“Meet you downstairs. Come on, Waylon.”
Waylon looks from her to me and then sashays in my direction.
“Be that way,” Summer yells after him. “Let’s see who gives you breakfast, you little traitor.”
We both laugh.
Fifteen minutes later we’re sitting at a quaint little restaurant in town—I don’t even know the name of it—and there’s a steaming stack of pancakes in front of me.
“These are good,” I tell her. “Normally, I skip breakfast and stick to coffee.”
“Are you usually traveling in the morning?” she asks.
“It depends on the day and the city. If we hadn’t broken down Sunday night, we would have arrived in Montreal around three in the morning, gotten a hotel room and crashed. So I would have slept through breakfast. Other times, yes, we leave the hotel and hit the road to get to the next city. I’ve never been a big breakfast eater, though. Not even as a kid.”
“I try not to eat a big breakfast,” she says. “Usually oatmeal or a piece of avocado toast. Something healthy but light. As I inch up toward thirty, I have to watch my figure.”
“Your figure is perfect the way it is,” I say firmly. “And you’re not really thirty, are you?”
“Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine in January. And I’m noticing my metabolism slowing down. One piece of birthday cake and I’m up two pounds the next day.”
“I guess I sweat so much on stage it hasn’t caught up to me yet,” I admit.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-six. You got a problem with a younger man?” I tease.
She chuckles. “Not at all. I’ll be your cougar all day long.”
Damn, she’s adorable. Her eyes glitter pure gold and the sunlight coming in from the window glints off her hair.
“What?” she asks, catching me staring.
“Just thinking how pretty you are.”
“You don’t look too bad yourself,” she murmurs. “But if you keep looking at me that way, we’re never going to make it through my errands.”
“Maybe that’s my evil plan,” I say, wiggling my eyebrows lasciviously.
“You had a better chance of convincing me before you did the thing with your eyebrows.” She laughs and it’s a beautiful thing to sit across from her, having breakfast like two normal people.
It’s not that I don’t think I’m normal. It’s my life that’s not normal. Late nights, a new city every day or so, living out of a suitcase—the life of a rock star. My dreams are coming true, and I’m grateful for it, but it comes at a cost. Even in the midst of it I’m aware of what I have to give up to be where I am.
After I pay the bill, we walk down the sidewalk toward the post office and I thread my fingers with hers. I honestly can’t remember the last time I held hands with a woman I wasn’t in the middle of having sex with.
“My life must seem pretty boring to you,” she says quietly.
“On the contrary. I was just thinking how nice this is, how different from my daily routine.”
“In a good way or a bad way?”
“I think a little of both,” I admit. “I love being here with you. Sleeping in, having access to a washing machine, being with a woman I can talk to who isn’t dying for a picture, an autograph, sex…”
“Sex?” She turns to me. “But we did?—”
“What we did is different,” I interrupt impatiently. “Yes, it’s sex, but it wasn’t…performative.”
She squints, cocking her head slightly. “Explain that in this context.”
