“You don’t have to stay,” I blurt, then frown.
“You want me to leave?”
“No.” I let out a gusty sigh. “Honestly, I just don’t want you to think you have to stay. I’m giving you an out.”
“Thanks.” He kisses my forehead and hugs me close. “Out received and declined.”
His comment makes me feel better. Less cheap.
Levi’s body is loose and calm. His fingers slowly comb through my hair, making me a little sleepy, which is unexpected because I rarely sleep.
“You’re thinking again.”
He doesn’t look down at me, and it gives me an opportunity to check out his sharp jawline, covered in just a little scruff.
He probably shaved earlier in the day. It’s well after midnight now.
“How did you get this scar?” I trace the white line on his chin.
“Knife,” he says, not elaborating.
I sketch his jawline with my fingertip, up around the lobe of his ear, then over the few gray strands of hair at his temple.
“You have some gray.”
“That’s the job,” he says simply. “And age.”
“You’re not that old.”
“Over forty,” he says with a grin. “But not ancient.”
“I’m on the shady side of thirty-five myself,” I admit with a small smile. “Of course, we tell the media differently.”
“Of course,” he repeats.
“I like the gray. It’s sexy.”
He captures my hand and kisses it, then rolls me onto my back and buries his face against my neck, biting and kissing the delicate flesh there.
“Touch me like that, and it turns into this.”
“I wasn’t touching you in a sexy way.”
“You were touching me,” he says simply. “That’s all it seems to take with you.”“The hotel in Phoenix is ready, and security has already cleared it,” my assistant, Rachel, says. We’re sitting on my plane, and she’s filling me in on the details of our next city for the tour.
This is typical for us. We catch up on our way to the next place. I usually forget where I am once I’m there.
Except for Seattle because I have my closest friends there. Meredith and Jax used to tour with me back in the day, but now they have families of their own, and I’m still doing this: singing, writing, touring.
I’m never home. I don’t know why I bought the huge house in Hollywood.
“The crew is setting up at the venue now, and when we land, we’ll go straight there for sound check.”
“I need a couple of hours this afternoon to rest,” I inform her.
Her brunette head rises in surprise. I never request time for myself.
“We can work that in. You do always get what you want, after all.”
“What does that mean?” Of course I get what I want. I pay your salary.
“I’m just kidding. You’re the boss.”
“Is that everything?” I smile, but her comment stings. I’m not a diva. Not nearly as bad as other famous people I’ve seen.
“I think so.” She closes her laptop and stares at me.
“Just ask whatever it is that’s on your mind.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
I roll my eyes. Rachel’s been with me for three years. She knows me incredibly well, and aside from Meredith and Jax, she might be one of the few people I trust with the details of my life.
“Okay, did you sleep with that hot guy last night?”
“Yeah.”
“Whoa.”
“What?”
“You never do that. Like, ever.”
“I know.” I swallow and cross one leg over the other. I’m so damn sore today, it’s ridiculous.
“Are you going to see him again?”
I shrug, unsure of how to respond. Just then, my phone pings with an incoming text.
“Speak of the devil,” I mutter but don’t read the message with Rachel sitting next to me. She waits for a heartbeat.
“Aren’t you going to read it?”
“Not with your nosy ass sitting here.”
She pouts but moves to a seat on the other side of the plane. “You’re no fun.”
I shake my head and open the text.
You didn’t answer me this morning. Talk to me.
I bite my lip and close the message without replying. I stare out the window, at the clouds and the mountains below.
I like Levi. I want him. And that hasn’t happened in a long time.
But I’m also broken, and he deserves better. So it’s for the best that we just go our separate ways, calling last night exactly what it was.
A one-night stand.~Starla~
“I don’t sleep.”
The doctor frowns as he types something into his cheap laptop.
“Why is that?”
Oh, I don’t know . . . nightmares from watching the love of my life die in front of my eyes? Guilt? Anger? Unbearable sadness? Pick one.
But I don’t say any of that out loud.
“Insomnia,” I reply and have to close my eyes against the wave of dizziness that settles over me every three minutes or so.
“How long has the dizziness been happening?”
I fucking hate going to the doctor. I literally just told his nurse all of this ten minutes ago. Now I have to say it all over again, and it makes me stabby. Most singing artists have a doctor on staff, but I don’t. I’m just . . . fine. And maybe a little pissy.