When I was done in the bathroom, I did not go to the window to check the view in the daytime.
I fell back into bed.
Mostly because it smelled of Preacher.
To take this in as much as possible, I grabbed his pillow and hugged it to me, burying my face in it.
We had again slept on top of the covers fully clothed except we’d taken off our shoes.
I liked it that we did the same thing this time as the last.
And it gave me shivers, thinking about what might go on from there.
I had talked to him about Mom.
I had talked to him about Dad.
I had talked to him about Gram, Gramps, Sonia, Julia.
We’d moved from couch to bed to get more comfortable.
But, like that first night, that magical night, that night I was enormously glad I was not wrong about, when I gave him my bad stuff and he’d gifted me with trusting me with his own (much, much worse) stuff, we’d tangled up together and took no more room than when we were on the couch.
And holding his pillow to me, his scent, our second night together behind us, a night which started out rockier than the first, but ended up just as beautiful, I didn’t know.
I really didn’t.
I didn’t know what this was.
I was a pop music girl.
Yes, I believed the children were our future and the only nasty thing I liked was a nasty groove.
Janet Jackson. Cyndi Lauper. Madonna. Whitney Houston.
Okay, so I nearly wore out my Purple Rain album, and there were some major guitar riffs on that.
And when I went to college, my musical repertoire expanded to include The Cure. The Smiths. Depeche Mode. Kate Bush. Peter Gabriel. U2.
I’d graduated from Wham!
I was hip.
But Preacher’s music?
I scrunched my nose against the pillow.
One could say, now that a new day had dawned and things were much different than the day before, I could look back to watching him onstage, singing a number of songs that I knew were about me that weren’t real nice (except “The Back of You,” that one was incredibly sweet, and I knew then, it was a major reason why I was right then lying in that bed in Chicago) that there was definitely something hot about that.
But mostly it was hot because Preacher was hot.
I was not a rock girl.
I’d seen precisely two concerts in my life, outside the one I saw last night.
Patti Labelle and Sha Na Na.
So, what was I doing?
The outer door opened, and I pushed up, keeping hold of the pillow, and looked to the opened double doors to the living room area of the suite only to hear Jesse talking.
And then blink when Preacher and Jesse came into view.
“…shower here and change then go up. Will you take some clothes to Cynthia?” Jesse was saying.
Preacher was looking at me.
But he answered, “Yeah.”
“Hey, Lyla,” Jesse greeted.
“Hey, Jesse,” I greeted back, staring at Preacher.
“Glad you’re still here,” Jesse said.
Then the door to the bathroom closed.
And Preacher reached.
I let out a small cry when he caught my ankle, dragged me down the bed, let my ankle go and caught my hips, which meant I let out another small cry and let go of the pillow when he pulled me up and put me on my feet in front of him.
I scrunched my nose again.
“You smell like OJ,” I told him.
Which must be, along with what looked like bits of scrambled eggs, what was staining his shirt.
He grinned at me then he caught my head in both hands.
His head came down.
And he kissed me.
I rounded his wrists with my fingers just as his tongue touched my lips.
I opened my mouth and let it inside.
He tasted like…
Like…
Preacher.
My stomach melted and my knees grew weak.
Okay.
Right.
That was what I was doing.
Lyla:
[Off tape]
Your first kiss with Preacher McCade was an OJ kiss?
I never much liked orange juice.
[Smiles slowly]
Until then.
I carried Cynthia’s clothes upstairs so Preacher wouldn’t get juice, coffee, eggs or maple syrup on them.
I did it also carrying my trench and purse because I didn’t want breakfast all over them either.
But I did this juggling all of that so I could hold his hand.
So, it was clear with whatever happened he was going to have to share me that morning.
Though, seeing as he was holding my hand, even with him doused in breakfast detritus, I didn’t mind.
When he let us in the big suite, he pulled me in, and I got my second taste of the rocker lifestyle.
The place was a mess.
There wasn’t an inch of it that wasn’t in disarray.
Bottles. Glasses. Champagne tubs. Fast food detritus. Bongs. Overfull ashtrays. White powder dusting little mirrors. Half eaten food on plates. Discarded room service domes and trays.
Fortunately, the only thing (outside whatever happened downstairs at breakfast) that seemed truly upset was a lamp turned over and the base was cracked.
Oh.
And then there was Cynthia pouring the drummer (Dave?) coffee wearing nothing but her skivvies.
Her eyes came to us—that was to say, to Preacher, when we walked in.
And I didn’t like the way she looked at him.
Definitely Jesse was too good for her, and I barely knew Jesse.
Preacher blocked her from view by shifting in front of me, and I lifted my eyes to his.
“Gonna take a shower. Order what you want. And can you order me a big stack of pancakes, double bacon, smoky links, extra butter and syrup and another pot of coffee?”
Apparently that big body needed lots of fuel.
I nodded.
He kissed me again.
With tongues.
And an audience!
I had totally forgotten the audience, was holding onto his shoulder with my free hand and clutching Cynthia’s clothes to my stomach with my other arm when he broke it.
“Are you not…” my voice was breathy, and it got breathier when Preacher heard it and smiled lazily, “evicted after whatever shenanigans got you drenched in orange juice downstairs?”
“Nope,” he answered, touched my nose with his finger then turned and strolled away.
Cynthia watched him go, her body not moving, her head doing an owl impression in order not to lose track of him.
“Yo! Welcome back,” Dave (I thought his name was) said to me.
I smiled at him.
“Hey,” I replied then looked to Cynthia. “Jesse’s taking a shower downstairs. But he asked us to bring you some clothes.”
She tore her eyes from the bedroom area where Preacher had disappeared to look at me.
Then she put the coffee carafe down on a table by Dave’s chair, reached out an arm my way but didn’t otherwise move.
I was by the bar which was close to the door.
She was all the way across the room.
I suppose if I was in my underwear, I wouldn’t want to walk across a room to get my clothes from the woman who thoughtfully brought them up for me.
But that wasn’t why she didn’t make that first move to get her clothes.
I walked to her, and she took her stuff with a dismissive up and down glance of me, a little superior smirk (and truly, she did have a beautiful body—if I had that body, I might serve coffee in my underwear too (or I might not)), before she turned and walked toward the bedroom.