TROY

I can’t believe we’re here and she’s looking at me the way she does. In this moment, she has complete faith in me. She trusts her own judgment too, believing she won’t feel differently about us tomorrow.

But trust is a moody, backstabbing beast, and I don’t have it. Sure, I’m living the moment like any love-crazy idiot would, but what she’s asking of me now is further than I want to go. I don’t want to wake up with her side of the bed empty tomorrow.

“Aishe.”

“Yes?” Her breathing is slow, but the impact of our love shivers in her voice.

“I can’t do it. It would be like repeating what I did to you in The Hotel Room.”

“Please?” She leans down again, letting silky locks brush over my chest. “I need to get rid of what happened in my mind and fill it with something better.”

“Isn’t that what you tried to do with the video?” I whisper. “And didn’t it make things worse instead of better?”

She lets out a huff of aroused impatience and sinks so low on me that colors flutter behind my eyelids.

“I just want to be made love to in front of the mirror. Just… to know that no lead singer is watching us.” Her eyes slide open and become wider than they have all night.

We both still, staring at each other. My heart thunders, not getting the memo at first. When it does, it becomes leaden for her.

I pull her down over me until she blankets me with her small body. I hug her tight, my arms around her neck, hands burrowing under her hair so I hold her as close to me as I can. “You have no idea how hard I want to shield you from what happened. But I was the one who did it. You realize that this, right here, probably never happens, right?” I whisper.

“What doesn’t happen?” Her question comes out muffled against my neck.

“No woman comes back to the abuser to rewrite the story.”

“Don’t call yourself an abuser. Neither of you were. It’s not the right word.”

“I wish there were some intermediate word for it, but I don’t think there is,” I rasp out.

I’ll always be what I became that night. One twisted decision, and I’ll carry it with me for the rest of my life. Of course, I accept it. Of course, I deserve it. Lugging it around with me is the least I can do to even this ugly playing field I’ve created.

“I didn’t come back to my abuser. I came back to my ‘coercer,’” she invents for me. I hear it when her mouth widens against my neck, and I draw back to get a full look at her expression. I’m surprised that in lieu of tears, I find a smile.

“I’m a ‘coercer?’”

“Yes, you are. Or maybe just a seducer. You were a seducer of me, at least. I did nothing I didn’t want to do in that moment.”

“Yeah.” I close my eyes, the swift amusement she stirred in me fading. “It was out-of-place desire, directed at me because Emil wanted it so.”

“Fuck Emil,” Aishe says.

My dick doesn’t approve of our conversation. He’s slowly losing focus inside of her, but she’s so tight that I don’t fall out.

“You know Emil’s state of mind at the time. He was messed up.”

“As was I,” she murmurs.

“So fuck me for going along with it,” I say. “You were my friend. God knows how I thought that switcheroo could fix anything.”

She turns her head on the pillow, sliding halfway off me for a better look. “What exactly did you think it would fix?”

I shake my head, closing my eyes over my guilt.

“No, I mean it, Troy. I’m not being rhetorical. I just really want to know what you were thinking.”

I open my eyes and examine her. She’s exposed and earnest, the grief in her expression not as big as it often is.

“Aishe,” I sigh out. “You won’t understand how we were thinking at the time. Fuck, I hardly get it myself, now. We were idiots, okay? We didn’t have the slightest inkling of how our actions could backfire, and the last thing I want right now is to hurt you more than I already have.”

“I’m fine, Troy.” Her pitch is neither wobbly nor compassionate. It makes me feel a little better. “I can take it, okay? I mean, I just tried to talk you into taking me over there.” She points at the mirror. “That says a lot, doesn’t it?”

“You’re sure you want to hear this?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Okay.” I give a fleeting smile. “You and I were together every minute you weren’t chasing Emil. You were so desperate, in such pain, and it was fucking hard to watch. Emil was desperate too. He didn’t want to make any more mistakes and hurt you more than he already had. It was his idea, because obviously we liked each other—never mind that you only saw me as a friend. He and I agreed on one thing: that what you were doing needed to stop, for both of your sakes.”

I feel strange lying flat on my back talking about this. It’s like I’m unprotected against the enormity of Emil and my delusion. So I hike my torso up on my elbows, causing Aishe to slip off my shoulder. She slides off me altogether, then, which doesn’t feel right. Then again, there’s nothing right about halfway making love to Aishe anyway.

She sits up on the bed, collecting a part of the sheet over her crossed legs. At the back of my brain, an instinct laments the lack of that beautiful, naked view. She smoothens the palms of her hands together waiting for me to continue. “Just give it to me straight. I’m stronger than I was, Troy. You were cutting me off from Emil the hard way. Right?”

I bob my head slowly. “That’s the thing. I think we both thought we were giving you an easy, soft transition. You already had me as a friend. We could talk about everything. The only thing you had with Emil that you didn’t share with me was… that.”

“Sex,” she says. There’s gruffness in her throat.

I tip my head up to check if she’s okay. Her eyes don’t shimmer with unshed tears. My Gypsy girl could be faking it, but she looks serene.

“Yes, sex. But I wanted to give you more than that. Love. I wanted to make love to you.”

Humor expels from her nostrils in a subtle burst. “Funny thing is, you did. And at the time, it messed with my head as much as the whole here-you-go-fuck-my-tour-girlfriend stunt Emil was pulling. Because the way you treated me was different.”

“You noticed?”

“Yeah. I needed no Sherlock Holmes around to figure out that you weren’t just ‘giving it to me good.’” She smiles.

There’s a small trace of lipstick left at the corner of her mouth. I want to suck it off.

“And see, the problem was that I liked it. It would have been better if I didn’t like it. I slept with you because I was upset, because I was hungry for my love fire, thinking that was Emil. He tricked me, yes, but then he laid me open for you, and I… couldn’t accept how good you made me feel.”

I’m going out on a limb, here. “Is this why you didn’t want to talk with me after that?”

“I did talk with you.”

“For five minutes. That was it,” I remind her. “But I had so much to tell you.”

“Mostly that you were sorry and that you’d been wrong. I knew that already. You can only hear that crap so many times before you want to bang someone’s head into the wall until they bleed.”

I laugh quietly. Aishe’s eyes arch open with mirth. Then she joins me.

“You know what?” I say.

“What?”

“You should’ve done it. I’d have happily bled for you.”

I feel her hand on my knee before I see it. In soft shifts, she trails upward, soothing me with what could be absolution. The possibility of it makes my chest want to explode.

“You turned us all into chess pieces,” she says. “I was the queen, and there were two kings, the white and the black one. The white king stepped off the board, leaving the queen to the black king.”

I shake my head, forming a no with my mouth. “We were nothing but pawns. A black and a white pawn, trying our worst to make a red queen remain whole. Then, we fucked it all up.”

AISHE

I awake beneath the slow stroke of a hand. Drowsy from dreams, my body stirs, the cells of my skin instantly coveting him. His touch trails from my thigh to the other, stalks upward, igniting a ripple of pleasure with each languid shift.

I am sensory recipients, each of them feeling, needing, wanting. They let this happen to me. They do it without a second thought, and it is how it needs to be.

My mind is engrossed in us. It thinks of the present, of our pleasure, of us only.

Gentle arms shift around me. They relieve me of our sheets, gifting me with tarragon and Artemisia, causing my throat to constrict with emotion.

I don’t open my eyes until his mouth is on mine and my lips part for him. In the darkness of the night, my moan slinks out, and this man, this amazing man, he drinks my breath and gives me his in return.

“You are my priestess.” My lover’s words are too quiet for my ears. It must be my skin that hears them as I bow against him, arch into him, relishing his touch like he relishes how I’m slung around him.

“Are we doing this?” I’m as hushed as our love. He doesn’t need to answer, not when I hold him like this, not when my nails dig into his shoulders as if I’m afraid to wake up from a dream too good to be true.

“I worship you. Tell me to stop.” He fills his hands with all of me, lifts me up, squeezes me so tight all I can do is be his.

“Don’t ever stop again,” I whisper.

“Then, enough talk.” He presses me against him. Solid, steady, he’s a wave of hard muscle. Merciless, he demands in ways he hasn’t before, and God it is heart-battering.

Troy lays me to my back and prowls up. In the dusk of this crazy morning, the shimmer of his gaze holds me hostage as he spreads my legs and lowers himself over me.

“No more talk.” I exhale my agreement, and as he enters me, as he fills me, as he sinks deeper inside of me than anyone has ever been, my eyes leak bliss when I let him reach my heart.

This morning, I come to on his chest again, but it takes me longer than usual to wake up. When my eyes flutter open, my body feels too heavy to sit up and study him while he sleeps.

When I open my eyes, Troy is already awake. With one arm around my body and the other as support for his head, his eyes shimmer as he stares down at me.

“Morning, moixcha,” he says, voice beautifully husky.

“Morning, moixcho,” I reply, surprising us both. It’s difficult to believe in a cruel world out there when you’ve experienced a miracle.

We’re leaving the Ritz Regent Hotel this morning. We’re leaving Japan too, heading for New York and the Friday Night Live filming.

“I’m worried,” I say on the way to the elevators. “Are you sure about this?”

“Yeah, baby. It’s time. I want to be out in the open with you. I want everyone to know about us. I want to hold your hand, wave goodnight to my friends as we walk off together, take the elevator up to our room together, and I want it every night of the week.”

The elevator buzzes open, revealing its golden surfaces on all sides.

“Troll won’t be happy about it. Then, there’s Hailey.”

Troy tugs on my arm, making me tip forward a little. He supports my body with his own. “You think too much. The guys and the pretties will be happy for us. And the fangirls will find it ‘romantic,’ I’m sure.”

I accommodate myself against him, my back to his front. It gives him access to my stomach, and he slips two fingers under the hem of my shirt. Caressing my skin, he makes a show of looking around in the empty space. When he’s satisfied we’re alone, he tips my head back and kisses me. I giggle into our kiss.

“Just remember what I told you if the media puts on a circus again: I love you, and there’s no changing that. No matter what they say, how disruptive they become, you and I are forever.”

“Forever is a big word,” I say.

“Forever is nothing compared to you.”

“You did not just say that.” My grin is growing. “Have you ever considered a career as a Mexican soap writer?”

“Te amo, mi moixcha,” he jokes, swinging me around and kissing me.

I laugh, accepting more kisses. They’re soft, juicy, sweet, and so, so warm. When the door opens on the first floor, a gasp from outside breaks us apart.

Hailey stands there, all dolled up in her replica outfit, mane, makeup, and butterflies. Her matching earrings rock with indignation. She crosses her arms. I have time to see her open and close her mouth before Troy plaits our fingers and winds me past her.

“Morning,” he says, all natural-sounding. “Excuse us.”

“Troy! I was on my way to wake you up—the story about you and me at the gas station already broke. The guy sold them to Star Report. They work fast at that magazine,” Hailey calls behind us.

“Yeah?” Troy says, stare trained on the restaurant and the roped-in area at the back where the rest of the band is sitting. “Well, we don’t have to wonder, then.”

“Just wait until you see the cover. You can say what you want about the paparazzi, but they sure capture people well. I mean, they really captured our moment.”

I float a glance at Troy when she mentions their so-called moment again.

“Do they call it your moment or mine?” I quip.

She mutters something derisive in response, but I can’t decipher the words. Interesting, because she usually doesn’t have a problem making herself heard.

“Troy. Aishe.” Bo waves us over. “Your paparazzi shots are out.”

“Yeah, we heard.”

Emil and Zoe scoot back on their chairs, letting us move in past them to sit next to Bo and Nadia. Two copies of Star Report lie open on the same pages.

“I’m in those pictures,” Hailey snaps behind us. “Not her.”

“Doesn’t look like you, though, does it?” Elias chuckles out.

I study the first picture, the long mane she’s arranged down her back like I wear it. Are those my feathers? I touch my hair. A deep turquoise and gold, they’re currently spread randomly throughout the way I usually have them. Was I wearing them yesterday? No. Did she get into my room and borrow them?

“Troll, if you can’t get a hold of Janet,” Emil laughs out, “you know it’s because she’s busy orgasming herself.”

There are four pictures. They have comments beneath them like they’re memes, explaining what we’re seeing.

“What the fuck? No, that is not how it went down,” Troy growls. “I never kissed her, and I have no idea how he could’ve made it look that way.”

“Oh seriously, you didn’t kiss me? What’s that, then?” She juts her finger toward the last picture. I home in on it too, and—

What is going on, here?

“It’s been photoshopped,” he mutters.

“How can you say that? Look at us. You were there, I believe—like, clearly!” Hailey wedges herself in next to Troy, eyes blazing with outrage. She’s so sincere this could’ve been a lovers’ fight. It would’ve backed up the intimacy of that picture, for sure.

In the shot, Troy cradles her face with a hand. His eyes are heavy-lidded, falling closed like they do when he’s enjoying our kisses. I can almost see that shimmer in them, the one of arousal and passion, of wanting more of what he’s tasting. Oh that thing is real; Hailey and Troy are kissing, all right.

Troy and I have been together nonstop since he came back from the 7-Eleven outing. That’s fourteen hours of us talking, kissing, even making love, and all he mentioned was that Hailey had fed him candy. So if their lips touched—if they kissed—he’s been lying to me!

I send her a side-glare. God, she’s wearing a shitty copy of my medallion, the one I got from my father on my fifteenth birthday. Is there anything of mine she doesn’t want?

“You look in love,” Elias helps. “That sucks. Good thing she looks like Aishe, huh?” His eyes slide to me, which is when he realizes that I’m blinking back tears. “Shit. I’m sorry, Aishe. Paparazzi are fucking jerks. They shouldn’t have done that.”

“Right, or maybe the main thing is to not put yourself in a position where you can get caught kissing someone you shouldn’t be kissing? I doubt Bo would’ve ended up like this, for instance,” I snap.

Nadia strokes my arm. “Sweetie, it’s not as bad as it looks. I was there.”

As bad as it looks? Why does it have to look like anything? He should never have locked lips with her in the first place!

“Aishe?” Troy reaches for me. I pull away from him, blinking, keeping the tears at bay, because I’m angry—not sad—and no one can misunderstand a Gypsy woman’s fierceness for her weakness.

I’m bruxiante! This is what I get for giving in to my feelings. This is what I am, now. Moixcha my ass. What was I thinking?

“It’s okay. It’s not my business anyway,” I manage in a steady voice.

“Aishe, don’t be like that. Please, baby mine.”

“Gotta get ready upstairs.” I point to the ceiling. “Be right back, Troll.”

The darkness of victory floats through Hailey’s stare before she shakes her head. “Sorry, we didn’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings.”

Troy presses past her without answering.

I feel him at my back as I leave.