Black Lilith: Book One (Black Lilith #1) (23 page)

“But you
still
don’t trust me!” she says. “I’ve seen the way you glare whenever Tommy or Slate sit next to me like you’re expecting me to lift up my skirt at the first chance I get.”

“It’s not
you
I don’t trust!” Logan says, standing up now so that he can look her in the eye. “You’ve seen Slate with other women, he can be very convincing—”

“Slate’s my
brother
,” she snaps. “Just like Tommy and Dash. Frankly, of all the men in
Black Lilith
you’re the least trustworthy! You’re the one that’s been sneaking behind their backs with the PA, lying about everything that happens to the band no matter who it hurts.”

Logan’s lip curls. She’s reminded of the many fights they’d had when they were just beginning to know one another.

“It takes two to sneak,” he says.

Mikayla crosses her arms again. “Not anymore,” she says firmly.

That gets a reaction. Logan’s whole body seems to shiver, as though he felt the words like a physical blow. He doesn’t stagger back or look shocked like they do in the movies, but his shoulders slump like he’s carrying something that’s gotten too heavy.

“So that’s it?” he asks. “One argument and we’re done?”

“We’re not done because we’re arguing,” she says. The lump is rising in her throat again, but she squashes it down. She
will not
cry. “We’re done because you don’t trust me, because you’re a liar, and because I’m tired of being your dirty little secret.”

The words hang in the air. Logan and Mikayla stare one another down, neither willing to look away first despite both of them clearly wanting to.

“When this tour is over, I’m leaving,” she says. The words hurt like a knife twisting in her gut, but they need to be said.

Logan flinches at that. “Mikayla… Tommy and Dash and Slate… you can’t leave them, they all love you.”

“I love them, too,” she says. “That’s why I’m leaving. Because I don’t want to lie anymore. I don’t want
you
to make me a liar.” She tries to swallow the lump coming up through her chest and putting pressure behind her eyes. “Besides, I was going to leave at the end of the tour anyway,” she added. “I’m not a PA. I’m not.”

The moment stretches, each second making it more unbearable.

Finally, Logan sighs. “Fine,” he says.

And then he’s gone, leaving through the door and closing it with finality. Mikayla would have liked it better if he’d slammed it. It would have felt more real, and less like a dream or a nightmare that she wanted to wake up from.

The lump is still rising in her throat. She wants to run to Tommy and Slate’s room—or even Dash’s, since Logan has almost certainly retreated to the pool and wouldn’t be there—but to take comfort in them would mean revealing why she’s sad in the first place. And she can’t do that. No matter what, the rest of
Black Lilith
can never know what happened here tonight.

Mikayla wraps her arms around herself, hugging herself in place of someone else, and lets the tears come.

When Mikayla wakes up the next morning, her eyes are still red and puffy. She sluggishly turns her alarm off, almost throwing the phone across the room when she sees the time. She can’t believe it’s been over eight hours since she finally dropped off. She feels like she could sleep for another twenty-four hours, another twenty-four days, even. Her head is pounding, and her lungs feel like wrung out sponges.

It takes Mikayla a moment to remember why she’s feeling this way. Then the night before comes rushing back to her.

“Oh my God,” she breathes.

So she did it. She broke things off with Logan, after weeks of trying desperately to make it work. She feels freer but heavier at the same time. Freer because she doesn’t need to carry the secret of their affair anymore, and heavier because she knows that she’ll be feeling the loss for a while. Logan may have lied, he may not have trusted her, but he still knows her better than most of her ex-boyfriends ever did. He still knows her deepest insecurities and fondest hopes.

And she knows his. Or, at least, she does now. Now that they’ve had their big fight which got everything out into the open. She almost feels bad for calling him out on the Danielle thing, but she stands by it. Logan handled that situation terribly, hurting Tommy and the rest of the band for no reason. Mikayla is just grateful that he didn’t try to fire her when ended it with him.

But why would he bother? She would resign at the end of the tour.

Mikayla laid back on the plush hotel pillow and let her declaration from the night before sink in. A part of her had known that her job with
Black Lilith
would be temporary. She couldn’t be a PA with her degree—at least not forever. The gig with
Black Lilith
was just a job she took to cover herself for a few months while she sorted her life out.

But then she’d gotten to know the band. She knows that Tommy likes his hair played with when he’s high, that Dash will crawl out of his deathbed for ice-cream if necessary, and that Slate can see to the heart of people without even trying. She knows that Logan would give his skin and honor for the people he loves. Mikayla had stopped scrolling for events management jobs after she found Tommy high in a hotel hallway in London because she had started to feel comfortable with them. So comfortable that she wanted to postpone her decision to leave for as long as possible. Some nights she would lie in bed and hope that the tour with
Black Lilith
would never end. That she, Slate, Dash, Tommy and Logan would keep traveling and laughing forever. But she knows that was never an option. She can’t remain their PA forever. She can’t.

Ending things with Logan doesn’t change that.

Mikayla drags herself out of bed and into the shower, washing her hair even though it doesn’t need it—she just needs to feel clean today. She even shaves her legs, armpits, and bikini line. Not that anyone’s going to be seeing her naked for a while. When she’s out of the shower, she does her hair in a braid down her back and puts on makeup to cover the awful night’s sleep she’d endured. She even does her nails.

“
It’s a new day, I’m gonna pretend tomorrow never hurt me
,” she finds herself singing as she waits for the lacquer to dry. It was one of
Black Lilith
’s early tracks. It’s more pop song than rock song, but Tommy had loved the lyrics so much that the rest of the band had decided to include it in their first iTunes album. “
Don’t be surprised if I start singing. I’m proving that I’m better even if it fucking kills me
.”

Even though she’s only ever heard Logan singing it, she doesn’t associate the song with him so it doesn’t hurt to sing it. It’s Tommy’s song, really.

Mikayla is interrupted by her phone ringing on the mattress. She uses her foot to move the pillow so that she doesn’t hurt the lacquer still drying on her nails. When she sees the name on the screen, her heart sinks into her knees.

“Yes, good, that’s just what I need,” she says to herself as her thumb hovers over the green button.

Finally, hesitantly, she answers.

“Hi Mama,” she says.

“Hi,” her mother’s smoky voice comes through the speaker. It has been weeks since their last conversation, but she sounds almost exactly the same. Except for the slur—the slur is gone. She’s sober, at least.

Mikayla waits a beat, but there’s nothing. Nothing but the sound of her mother breathing on the end of the line.

“Is everything all right?” she asks.

Her mother sighs. “I don’t just call you when I want something, you know,” she replies.

Mikayla isn’t sure how to react to that. Is her mother trying to offer an olive branch with this phone call? If that’s the case, then she’s doing a piss-poor job of it by getting on the defensive right away. Mikayla wonders if it’s even worth listening to the woman. If she has the right to just hang up and never answer the phone when she sees her mother’s name on the screen again.

“Okay,” Mikayla says finally. “So how are you? What have you been up to?” she asks.

“Theodore is taking me skiing next month,” replies her mother. So obviously the divorce isn’t going through after all. Mikayla is almost impressed. Her mother has stuck with this latest husband for three years, which is easily her longest relationship since Mikayla’s father. “You should come if you’re in America,” she adds.

“I’ll think about it.” The tour will be over in a month. Mikayla will probably be out of a job by then.

“How is the tour?” her mother asks. There’s a sound of someone sipping from a glass and Mikayla hopes desperately that her mother is drinking orange juice.

“The band is doing really well,” Mikayla replies. She wonders if she should tell her mother about what happened between her and Logan. Would her mother have any advice? But as soon as she thinks it, Mikayla dismisses the thought.

It’s a little sad that her first thought is,
I can’t give her that ammunition
. What does it say about her relationship with her mother, that she’s constantly self-censoring because she’s worried that whatever she says will come back to hurt her?

“They’re a bit disorganized, but they’re good men.”

“Well, they’re lucky to have you. You’re so overqualified, their next PA will never live up to it.”

Mikayla finds herself smiling at the words. “Thanks, Mama.”

There’s a pause. Her mother is clearly considering her next words. “I’ve been thinking about that, actually. What you’re doing. Being a personal assistant to that band of yours.”

Mikayla feels dread building up in her chest. “Okay.”

“Have you considered… just staying with them?”

If Mikayla weren’t still aching from her fight with Logan last night, she would have laughed. That’s such a complete one-eighty from her mother’s previous position on the matter that Mikayla actually double-checks the name on the phone. Surely, she can’t be talking to the same woman?

“What do you mean, Mama?”

“I just think you’ve sounded a lot happier on the phone these past few months. Less stressed.”

“I’m under plenty of stress.”

“You might be, but you’re enjoying it. I can tell. You think you’ll like to go back to events when you’re done touring with them?”

Mikayla takes a deep breath, preparing to explain that she got a degree in events management, so that is the career she should pursue, but she can’t seem to get the words out. Of course, she’s going to move back into events management. How could she not?

But her mother is right. The fact that Mikayla would often fantasize about the tour never ending is just proof of how much she’s enjoying being
Black Lilith
’s PA. Would she really like to switch over to events, where she will be dealing with different people every day and never get to know anyone as well as she knows
Black Lilith
? And could she even trust anyone else with her band? What if they got another Danielle for their next PA? What if they got someone who wouldn’t throw themselves in front of a knife meant for one of them?

Mikayla shakes her head at herself, angry that she’s even considering it when she’s already given her notice to the band’s lead singer. Now that she’s made the decision to leave them, she can’t just turn around and stay. It would be too awkward with Logan anyway.

“I’m not sure that’s going to work out, Mama,” she says.

Her mother sighs. “Of course not,” she says. “That would be too easy. I know how much you like your work.”

That stings. She doesn’t know if it’s the memory of her last phone call with the woman, or if it’s the knowledge that remaining with
Black Lilith
would actually be an ideal situation if she hadn’t fucked it up by sleeping with the band’s lead singer. Her mother’s words are a knife in her gut, bringing her back to the night when Logan had comforted her—coming to her hotel room expecting a tryst and finding her in tears. He had been so understanding that night, holding her while she cried and tucking her into bed afterward. He will never do that again. He will never comfort Mikayla, or make love to her, or kiss her forehead the moment he knows that none of the others can see. It makes Mikayla want to curl up and cry again.

It also makes her angry. That one line from her mother can make her crumble. A few words and Mikayla is back to being a little girl getting scolded for putting work over family, even though it’s what she saw her father do her whole life.

The next words out of her mouth are practically dripping with venom. “Mama, I’m really not in the mood to hear about how you think I should die alone, okay? So if you’re just calling to try and make me feel two feet tall, then you can hang up now and never call me again.”

There is a pause. It’s a heavy, pregnant pause. Mikayla has never spoken to her mother like that in her life. She certainly never thought that she would utter that threat. But Mikayla can’t keep dreading her mother’s phone calls. She doesn’t think she can handle keeping someone in her life who can hurt her so easily.

“Mikayla, I’m your family,” her mother says. There’s something brittle in her voice, as though she, too, has been transported back to their last conversation. Does she feel ashamed? Mikayla hopes that she does.

“Exactly,” Mikayla replies. “You’re my family, Mama, and you hurt me badly. I wouldn’t tolerate that from anyone else.”

“You can’t just cut me out of your life.”

“You cut Daddy out of your life,” Mikayla says. “If he hadn’t died, you would have cut me out as well. Or did you think I would never know what
‘sole custody’
means? Or the fact that you never even asked for weekends with me?” Another pregnant pause. Her mother says nothing in her defense. “Now you tell me that I can’t cut you out? You call me, drunk, telling me that I should fly to Vermont to hold you while you cry over how immature your seventy-year-old husband is. You tell me that I should die at forty. Give me one good reason why I should ever answer one of your calls again?”

She answers in a small voice, “I’m your mother.”

Mikayla sighs. “Prove it. Treat me like your daughter and not your punching bag.”

She hangs up then. She’ll give her mother a little while to mull over that. The next time her mother calls, she will answer. She always answers.

Mikayla blows absently on her nails, still waiting for them to dry, humming to herself as she does.

It’s a new day,

I’m gonna pretend yesterday never hurt me.

Don’t be surprised if I start singing.

I’m proving that I’m better even if it fucking kills me
.

Cuz when I’m lying in my bed later tonight,

I’ll look back on this day and know that I made it—

Yesterday can’t break me or shake me or make me forget it.

It’s a new day

And yesterday left its mark on me,

But I’ll prove that I’m better even if it fucking kills me
.