorts. “How’s the job going, by the way?”

“Great,” Tessa replies because like hell she’s going to tell her dad about her issues with Dash, and the fact that most of her interviews have devolved into her interviewees trying to make her feel better about Dash turning her down. “Everyone is super nice, and I’m getting a lot of great details for the article.”

She hears something slicing in the background behind her dad’s voice. He is probably making dinner. Scott’s new job takes a lot of extra hours at night, so now it’s just her father and Jackie who eat dinner together every night. Tessa can remember when the entire family would squeeze into the kitchen and help make dinner. Dad on the chopping block, Tessa, Kaden and Halley grilling fish, Mary and Stacey mashing potatoes, while Scott and Jackie would stand together in front of the fridge and bicker about how many marshmallows they can fit into their mouths.

Before, it was just Mom who would cook. She hated having other people in the kitchen with her. Now that Tessa thinks about it, her house had never felt like a home until that woman had left.

“Do you know, I never thought I would have this much fun interviewing people? When I took the journalism classes at school, they made it seem like such work. But it’s just hanging out with friends and talking, and writing down what they say.”

“I bet it’s the exception that proves the rule.”

“Mmm… you’re probably right,” Tessa replies. “They’re spoiling me.”

Someone knocks on her door, and she turns. The hotel room is dim because there’s hardly anything beyond the one lamp next to her bed to light the place. She thinks that even if she could find some clothes for her date with Jared, she’ll never be able to see if it looks good.

Jared has the night off, and Tessa doesn’t have any plans to interview anyone tonight, so they’re going to have dinner. Often, Tessa gets nervous before dates, but tonight she just feels kind of… meh. Jared’s a great guy, but knowing the way that Dash gets her all hot and bothered, makes it a bit hard to get fired up about other men. Jared has a lot of work to do if he’s going to compare to Dash.

And the moment the thought occurs to her, Tessa kicks herself. It’s not Jared’s fault that she’s head over heels for another man. She needs to at least try to give him a chance.

“Hold on, Dad. I’ve got a visitor. I’ve got to go.”

“Okay, have a good night, sweetie.”

Tessa balks, before she realizes that she didn’t tell her dad about the date. He was probably just telling her to have a good rest. She hangs up and turns to the door. “Come in.”

It’s Harper, Sersha, and Mikayla. They pile into the room, Sersha with a bottle of wine in her hand, and they all burst into laughter when they see the pile of clothes on Tessa’s bed. Harper has Sersha around the waist and seems to be holding her up. Mikayla has Sersha by the other side.

“Lose something?” Harper asks.

“Leave it, and come hang out with us,” Sersha says. “The boys are going into town for some signing thing, and Logan gave Mik the night off.”

“You did everything you could to avoid that, didn’t you?” Tessa asks Mikayla.

Mikayla looks a bit chagrined, but she nods. “Logan can be a little hardcore about keeping us from working too hard.”

“Someone has to be,” says Harper.

“What’s this ruckus?” Sersha asks, waving at the piles of clothes on Tessa’s bed.

Tessa puts her phone back in her pocket and starts slipping the blouses back onto the hangers that she’d packed, transferring them to the cupboard in the corner of the hotel room. Harper takes up the other side of the bed and starts helping her.

“I’m trying to find something to wear. For my date tonight.”

Sersha and Mikayla share a look. “Ah… the infamous date. Yes, Dash has told us all about that particular nonsense,” says Sersha.

“It’s not nonsense,” Tessa says. She sits on the edge of the bed and kicks her feet, accepting the bottle of wine that Sersha offers her. “Jared’s a great guy. And it’s not like Dash is fighting to get all up on this.”

“Oh… it’s Jared!” Harper says. “Yeah, he’s kinda cute, I guess.”

Tessa smacks herself in the face. She’s kept that particular information under wraps for the last few days. She sees Mikayla and Sersha sharing another look before Mikayla starts packing all of the rest of Tessa’s clothes into her bag and setting it down next to the bed. Then she pulls Tessa up to her feet.

“Trying to find something to wear?” she asks. When Tessa nods, she gives her a smile. “Come on, I think between the three of us we can find you something.”

And that’s how Tessa finds herself being pulled into Mikayla and Logan’s room, while Sersha and Harper run to grab some choices for her from their own rooms.

“You really don’t have to do this,” Tessa says while Mikayla holds a long dress up in front of her, sizing the other woman up critically before shaking her head and returning it to her hotel cupboard.

“Of course not,” Mikayla says. “But it’s not a case of having to or not having to.”

Tessa watches as Mikayla goes through her own clothes, looking for something to fit Tessa’s needs. She feels a rush of warmth for her. Mikayla would have every right to be annoyed with Tessa for fighting with her brother-in-law, but instead, she’s helping Tessa find an appropriate date outfit with all of the determination and can-do attitude that she usually reserves for her work.

But Tessa realizes pretty quickly that she and Mikayla are kind of similar in a lot of ways. They both joined Black Lilith’s entourage to work, so most of their clothes are business-oriented, though Mikayla’s are of a much higher quality. There are a few dresses, though, and together they build up a maybe pile. While they’re waiting for Sersha and Harper to return, Tessa starts trying on the clothes, beginning with a burgundy cocktail dress with a sheer back.

“So… out of curiosity, what has Dash been saying about me?” she asks as she slides the dress over her shoulders and looks over at Mikayla. “How does he feel about me dating someone else?”

Mikayla raises an eyebrow. “You really want to know?”

The way she asks it, makes Tessa think that something horrible is coming on the back of that sentence, but she nods anyway. “Yeah, I want to know.”

“He seems to be under the impression that you’re making the date up.”

Tessa stares for a long moment, her dress hanging off of one shoulder and almost completely forgotten. “Why the fuck!”

“I know,” she says. “It’s like in Harry Potter, when Ron thinks that Hermione is making up a date to the Yule Ball so that she doesn’t have to go with him or Harry.”

Tessa is impressed by the reference. It’s the sort of thing that Dash might say, and she wonders if he has rubbed off on his sister-in-law. “But… in this case, I did want to go to the ball with Dash, but he turned me down.”

Mikayla shrugs. “It’s not a perfect metaphor.”

Before Tessa can reply, Harper and Sersha return with their arms laden with clothes.

“Fuck no! Take that off,” Harper says, dumping her own clothes on the bed and pulling at the dress that Tessa has only half gotten on. “Wrong color for you.”

“Might be a bit too formal for a first date anyway,” Sersha adds, handing her own clothes to Mikayla who starts sorting them immediately. “Do you know where he’s taking you?”

“Just a local restaurant, I think.”

“Smart casual, then,” Sersha says. She paws through Harper’s clothes while Mikayla pulls Tessa out of the dress, completely oblivious to the fact that Tessa is only wearing a bra and a G-string underneath.

The four women spend the next hour or so with their combined wardrobes, coming up with different combinations, and laughing at some of the more ridiculous attempts to be ‘sexy.’ It’s been a long time since Tessa has had a girl’s night, while hanging out and talking about clothes, sipping wine from the bottle that Sersha still has with her, and enjoying being around girly company. Jackie is too self-conscious to do things like this. Mary and Stacey have each other to play dress-up with, and Halley has been away at college. It’s not until moments like these that Tessa is aware of how little female company she actually has. It doesn’t help that her best friend is a man. Most of her friends in college were men too.

It’s nice, she decides, to have girlfriends. She wonders if they’ll maintain contact when her contract with Black Lilith is over, and she has to start looking for work elsewhere.

“You’ve suddenly gotten glum,” Sersha says, leaning over to Tessa from where she’s sitting on the bed. Mikayla is trying on one of Harper’s booty shorts, while Harper laughs like a mad woman on the ground. Tessa has a pair of shorts on her head like a bandana. “Penny for your thoughts?”

“Just thinking that I hope we can stay in contact when I leave,” Tessa replies honestly.

“When you leave?” Sersha says, confused. “You’re leaving?”

“I’ll have to… when my contract runs out, and the article is written.”

“Oh, yeah, I keep forgetting about that.” Sersha waves a hand at Tessa and takes another sip of wine. “We’ll have to come up with something else for you to write about so that we can keep you. Do you write lyrics?”

“I failed Poetry 101.”

“That’s not lyrics, love,” Sersha replies. “Mik, we’ll find something for Tessa to do so we can keep her, won’t we?”

“Of course,” Mikayla replies without hesitating. “We’ll have to be a bit creative about it.”

Tessa smiles along with them. At this moment, with the sun setting behind the curtains of Mikayla’s hotel room window, surrounded by the women behind Black Lilith, Tessa can half-convince herself that it’s possible. But it’s probably not. She knows that writing this article is a one-time thing. She can’t be expected to stay with these guys without contributing something. Maybe—she hadn’t allowed herself to think this—if she were Dash’s girlfriend, then allowances might be made. But just being a friend of the group wouldn’t be enough.

Maybe they’ll come to visit her in Chicago when they get gigs there. Maybe by the time this tour is over, Dash will be speaking to her again.

“So why Jared, if you don’t mind me asking?” Harper asks, leaning her back against the bed and looking up at Tessa and Sersha.

Tessa tried to come up with some enthusiasm for the man, but it was hard to fake. “He asked, I said yes.”

“It’s not to make Dash jealous is it?” Harper asks.

“Tessa’s not that kind of girl,” Mikayla answers.

Tessa sighs. “Dash made himself clear. Making him jealous won’t accomplish anything.”

“But he is hella jealous, though,” Sersha says. Mikayla and Harper both nod, as though Sersha has sad something profoundly wise. “I mean, he keeps telling himself that this is just a bump in the road, or that you’re making up this nonsense about seeing other men. But really, he just wants to keep you for himself.”

“Well, in that case, I’m going to need a commitment,” Tessa says simply.

Hell, I need something...