Black Lilith: Book One (Black Lilith #1) (24 page)

Proving that she’s better is a lot harder than Mikayla thought it would be.

The sheer
energy
which goes into pretending to be okay around her ex is exhausting. Every morning she wakes up and goes downstairs to have breakfast at the same table as him. Then she rides with him on the bus for the whole day, chaperones him to interviews, and then stands backstage while he performs for hours to a crowd of women who would like nothing more than to take his pants off and grind all over him. Then she gets up the next morning and does it all again.

At least he doesn’t take any of the women in the crowd back to the hotel with him. Mikayla doesn’t know if that’s out of respect for her, but she appreciates it all the same.

Logan won’t look at her. He’s professional and answers questions when she asks them, but that’s the extent of their interactions as they move down the east coast, through Charlotte and Atlanta toward New Orleans. The rest of the band notice, of course, but they just think that she and Logan got into another fight. Tommy pulls her aside and asks if he should talk to Logan on her behalf. Apparently taking it as a given that whatever they’re fighting about, it is probably Logan’s fault. Mikayla just shakes her head and tells him that they’ll work it out eventually. Both Slate and Dash keep shooting Mikayla looks of concern when they’re together, but she avoids their eye contact as much as possible.

They’ll wrap up the tour in Miami, and then Mikayla will never have to sit through an awkward meal with the band again. She tries to look forward to that, but every time she considers that each new town brings her closer to the end of the tour she gets teary-eyed.

When they drive into New Orleans, it’s early evening, and the streets are lit with dozens of brightly colored lights. Mikayla and
Black Lilith
press their faces to the windows of the tour bus, gazing out at the lights. Mikayla and the Todd brothers have never been to New Orleans, and Slate and Tommy were returning after years, so everyone is delighted with the sights that look like they’re straight out of postcards and advertisements. They can hear the sound of street musicians playing jazz among the crowds, and the bus nearly gets cleaned up by a tram before they make it to their hotel.

“Screw sleeping tonight… I’m hitting the town!” Slate says when they get their keys. “Who’s with me?”

“Not tonight,” Logan replies. “I want to go over the list. I think we should play up our jazzier songs for these crowds.”

“Come on, that’s tomorrow-Logan’s problem!”

Logan gives him a long-suffering look. “Tomorrow-Logan is gonna smack you around if you keep dumping work on him.”

Slate throws up his hands in an exaggerated show of horror and upset. “Present-Logan is a party pooper. Dash!” he cries, throwing his arms around the younger brother. “Hold it down for the Todds. Come out with me.”

But Dash shakes his head. “Not tonight.”

Slate boos at him. “Tommy?”

“Huh?” Tommy, who’s leaning against the wall and writing furiously in his notebook. “Sure, just let me finish this song.”

“That will
literally
take you hours!” Slate says.

“Yeah, probably.”

“You all suck!” says Slate. Then he turns to look at Mikayla. His eyes are wide as a deer’s and watering a little. She has no idea how he can whip that look out so easily, but it’s clearly designed to melt hearts and drop panties. “Mik? Be my friend for the evening?”

Mikayla opens her mouth to reply, but Logan speaks over her, “You only need to be in a bar for three seconds and you’ll have dozens of
‘friends,’”
he says irritably. “You’ll wind up ditching her in a minute.”

“Never!” Slate says. He pulls Mikayla into a twirl and brings her up against his chest, wrapping her in a warm bear-hug. Mikayla can’t wipe the smile off of her face even as the expression on Logan’s face grows increasingly sour. “There will be no other women for me. Tonight is all about making Mik feel like a princess!”

“Okay, you two have fun,” Tommy says distractedly, his eyes still on his notebook as he starts walking toward the elevator. He nearly knocks over a potted fern, but Dash manages to catch him before he runs into it.

Logan looks between Slate and Mikayla. She feels an overwhelming urge to push Slate away and get out from under Logan’s intense glare. Then she remembers that not only are she and Logan not together anymore but that even when they
were
together, he had no right to be jealous of anyone Mikayla hung out with.

“I’m in,” Mikayla says, giving Logan a pointed look as Slate cheers. “Let’s get our bags upstairs and then head out.”

“Just make sure you’re back early,” Logan says, returning Mikayla’s look with one of his own. “We’ve got an early interview tomorrow.”

“Your interview is at one-thirty in the afternoon,” Mikayla replies. “I scheduled it myself.”

“Don’t fret your pretty face, Logan,” Slate says over Mikayla’s shoulder. “I’ll have the princess back before she turns into a pumpkin.”

Mikayla and Slate find their way downtown to a cozy cocktail bar in the French Quarter. It’s dark and lit with candles that give the gothic decoration an almost vampiric air. Most of the people in the room are wearing cocktail dresses and waving around their beautiful cocktails as they laugh and swing their hips to the music. She had changed into a simple dress with a high neck. She looks like a Mormon housewife compared to some of these women, but true to his word Slate stays at her side and doesn’t give any of the other women attention.

When they’re seated at the counter, and they got their first drinks—a Mudslide for Mikayla and a Pink Raspberry Cosmo for Slate—Slate turns to Mikayla and raises his glass.

“To you, my dear, for keeping this tour on track.”

“And to you, for hiring me without a background check.”

They clink glasses. She can’t help but smirk at the sight of his sugary, pink drink with the frosting around the edges. There are cocktails on the menu with names like ‘Screaming Orgasm’ and ‘Fuck in the Back Alley’, but Slate heroically refrained from buying any of those. He sips his Pink Raspberry Cosmo without shame.

“So,” he asks when they put their drinks down. “What’s up with you and Logan?”

Mikayla’s smile instantly falls. “Slate… is this why you invited me out?”

“No, I invited you out because I love going out in New Orleans,” he replies. “It’s kind of my favorite place in the world. But hey! Since I’ve got you here…” he trails off and gives her a significant look.

Mikayla fiddles with the stem of her glass. “Nothing happened,” she says. “We had a disagreement. You might have noticed that’s a regular thing with us.”

Sometimes she’s glad that she and Logan got off to such a rough start when they first met. It makes passing off their breakup as a regular fight much easier.

“It didn’t have anything to do with the fact that you keep making googly eyes at each other when you think we’re not looking, did it?”

She takes a sip of her drink so that she doesn’t have to answer right away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You two are so googly you might as well get shipped from a Toys ‘R’ Us,” Slate says. “It’s like watching a mating ritual from middle-school.”

She puts her drink down, her heart pounding. “Look, Slate—”

“No, I get it. He’s a very beautiful man.”

“Slate—”

“And you’re pretty lovely yourself. Honestly, he’s had his panties in a knot over you since he thought you were a groupie.”

Mikayla gives him a hard look. There doesn’t seem to be any accusation in his gaze. At the same time, there’s no knowing look.

“So… you think he likes me?” she asks.

He sips his drink. “Yep,” he says. He looks at her like he’s telling her a big secret.

The tension floods out of her shoulders. Slate might have noticed the chemistry between Logan and Mikayla, but he hasn’t realized that they were sleeping together. As far as he knows, the pair of them have just been crushing on each other. That’s the saving grace of this conversation.

Mikayla takes another sip and lets the Baileys sit on her tongue for a moment before swallowing it.

“I think you like him, too,” Slate goes on. “And frankly, I feel like I’m a kid in a sandbox watching you two. So was that what the fight was about?”

“In a way,” she says.

“Well, are you two going to get your shit together and start sharing hotel rooms or am I going to have to keep watching this train wreck?”

Oh, you have no idea
, she thinks.

“I know you haven’t forgotten the little rule about dating PAs,” she says.

Slate waves that sentence away as though it’s completely irrelevant. “Allowances can be made. You’re part of the family now.”

Mikayla wants so desperately to tell him that she’ll be leaving at the end of the tour. She hasn’t told any of the others yet, and as far as she knows Logan hasn’t told them either. Telling the others would make it even more real. It would make it irrevocable. Even now, sitting in a cocktail bar in New Orleans with a drink in her hand, Mikayla can’t form the words.

“Wasn’t Danielle part of the family?” she asks.

Slate seems to give that some thought. “To be honest? Not really. I mean, I liked her but I also got kind of a… standoffish vibe, I guess? Like she didn’t really want to be our friend? Except for Tommy, but most people can make an exception for Tommy.”

“But… if me and Logan broke up, wouldn’t that upset the dynamic?”
It already has
, she adds in her mind.

But Slate shrugs. “It upset the dynamic when he fired Danielle,” he says. “We got over that. Besides, you’re our sister, we won’t let him drive you away.”

He puts his hand on her arm, and she is overwhelmed again. She wants to cry like she did during their
Never Have I Ever
game. She takes a long gulp of her drink to cover it up, but the knowing look that Slate gives her is enough to make her blush and hide her eyes. He leans over and puts his arm over her shoulders, bringing her into a squeezing hug and kissing her on the temple with a loud smack.

“I love you guys,” she says before she can think too hard about it. “You know that, right?”

“Some of us more than others?” he asks with a raised eyebrow.

“No,” she says. She wants to make that clear. “Different ways, but not different levels. I love you all.”

She does. So, so much. She doesn’t want to examine her feelings for Logan too closely, not so soon after their breakup, but she can’t deny that they are deeper than they were when she was going into the relationship. But it isn’t hard for her to examine her feelings for Dash, Tommy, and Slate—it’s all love for those boys.

Slate’s smile is dazzling. He raises his half-finished drink and clinks it against hers again. “Cheers to that, beautiful. I love you, too.”

They finish their drinks. Mikayla sets down her glass as Slate pulls his arm away, ignoring the longing looks from the woman next to him as he waves down the bartender.

Only a few more shows
, she thinks as she gazes around the New Orleans bar, her shoulder still warm from Slate’s hug.
Only a few more shows and it will all be over
.