Chapter 12

Kirsten wasn't sure exactly what she'd done to upset Skyla, or if she'd done anything at all, but she'd been quiet since they'd gotten to the restaurant.

Kirsten didn't get it. Had it been her playing? Or maybe that she had gotten along okay with the band?

She didn't know what to do, what to ask.

Dear famous closeted country superstar with a banging body and more charisma in your pinkie finger than I have in my entire body, did I piss you off? Much love, Me.

So she sat there, sipping a glass of the house red, trying to figure out if she knew anybody here, and what on earth she'd do if she did and they came up.

"I'm sorry, honey," Skyla murmured. "I guess I'm not great company tonight."

"You're not required by law to be, you know." Kirsten went for comforting. "You can even be grumpy. If I did anything though…"

"What? No. No, honey. Not at all. You were rocking it today. I'm just tired."

Kirsten wasn't. She was buzzing. She hadn't known how much fun it was to try and keep up with professionals, how exciting it was, how exhilarating. She'd never had so much fun, and she'd had sex with Skyla.

"I—did you want to get the food to go?" They could totally do that. Meatballs heated up just fine.

"God no. I'm just being a bitch." Skyla opened her eyes wide, rolling them a little bit, and Kirsten realized how few people actually got to see this – Skyla without makeup, hair in a low ponytail, dressed in an oversized sweatshirt, and loose jeans. "I was feeling sorry for myself, I guess."

"Feeling sorry for yourself? Why?" What on earth did Skyla have to regret? She was famous, beautiful, wealthy, talented, and surrounded by people who wanted to make music with her.

"Honestly, when you talk about this town—about how you love it, about how it's home? I just want that too."

Kirsten wasn't following. "So, take it."

"What?"

"Really, where do you love? What kind of place calls to you? Oceans? Mountains? Cities? Small town? Pick one." Hell, Skyla could pick three or four.

"It's not that easy," Skyla argued. "I can't just pick somewhere and settle. That's not how life works."

"Sure you can." Kirsten thought maybe Skylar was just getting caught up in her own press. Life wasn't that hard. "You find a place, you settle in, you say ‘It's mine'."

"And that's what you did, right?" Skyla asked. "You just found a place, took it, and said it's mine?"

"Well, I mean, I'm renting. So, it's not mine, but I've been there for ten years. I guess I'm pretty entrenched there." Kirsten took a deep breath, trying not to let her temper flare to life. "I mean, it's not like this is the be-all and end-all of places. Sure, one day I'd like to have a place of my own, maybe a house somewhere that I know no one can just lease out from under me. I mean, when my landlady dies, what am I going to do? What if they raise the rent? What if they sell the house? What if they make it a single place instead of apartments? There are all sorts of what ifs, but that doesn't stop me from making a home."

Lord, her heart rate was racing, and her blood pressure had to be through the roof.

"Whoa. Whoa, breathe." Skyla reached over, sat her hand on Kirsten's, and then pulled away as if she was scared she'd be seen. "I'm sorry, honey. I didn't mean to open a can of worms. I was being silly."

"Are you gonna get in trouble?" Kristen asked. It just occurred to her it maybe sitting in a public restaurant with the broad who had rainbow-colored hair, piercings, and was kind of the equivalent of butch-on-a-stick might be dangerous to her career.

Kristen looked down at her shirt. Yep, she was even wearing plaid. She was the walking billboard for women loving women.

Skyla blinked at her like she'd grown a new head. "What do you mean trouble?"

"Well… I am queer as a three-dollar bill, you know. Not inconspicuous either." And Kirsten couldn't say that wasn't how it was going to be, because she'd left that closet behind a long time ago and wasn't interested in getting back in.

"Nobody knows who I am right now," Skyla said, her cheeks going pink. "And I have a bit of a reputation for being a bad girl." She paused and rolled her shoulders like she was uncomfortable. "I mean the record label would have a fit if I came out of the closet. Hell, I'm not even sure which closet I'd be coming out of, to be honest. I mean I was married."

"No shit?" Interesting. "To a man? Like an actual human man?" Kristen wasn't above being a little bit of a bitch herself.

Skyla cracked up. "Okay, smart ass. Yeah, an actual human man. I'm surprised you didn't hear about it—we were supposed to be the next Tim and Faith. I had the whole thing, a secret island wedding that all the press knew about and everything."

"Yeah? I told you, I follow the music, and country music isn't where I usually land." She leaned in, teasing. "Don't worry. I knew who you were."

"Thank God for small favors." Skyla's swat didn't even sting. "It didn't last long. Seriously, not even six months."

"Man, that's quick. What happened, if you don't mind me asking."

"I—he wanted some things that I didn't, and I'm not talking about sex. I'm talking about future stuff."

"What do you mean?" Kristen couldn't even imagine. Future stuff? Like what? Getting dogs together?

"Kids, honey. I'm not interested in having babies, and that was a deal-breaker. I mean, I love my dogs. I love the cats. I love my music. But I've never wanted to be a mom. Is that weird?"

"Well, not to me." Kristen let out a soft laugh. "I'm really not maternal. I mean, I suppose I'm a cat mom. That's enough for me, but babies? Not on my radar."

Hell, she couldn't remember ever even playing with dolls. She'd never wanted to be that kind of caretaker. She loved her cats, but really they just allowed her to be a grouch.

If she needed to, she could come home and sit and grumble, and the cats? They cared not.

"Well, you can see how it's expected when a pair of country music singers get married. There will be babies in short order, and when that didn't happen…and it wasn't ever going to happen." Skyla kept her eyes down on the white tablecloth. She played with the fork, making it chatter against the cloth. "I suppose I should have told him I was on the pill. That was kind of a shock."

Dude. That was borderline hardass. "Probably not as much of a shock as when he found out you were into pussy…"

That earned her a sound that was vaguely like a duck getting stepped on.

"Yeah, that was also a bit of a problem…"

"I imagine it was."

Kirsten spent a second trying to imagine what that had to be like. Constantly having to act like somebody you weren't. Constantly having to live up to someone else's expectations and knowing that a lot of people would be screwed if you didn't.

It actually kind of sounded like hell.

"So what do you do about it?"

"I don't know what you mean. It's my job." Skyla glanced down, then looked up at her with a hint of a frown crossing her face. "It's everything I ever wanted. And I don't feel like I can bitch because now I have it, and there's the band that's counting on me, and my manager's counting on me, and the label is counting on me. And most importantly the fans are counting on me, so I do what I have to."

"Even getting married?" Damn it, she shouldn't have said that. That was mean, but it was true too in a weird sort of way. "I mean don't get me wrong, I know a lot of girls who ended up getting married because they didn't have a choice. And I'm not talking about getting pregnant. I'm talking about literally not having another choice. They didn't know that they could get out of their small town. They didn't know they could just walk away. They didn't know that there was—" She opened up her arms to kind of envelope this entire space that she was so lucky to have found. "—this. That's why I said what I said about Summit Springs. I don't have to be scared. I don't have to be shy. I don't have to pretend and give up things for that. I'll never be famous. I'll never have a record label, but I get to be who I am. I guess everybody makes their choices. I'm not here to criticize yours."

"Thanks." Skyla offered her the saddest little smile. "You know, I actually feel like you kind of get me. Like you're not judging me for being sad that I can't have a hometown where I can just be myself."

Shit, she was more judging the fact that… Kirsten stopped herself short. You know what? No, she wasn't gonna judge. This wasn't her life. Not her circus. Not even marginally her monkeys. This was a weird little moment outside of time, and she was just going to enjoy it. She was not going to get in this beautiful woman's way. She was just here to have fun, and so was Skyla.

"So how many days a week do you have to be in the studio? Is there time for you to go play?" She winked, letting herself flirt again, letting herself just be open to this. "And I don't mean the guitar…"

Although Kristen kind of wanted that too. Not just the playing with the band, but the writing.

"We're still working that part out. We've got it booked for the next four days. I'm thinking about just booking it out for the next month, if it's something that's possible for the recording studio. That way we can go in and out as we feel. I like that the best, where we all have our own time and space, and we can kind of arrange it. Come in, lay down some tracks, go out and ski. That sort of thing."

"Cool. I've got to work, of course, but there's all sorts of fun little things that we can do. I mean, if you want to hang out…"

"I think I've made it pretty clear that I want to hang out." Skyla's direct look went straight to her clit.

"Yeah… I like the way you make things." Kirsten looked Skylar up and down. "Pretty clear." Kristen couldn't stop her smile for love and money. "So, there's a dance. We have it once a month at the farm. All girls. No boys allowed. It's in a barn, so there shouldn't be any photographers or anybody noticing you. You could come, we could dance, and you could meet my friends."

"You have more friends than what we met at the Outfitters?" Skyla gave her a smartassed little smile.

"Woman, I have lots of friends. I've been here for a long time."

"And why did you end up here again? A girl? Where is she now?"

Kirsten shook her head a little bit because she didn't want to talk about it. She wasn't sure she was ever really going to talk about it. In this case, the easiest answer was the simplest one. "She's around. I see her maybe once a year for about ten or twenty minutes."

Long enough to leave flowers.

"Can I meet her?"

"I don't think so honey." Kirsten sighed softly. There was really no reason to beat around the bush. "She's at the cemetery."

Skyla's put a hand to her mouth. "Oh my God. Oh my God. I'm so sorry. I didn't know."

No, no of course she hadn't. Kirsten took Skyla's hand. "Don't apologize. It was a long time ago. Short, fast, and hard, but a long time ago."

Skyla shook her head. "So you came here together?"

She nodded. "Yeah. This was home, at least for her. Her mom's still in town. I came here, like I said. We met in college, and I fell in love. Like deep, dark, and requited love. She found out that she had cancer our senior year, and I came home to be with her during her treatment. My folks disowned me when I left college—partially because I left college, but mostly because I left college for her. She couldn't bear the chemo, and from the time that she stopped the treatment until it was over it wasn't even six weeks."

It still broke her heart. There was no way around that. She'd watched the woman she loved go from healthy and happy to sixty-seven pounds and burning up from the inside in a matter of forty-five days.

"Holy fuck." Skyla shook her head. "That's nuts. That's not time enough to get anyone's shit in order."

"Right? She just burned up like tequila burns on the way down."

"Jesus, girl." Skyla blinked at her. "You got you a way with words. That's a wild hook if I ever saw one."

Kirsten chuckled, her chest loosening a little. "That's so wrong it's right."

"I know, I know. I shouldn't be all—someone died, let's write a song, but—" Skyla grinned at her, mischief shining through.

"It's been a long time. I guess that's okay, huh?"

"Well, if it's not, you tell me." Skyla's grin faded. "I can be insensitive as fuck."

"Yeah? I don't know anyone at all that's like that…" She grinned at Skyla, knowing that she needed to ease whatever drama Skyla was trying to brew up now.

"Yeah? Then a-writing we will go." Skyla grabbed some bread from the basket that sat on the table and tore off a chunk. "God, I love being off the road."

"Yeah, I can see that." Kirsten would miss her cats, and her favorite chair.

Her tea kettle.

God, was she going cottagecore?

She wasn't that old yet, dammit. Man, her friends would tease her to no end and tell her she needed to hang out with Liz and Lupe.

"Seriously, I like to eat, but I have to watch it on the road. Tuck everything in, make sure Jennifer is on the bus."

"Jennifer?"

"Personal trainer. Hot as the hinges of hell. Evil, though…"

Kirsten had to laugh at that, though she couldn't imagine just traveling with a personal trainer.

Hell, she'd never had a personal trainer.

Or a gym membership.

She hiked and biked and snowshoed and swam…

But then, she didn't put on five shows a week, eight months a year. She would bet that required a whole different level of physical conditioning.

Hell, she was bleeding under her calluses from three days of near-solid playing, and she thought she was well-practiced.

Their salads came, and that cheered them both up, she thought. Maybe they were both just hungry as hell.

"Anyway," Skyla said after long enough that it made her blink. "I have time. So, what did you have in mind?"

"Let's go dance Saturday night. It'll be fun as hell, just to two-step around the floor."

She'd wear her good button-down.

"Oh! Sorry, the salad distracted me. I'll go. I love to dance. I'm old-school enough to have been at honky tonks with cornstarch on the floor."

"You're not that old."

"You don't have to be if you're from Texas, honey. And now I know you should know that."

"Yes, but my people were not the honky-tonk types. At all. They are Houston socialite types. As in, debutante balls and shit. I didn't participate."

"No, huh? I came out that way when I was sixteen. The dress. The corsage. The book on the head lessons for my posture. I know which fork to use." Skyla forked up the salad fork and waved it gently.

"Oh ho!" She'd shaved her head, pierced her lip, and gotten her first tattoo at close to that age. It had been freeing.

"Yeah. Man, I was always drunk at those damn dances, though. Vodka in a Sprite."

"Bad girl. I love it. I spent a lot of time in a haze of smoke at the end of high school, you know?" She'd been a toker, no question.

Been.

She didn't mind a hit of green to ease things down.

"Ah, you were that kid who sat on the floor and watched your hand move?" Those laughing eyes sparkled.

"And ate grapes by the pound. God, yes."

"Oh, no. Doritos and dry roasted peanuts."

"Uhn. Doritos are my Kryptonite." She loved that spicy-cheesy-tangy yumminess beyond all reason.

"Yes. I used to eat them with French onion dip. Oh, and I had this girl who worked as a cook on the bus for a while. She would do this crazy thing where she'd melt baby Swiss cheese on them and then top it with sliced baby dill pickles."

"Oh, gag." The very idea made her feel a little hot in the face, like when you were just about to get queasy.

"It sounds awful, but it's so good. Like weird enchiladas Suizas, I swear to god."

"O-o-okay. Okay. I would try." Maybe. She'd try to try.

"I'll make it for you." Skyla winked. "I can make that, chili, and I can grill meat. Oh, and I do queso and chilaquiles. My daddy says I'm the boy he always wanted that way." She had to snort. She could kind of hear her dad say that in her head. Texans.

"I'm not a huge cook, but I love to bake. Not fancy shit—I leave that to my friend, Chey—but cookies, chocolate cake, that sort of thing."

"Yum. I love cookies, but I do break and bake when I crave hot ones. A six-pack will fit in my little oven on the bus." Skyla sighed. "This is the best damn bread." She sopped up salad dressing with a piece.

"Yeah. I am a carb whore. I don't mind a huge chunk of bread with a slab of peanut butter or a little butter and jam or…" She winked over. "I like food."

"Yeah. I hear that." Skyla moaned when the meatballs came, the red sauce smelling of garlic and that tang that only came from deep-cooked nightshades. So damn yummy. Nonna's was truly the best. "This smells amazing."

"Best in town. Don't tell Cherry." This was heaven on a plate, and they both dug in, eating hearty for a bit. Kirsten loved that in a woman—a hearty appetite in all sorts of hungers.

Finally, Skyla moaned again, leaning back to fan her face. "I am stuffed like a tick on a big ol' hound. Oh, that was good."

"I assume we'll have to get dessert to go?" she teased.

"They have good desserts?"

"Tiramisu or cannoli to die for."

"I would give good money to watch you eat a cannoli," Skyla told her.

"Let's get half a dozen." Kirsten was willing to indulge that fantasy.

"Yes, please." Skyla waved the server over, and they ordered dessert to go.

"Come home with me?" She wanted to soak with Skyla in her claw foot bathtub, she missed her cats, and she wanted a cup of tea.

"I would love to." Skyla's smile spoke volumes about other things they could do.

"Excellent. I'd love to have you." She had bath oil that smelled of sandalwood and rose.

They paid up, then as one person, got up and headed outside to her car, Skyla sliding in with her and then grabbing her hand.

It was time to go home, make tea, run a bath, and see how much licking those cannoli was worth to a certain superstar.