Chapter 16

Kirsten's phone started ringing at eight o'clock in the morning. She fumbled for it, her eyes crusted over. They'd had a late night. They'd stayed in the bar until two, and then they'd come home and made love. It was damn near dawn by the time they'd gone to bed and really gotten to sleep.

The image on the phone that came up was Lupe from MM Outfitters. And she frowned. Trying to figure out why on earth Lupe would be calling her.

"'lo?"

"Hey, honey. This is Lupe."

She would have rolled her eyes, but they were closed. "Yes, Mom, I know. What's up?"

"I know it's early for you, but. The internets. They're going crazy."

"The internets." What the hell was Lupe talking about?

"Yes, ma'am. You and that girl, that little Skyla girl singer. There's videos of y'all up singing and playing and hanging out at the bar with Evie and Chey and everything. They're calling it like a lesbian hoe-down."

"Oh, fuck me."

"Yeah, that was sort of my position too. I just figured somebody who cared about you should let you know before somebody who didn't did." Lupe sounded sorry, and Kirsten didn't quite know what to say.

That this is gonna suck?

There was no way around that.

"Well, I appreciate it. I'll give you a holler later. Thank you so much for letting me know."

She hung up her phone and stared for a second. Dammit. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to do.

"What's wrong?" Skylar's voice was soft, worried. Like she kind of knew.

"Well, my dear. It sounds like we had a bastard with a phone and a YouTube account in the bar last night."

"Ah, is that all?"

Okay, that was not exactly what she had expected the response to be, but she would take it. That worked. "Pretty much, yes. Besides the whole lesbian hoe-down comment. Yeah, I think that's pretty much it."

"Huh." Skyla stretched. "Last time I heard, it was not illegal to hang out with your girlfriend and your friends in a bar. I'm over twenty-one. And besides, that wasn't even a bar. It's a pizza joint with a bar."

"Hey, if you don't care, I don't care. I am more than happy to go back to sleep." She rolled over and blinked at Skyla. "It is only 8:00 in the morning."

"Are your friends mad?"

She snorted. "My friends were just warning me so that you wouldn't wake up to bad news, honey. That's all. They're just worried about you."

Skyla pinked and kind of grinned, her nose wrinkling with it. "Oh, that's sweet. But if my career can't weather something like this? I'm in big trouble. I mean, don't get me wrong. There will be the screamers. The think of the children-ers. And I'm sure my ex-husband will be out there banging the drum of poor, abused old man."

Kristen nodded like she understood, but there was a part of her that wasn't sure what all this was. Sure, it had felt to her that, if Skyla was not absolutely in the closet, she was not entirely out of the closet. In her experience, country and western fans could be a little intense. Still, Skyla knew her business and, lord knew. Kirsten didn't. So she was just gonna let it go.

"Do you want to go back to sleep or do you want some coffee?" Oh man, Skyla sounded way too awake for her, but coffee meant coffee. And that meant being awake. And that meant somebody wanted to talk, so she better get her butt up.

"I'd love coffee. You want me to make it?"

"No, I can do it." Skyla grabbed her phone and headed downstairs. And Kirsten heard her let Reba out of the little crate.

There was a quiet down there that just felt bad. So she slipped on a pair of sweatpants and a pair of fuzzy socks and her favorite NIN T-shirt.

Sleeping wasn't near as much fun as hanging out with her beautiful lover, right? Of course right.

She bebopped downstairs, the cold air making her nipples rock hard. She needed to feed the cats and figure out if she had anything to offer Skyla for breakfast.

Surely, she did, right?

Bacon? Oatmeal? Something?

"What would you like for break—" She turned the corner, stopping short at the sight of Skyla standing there in tears. "Babe? Babe, are you okay?"

"I—" Skyla stared up at her, wide-eyed, cheeks red as roses.

Skyla held up her phone and plastered across the screen were texts.

Brenda.

Andi.

Mich.

Mama.

Daddy.

Granny.

Geoff.

The texts went on and on.

"Oh, dammit." What was she supposed to say? What was the right tact to take? "It wasn't like we were making out on stage, honey. You were at a pizza joint in a tourist town."

"You and I both know better."

Yeah, well, now so did everyone else, obviously. Christ.

"What can I do?"

One of the cats headbutted her, and she bent down and scooped it up.

"I don't know. Nothing? We can't do anything at this point. We just have to ride it out. It just went viral quick." Skyla's eyes were landing everywhere but at her.

"Well, like I said, I wasn't eating you out in front of the audience. It wasn't dirty. We were playing music." And she wasn't going to be ashamed of it.

Hadn't Skyla said a few minutes ago not to worry about it? That it was no big deal?

She was fairly sure that was what she'd heard.

"I know! I do. I just didn't expect—this. I didn't expect for hashtag lesbian hoe-down to be trending."

"Is Twitter still a thing?"

She tapped on her phone screen a few times, then held it out so Kirsten could see.

They weren't making out, no, but they did share a kiss at the bar after their set was over.

"Do you know who took this?"

Kirsten shrugged. "How would I know?"

Contrary to popular belief, she didn't know everyone in Summit Springs. Not even close.

"You've worked at this place how long? Ten years? Fifteen?"

"I'm not that old! Jesus. Fifteen years. What is wrong with you?" She went to fill the Keurig up with water. "I didn't notice anyone filming us."

Maybe she could figure out who was waiting that section, but even if she did, who knew who was there?

And it wasn't illegal. They were performing. It was a public place, a public performance.

"What's wrong with me? My granny texted to ask me if I was a lesbian!" Skyla's expression was absolutely devastated, shattered.

Ouch.

"Okay. I don't know what you want me to say." She was a lesbian. No question, no comments, no profound statements. She was queer. Into women. A carpet muncher. Definitely one of those sapphic chicks on the butchy side.

"I don't know what I want you to say either." Skyla swallowed hard, fingers drumming on the counter. "I thought I'd be totally cool with it. I thought I'd just be, like completely okay." She looked stunned, almost bruised. "I don't think I'm okay."

Kirsten reminded herself that this is what happens when you hook up with somebody in the public eye. This is what happens when you hook up with somebody who was not out of the closet.

There was a possibility that Skyla didn't even know that she was going to have a closet to come out of. Maybe this is what happened when you just were experimenting, and you were the person who was the experimentee. Kirsten also knew that.

She deserved a little bit better than that, right? She sure thought so.

"All right, honey." She took a deep breath. "Tell me what it is you want. Do you want to stay here? Do you want to get an Uber? Do you want me to take you back to the house with the band? Do you want breakfast?" Kirsten just didn't know what the right thing was.

"Do you want to just go back up to bed and go to sleep? It's only been a couple of hours."

God knew things would be easier with a couple more hours of sleep.

They had to be easier with a couple more hours of sleep.

"I'm scared. Kirsten. I don't want everybody to be mad at me, but I ain't no coward."

"I don't want anybody to be mad at you either." Kirsten did, however, want to be somebody who was worth being mad for.

Slobbery Reba jumped up on her leg, and Kirsten reached down to scratch her ears. "It's okay, little girl. No big deal. We got this."

Skyla blinked at her. "You sound sure."

Kirsten grinned at Skyla. "You don't, but that's okay. You've got more to lose."

When it came right down to it. Kirsten had lost everything that there had been to lose. She'd been there, done that, had the T-shirt. And it was ripped up and wholly in see-through these days.

"Take me back to bed?" Skyla took her hand, the tears falling again.

"You know it. You just need to breathe."

She didn't know what else to say. So she simply gave Reba one of her chew bones, and then carefully led Skyla back upstairs to the loft.

It was easy to tuck her in. It was a little harder to slide in next to her.

"Are you mad at me?" Skyla asked.

Kirsten shook her head. "Nope. Nothing to be mad about. Everything's fine. It was a gig. At a pizza joint. Remember?"

Skyla nodded and curled into her tight, holding on. She cried for a little while, and then she fell asleep like she was a worn-out child.

Kirsten sat there and breathed in and out, staring up at the ceiling, trying to convince herself not to think because god knew her racing thoughts were going to keep her wide awake.

To be perfectly honest, she didn't think there was any sleeping in her future.

Not this morning.