“I’m starving,” she declares when she pulls away. “Let’s make pancakes.”
My eyebrows practically jump off my face they go so far up my forehead. “Pancakes?”
She casts a glance over her shoulder as she saunters to the kitchen, the sway of her pert little ass enticing me to follow her, her sly grin letting me know it’s one hundred percent on purpose. “You’re always trying to get me to eat more. You complaining?”
“No! No. Just surprised is all.”
With a shrug, she bends and pulls out a mixing bowl and a skillet, giving me a delightful show.
“So.” I prop myself in the entry to the kitchen, watching her pull out the high protein pancake mix I like and measuring cups.
“Hmm?” She doesn’t spare me more than the briefest glance.
“We’ve gone all the way to naked now?”
Laughing, more relaxed and joyful than I’ve ever seen her, she measures out the pancake mix and dumps it into the bowl. Then she sets it down and drags her eyes up and down my body. “I have no complaints about that.”
“And this … isn’t just a one-time thing?”
She bites her lip, meeting my eyes, her gaze solemn. “Um … I would be open to that. If you want to, I mean.”
“I would be open to that, too.” I’m careful to keep my voice neutral, since this feels like some kind of weird negotiation, but my heart leaps at the prospect of unlimited sex with Alexis, and my cock twitches. Which doesn’t escape her notice.
Smirking, she returns her attention to the pancakes, surprising me yet again by getting the milk out of the fridge and using that instead of water to make the pancakes. Again, I’m not complaining. But her willingly adding more calories isn’t something I’m used to.
She stifles a snort when she looks at my face again and sees my expression. “Mia, Kate, and I would always have pancakes after a show. It was our tradition. It started out with pancakes at a twenty-four hour diner that was down the street from our first gig. We went there after almost every show for a long time, but eventually it wasn’t practical for a variety of reasons. So we started making them ourselves when we had a kitchen or ordering them from room service when we didn’t.” She glances up at me, her breasts bobbing as she whisks everything together. “They taste better made with milk than water, even if it does add a few more calories. Everyone gets a cheat day, right?”
“Right,” I confirm, my voice raspy. I didn’t realize the significance of post-show pancakes, and the wistfulness in her voice as she described their tradition makes me sad for her. This isn’t what she wanted, making it as a soloist, trying to claw her way out of a bad reputation and back where she was. Her band’s rise was too recent for her to have enough power and influence to trade on, and in some ways being a no name would actually be easier for her. She has to starve herself and reinvent herself and grab at any and all handholds to help her climb out of the pit she found herself in.
“Do you miss them?”
She stops stirring and looks at me, blinking hard and fast, a small, sad smile on her face. “Yes.” The confirmation is barely a whisper. She busies herself with setting the skillet on the stove and turning on the burner, letting the batter thicken a little while she waits for it to heat up. “It was weird, y’know?” she says, her back to me, still facing the stove.
The easy way she carried herself a few minutes ago is gone, replaced by tension, the lines of her back rigid and stiff rather than fluid and supple like they were when I first walked out. Part of me wants to kick my own ass for ruining her post-sex glow, but it seems like she maybe needs to talk about this.
“Being on stage without them, I mean,” she continues, spraying the skillet with nonstick spray before ladling batter into the center of it. The simple actions of making pancakes seem to be making it easier for her to talk. Because with all the time we’ve spent together discussing music and concerts and career aspirations, she’s never once brought up her band.
I have a few times, but I caught on to the fact that she quickly changed the subject every time or pretended not to hear me and asked me a question instead, so I stopped. The pancake story is the most she’s divulged about her time with Golden Enigma since we met.
I know the basics of the story and how they met their collective demise. I have access to the internet, after all. But I know as well as anyone that what’s reported online and reality often only match in the most basic facts. There was a car accident. Mia, the driver, was drunk. Everyone was hurt, though Alexis only suffered a minor fracture on her lower leg, which had healed by the time I met her.
But other than frustration over the circumstances of losing her contract and trying to get a new one as a solo artist, which I one hundred percent relate to, though my own story is drawn out over several years, she hasn’t shared any of her feelings about what happened.
“Good weird or bad weird?” I prompt when she’s silent for a long time.
Her shoulders hitch even higher, but come down after she flips the pancake, rests her hand holding the spatula on the cheap formica counter, and blows out a long slow breath. “Both?”
She turns to face me, leaving the spatula and crossing her arms as she leans against the counter. Her eyes search my face. “I’ve performed alone before, but not in a really long time. Not since high school, when I’d play open mic nights. But those were in coffee shops. Not venues where people pay for tickets.” She shakes her head, looking down at the square patterned vinyl floor, years of dirt ingrained in the material that won’t come out no matter how many times it’s mopped. “This was my first time playing that kind of venue without them. They’re the ones who pushed me to write more songs, so we could play originals and not just covers. They’re the reason I even have a shot as a solo artist, and being up there without them just feels … wrong. Like I’m betraying them.”
“Alexis,” I breathe, wanting to reach for her, to offer her comfort of some kind. To tell her that she’s not betraying them, that she’s amazing and she deserves to share her music with the world.
But she shakes her head, one hand coming up to swipe at her eyes as she turns to pick up the spatula and transfer the first pancake to a plate. “I know,” she says, her voice a little wobbly as she ladles more batter into the skillet. “I know.” This time her voice is firm. With a sniff, she raises her eyes to mine again and gives me a crooked smile. “I know you’re going to say that’s ridiculous, and maybe it is, but that’s how it felt. Especially because it also felt so right performing like that again. Singing my songs by myself, just me and my guitar and the audience enthralled with my music, with my words. And then, when you joined me?” She lets out a soft sound of amazement. “It was the best feeling. And I’d never experienced that with anyone else before. So yes, it was amazing and wonderful and everything I hoped it would be. But it was also hard.”
“I get it,” I say softly. “That’s the first time I’ve performed for an audience without my brothers. Ever.”
Turning, she meets my eyes. “How was it?”
I step closer and pull her into my arms, unable to hold back anymore. She wraps her arms loosely around me, laying her head on my chest. “It was weird,” I tell her. “But amazing. And even better because you were there with me.”