by Hazel Jacobs
His eyes linger over her for a moment longer before he answers, “Yeah,” and then turns back to join the others in the hotel lobby.
Mikayla takes a deep breath, but her heart is still racing.
He must know what he’s doing. Surely he must? She isn’t used to being flirted with, but she’d have to be deaf and blind not to see the way Logan looks at her. The way he goes hot and cold like he can’t decide whether to flirt with her or not. The way his hand lingered on her cheek at the pool that first night. She’d thought that he wanted to kiss her then, and after he’d asked her to go up to his room. Her mind conjured images of what could have happened if she’d dropped her towel to the pool floor and thrown her arms around his neck. If she’d pressed herself against his damp body and kissed him the way she’d been dying to since the night they met.
Mikayla couldn’t let herself think about it. She couldn’t let herself believe that something could happen, not when they worked together. She really should stop flirting with him. She’s only getting herself worked up for nothing. Clutching her suitcase, she shakes her head as though the action could banish any thoughts of kissing Logan, and she heads inside.
That night, Mikayla is so jetlagged that she thinks she’ll never go to sleep again. She rolls out of her unbelievably luxurious bed and stretches her arms over her head. Her room is all elegant white, except for the royal blue chairs beneath the full-length windows. And the bathroom is so shiny and new that every time she steps inside she thinks she’s on the set of a sci-fi movie.
She thinks about going down to the pool to look for Logan.
She tells herself that it’s a stupid idea.
She tells herself that as she pulls her robe on and grabs her key card from the table.
As Mikayla makes her way down the hall toward the elevator, she passes the room that Tommy and Slate are sharing. Slate hasn’t had time to meet any girls, but she can hear the artificial sound of gunfire coming from behind their closed door. When she gets closer, she can hear voices shouting at one another. Dash’s voice comes through, and Logan’s as well.
“Take it, fucker!”
“You piece of shit! The God codes are cheating, and you know it!”
“Feel the wrath of Scorpion!”
“I swear to Jesus, Slate if you double-dip that chip I will piss in your kit!”
She doesn’t hear Tommy’s voice, but knowing that Logan is inside and not down at the pool cools her enthusiasm for going downstairs. She wavers in front of the door, considering, before glancing up and seeing Tommy at the end of the hallway, slouched against the closed elevator door.
“Tommy?” says Mikayla.
She moves toward him. He’s got a calm smile on his lips and bloodshot eyes, and he smells faintly of marijuana.
“Hey, Mik,” he says. “Is Logan still in my room?”
“Yeah… I think they’re playing video games. Or having a weird three-way.”
He snorts giddily. “Nah. Dash and Logan are close, but they’re not that close.” He leans against the wall and lets his head fall back against the wood. “I’m a little bit high right now,” he says.
“I can tell,” she says.
“Are you mad?”
“No, Tommy, I’m not mad.”
“I don’t want to go back in my room,” Tommy states. “Can I come and hang out with you until Logan leaves?” He sounds very smooth and mellow, not distressed at all.
“Did you guys have a fight?” she asks, taking him by the elbow and leading him down the hall to her room.
“Not recently,” Tommy replies. He leans up against her, rubbing his head on her shoulder like a cat.
Mikayla has never tried marijuana—the thought of how disappointed her father would be if he found out was enough of a deterrent—but she spent a lot of time in college as the only sober one in the group. She’s talked a lot of stoned people out of climbing up buildings and trying to break into Sea World. Tommy doesn’t seem to be in the mood to be annoying. He’s in the cuddly stage of getting high.
They make their way to Mikayla’s hotel room.
“Can we order room service?” Tommy asks as he throws himself onto the bed and makes himself comfortable.
“Sure,” she replies. “What do you want?”
Tommy seems to think about that for a moment. “I want Danielle back,” he says. “And also I want fries, please.”
She’s surprised to hear him talking so casually about Danielle. Usually, whenever someone brings her up the whole room freezes, and Tommy seems to be lost in his own world for several moments. Then, when he comes back to himself, there’s always something heartbreakingly sad in his expression. His lips, which seem to be permanently turned down at the corners, turn even further down, and his eyes droop at the edges.
Mikayla orders him some fries. He pulls his notebook out and starts writing in it while he waits.
“You know,” he says. “I never write well when I’m high. I think, I think better when I’m sober.”
“That’s good to know.”
“I’m working on a song about ants,” he tells her. “The kind that invades your picnic, you know? I think that might be fun.” He stares at the ceiling for a moment. “I thought about writing one for you, but after last time I don’t think I should. Write for the PA, I mean.”
She climbs into bed next to him, and he arranges the blankets so that their legs are covered as they lean against the headboard.
“What happened last time?” she asks.
He sighs. Then he looks over at her. “I fell in love,” he says. “With Danielle.”
Mikayla nods in understanding. “And she didn’t love you back?”
“No, she did,” Tommy says. He shuffles down in the bed and leans into Mikayla’s shoulder. “We loved each other. We were together for five months.”
“Oh!” She doesn’t really know what to say to that. “But I thought you guys aren’t allowed to date your PA?”
Tommy shrugs. “Not anymore. That’s a new rule. Logan’s rule.”
He spits Logan’s name, and Mikayla is surprised at the venom in his voice. There’s a beat in the conversation where his expression turns to anger before switching back to melancholy. He sighs again and licks his lips.
“Why don’t you tell me about it?” Mikayla asks. She shouldn’t be asking—she should be changing the subject because Tommy is high and is clearly still heartbroken. But she hadn’t known that the ‘no dating PAs’ rule was Logan’s rule. Her curiosity has peaked.
Tommy looks at her, then he hands her his notebook. She takes it, not sure what he wants her to do with it. He shuffles down in bed until his head is resting on her lap, before holding out his hand for her to give the notebook back. When he has it, he asks, “Will you pet my hair?”
“Of course,” Mikayla says, doing just that. His hair is soft and not as tangled as it looks. “Like this?”
“Yeah, that’s nice,” he replies. He’s silent for a moment while she runs her fingers through his hair. “I’m glad it was you,” he says suddenly. “When she left… I’m just glad it was you who replaced her. I like you. I think you’re pretty wonderful.”
Mikayla is smiling. It’s different to hear someone who’s stoned give you a compliment. She thinks it might be because when they’re stoned, they’re not expecting a particular response. They’re not waiting for you to blush or smile with just the right amount of gratitude or pay them a compliment back. There’s no guessing at a stoned person’s motives—they’re just saying nice things because they want to.
She keeps running her fingers through Tommy’s hair as she replies, “I think you’re pretty wonderful, too.” He still smells faintly of pot, and she knows that her bedspread will probably reek of it tomorrow morning, but she doesn’t care. Tommy is wonderful. The whole damn band is wonderful.
“Thank you,” Tommy says. “I’m glad. I was worried that Logan would scare you off… with the hitting on you thing, and then the no hitting on PAs thing. He
was pretty rude to you after that, wasn’t he?”
“He’s gotten better,” Mikayla replies, determinedly not thinking about all of the flirting and lingering looks which have been passing between them.
Tommy murmurs incoherently before saying, “He made Danielle leave.”
“Why?”
“Some stupid mistake,” Tommy says, waving his hand dismissively. “She messed up some scheduling thing… or something. He never actually explained, I don’t think. But he made Bass Note fire her. I didn’t find out until she told me.”
“That’s… um, really harsh,” Mikayla says. She’s surprised, she wouldn’t have thought that Logan, who seemed to bring up every concern with the band, could be so cold. She wonders if maybe there was a mistake. “Did he know that you two were together?”
“Everyone knew,” Tommy says. “They all said I should ask her out. So I did. I wrote her a song. Then Logan fired her, and then she dumped me to go and work in New Zealand. She even unfriended me on Facebook.” He sniffs, and when Mikayla looks down, there are tears in his eyes. “Why did Logan have to make her go?”
“I don’t know, Tommy,” she replies.
She keeps running her fingers through Tommy’s hair as he pulls himself together. He’s reaching around to wrap an arm around her thighs, hugging her like she’s a teddy bear, and she’s grateful that he can take that comfort from her when he clearly needs it. There’s a knock on the door and Mikayla pets his neck lightly.
“That’s your fries,” she says. “Do you still want them?”
He nods, pulling away to let her get up. She climbs out of bed, straightens her robe, and goes to the door to grab the room service. Tommy is sitting up again when she returns.
“Are you still angry about it?” she asks, setting the plate of fries down on the blanket.
Tommy takes one and shoves it in his mouth. “No, not angry,” he says around the mouthful of potato. “I mean, I’ve forgiven him. I guess. Mostly. It’s hard because I can’t forget it, you know? Like, I’ll remember it forever that I had someone I loved, and someone who loved me, and he wrecked it. He didn’t even say sorry. He just… said that we shouldn’t date our employees anymore. That it makes it complicated when they need to be ‘let go.’” He shakes his head sadly. “Those were the words he used… let go. Why couldn’t he just say… fired?”
“I don’t know,” she remarks.
So that explains why Logan had apologized to Tommy when he’d thought that Mikayla was a groupie. It also explains why he’s so hot and cold with her. He’s interested, but as the primary mover of the ‘no dating PAs’ rule, Logan can’t do anything about it. That actually makes Mikayla feel a lot better. It gives her a reason for the behavior, making it seem far less incomprehensible. Even if it makes it all the clearer why nothing can ever happen between them.
Tommy slowly makes his way through the fries, telling Mikayla about the one date he and Danielle went on where he’d gotten the inspiration to write her a song.
“That’s how I knew she was special,” Tommy says. “When I wanted to write for her. I wanted to write for you, too,” he adds, fixing her with his wide, bloodshot eyes. “But like I said, it didn’t seem like a good idea.”
“Thanks for wanting to,” Mikayla says. She yawns suddenly, inexplicably tired. It’s as though a switch has been flicked in her mind and her jetlag has turned on its head. Instead of being wide awake, she’s struggling to keep her eyes open.
“You’re welcome,” replies Tommy as he picks at a loose thread in the blanket between them. “I think you’re wonderful. It’s like… I didn’t want Danielle to go, but since she did, I’m glad you came and took her place. You fit with us. It feels like you’ve always been here.”
“You think so?” she inquires.
“Don’t you?” he questions.
She thinks about it. Then she nods slowly. “Yeah, I think so.”
Mikayla wonders how that could be. How she could just fall in with these men who seemed so different, who were held together with such fierce loyalty that Logan could literally break Tommy’s heart, to the point where Danielle’s name was still a taboo subject and have Tommy forgive him? How could she accept the casual affection of cuddles and half-hugs when the most she’d gotten from her parents growing up was getting bounced on her father’s knee? It didn’t make sense. She shouldn’t fit—not really. And yet here she is, eating fries in bed with a bass player who likes to have his hair played with when he’s stoned.
“I mean, you just slid into place like we were waiting for you.” He grimaces, his fingers twitching toward the notebook. “That’s a great line,” he says regretfully.
“Write it anyway… you could use it for something else.”
Tommy quickly scribbles the line down. “I must be sobering up,” he says.
“You want me to go see if Logan is still in your room?” asks Mikayla.
Tommy seems to hesitate. “Maybe I can hang out here a while longer?” he queries.
Mikayla nods, taking the now empty plate from between them and putting it on the bedside table. She shifts down in the bed so that she’s lying down, and gestures for Tommy to join her. When he does, she reaches up to stroke his hair, and he lets out a contented sigh.
“I’ll just stay a while longer,” he mutters, his eyes already drifting closed.
Mikayla doesn’t know how she came to be a part of this ridiculous family, but she thanks every deity she can think of that Slate saw something in her that day they met. As she dozes off with her fingers still in Tommy’s hair, her jetlagged mind begins to dwell on Logan’s decision to fire Danielle over a minor scheduling error.
Would he do the same to her? Mikayla likes to think that it’s unlikely after everything that has happened between her and Black Lilith, but if he can fire Tommy’s girlfriend, was any PA safe? What happens when she makes a mistake, or Logan decides that flirting with her is breaking the rules he’d set for himself and the rest of the band, and she suddenly finds herself out of a job and heading to some out of the way country? Would he turn on her as completely as he’d turned on Danielle, despite Tommy being in love with the woman? Would the rest of the band stand up for Mikayla if Logan did that? Would that even make a difference?
These questions swirled around her mind, and as she fell into an uneasy sleep one thought became clear, I can never risk getting involved with him.
Because if it ends badly, she thinks as she runs her fingers through Tommy’s soft hair, it won’t just be her who gets hurt, it’ll be her band. Because they’ll have to see her leave just like Danielle did, and she won’t let any of her men get hurt.
Mikayla wakes up with Tommy’s hair in her mouth.
“Urgh,” she mutters, spitting it out.
Tommy’s head is on her chest, cushioned on her breasts, and he’s got his arm wrapped around her like she’s a teddy bear. His sleeping face looks almost melancholy, as though his dreams are full of things he can’t have. After their talk last night, Mikayla thinks she knows what he’s dreaming about.
“Hey, Tommy, you sober yet?”
She rubs his shoulder to try and rouse him awake. He comes to after a moment, blinking in confusion before pulling away from her and stretching like a cat.
“Sorry,” he says. “Didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
He doesn’t seem embarrassed, and Mikayla is glad. If he were embarrassed, then this would be awkward, but as he stands he’s rolling around on her bed as though they wake up together every day while she relaxes back into the pillows.
“What time is it?” he asks.
She checks her phone. “Nine-forty,” she replies. “Want to get breakfast?” The hotel has breakfast until late, which had excited the band more than Mikayla had thought possible.
“Sure. I’ll just go get changed.” He looks at her. His brown eyes are lighter than Logan’s—more like hazel than chocolate, and not as bloodshot as they had been earlier. “Thanks for letting me stay last night. And letting
me ramble.”
“No problem,” she says, giving him a smile. “You can come find me anytime you need to ramble.”
The grin he gives her is a bit cheeky, but even when he’s grinning his lips are turned down slightly. Mikayla had noticed that when they’d first met but she’d never asked herself why he always looked so sad.
He rolls out of bed. His hair looks like a bird’s nest, and she laughs when he rubs his hands through it, messing it up further. His plaid shirt is badly rumpled and still smells faintly of marijuana. Mikayla thinks that she should probably open a window or something to get the smell out before the maids come in to clean.
Tommy leaves to get dressed, but before the door has even closed behind him she hears a shout, “What the fuck?”
Mikayla jumps out of bed, moving toward the shouting. It isn’t Tommy’s voice, it sounded like Logan. She gets out into the hallway and finds Logan and Dash standing in the center of the carpet, staring at Tommy. Dash looks confused. Even more confused when he sees Mikayla emerge from her room still wearing her hotel robe while Logan looks furious.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Tommy?” he demands. There’s pink color on his cheeks, and one side of his hair is standing up so that it looks like a bird in mid-flight. Mikayla would have found it funny if his fists weren’t clenched as his eyes dart between Tommy and Mikayla, lingering for just a moment on Mikayla’s robe.
Tommy looks almost as confused as Dash. “What am I doing?” he inquires.
“Uh… Mik, apparently,” Dash says. He’s got his head cocked like a spaniel who had heard an unfamiliar sound.
“Who’s doing Mik?” Slate asks as he sticks his head out of the room behind Logan. He looks as good as he always does, but he’s frowning as he takes in the scene.
“Nobody is doing me!” It’s only when the hallway falls silent that she realizes she’d shouted, and that other guests could probably hear them. All eyes turn to her. She raises her hands in exasperation. “Tommy got high last night. He stayed with me to sleep it off.”
Slate and Dash both nod and smile as comprehension dawns on their faces. “He wanted you to play with his hair, didn’t he?” Slate asks.