OUR PLAYLIST | JENLISA

THIRTY-FIVE

Jennie

Playlist: Little Black Submarines | The Black Keys
***

Fourteen weeks later

The alarm on Lisa’s phone went off. Even Love whined from the end of the bed.

Lisa moved next to me to flick on the light and I winced. “It should be illegal to get up before the sun,” I mumbled.

She laughed a little and propped herself up on her elbow, her hair messy. “How you feeling?”

“My ears are stuffy.”

A cool hand was pressed to my cheek, and I closed my eyes. “You don’t feel hot,” she said.

“I think it’s just allergies or something.” I sniffed. “I’m okay.”

Lisa scooted up on her forearms until she was hovering over me. She gave me one of her amused smiles, which meant my hair was probably crazy.

“Don’t kiss me,” I said. “I don’t want you getting sick.” If she did, they’d just make her sing through it.

She grinned and nuzzled into my neck instead.

“What city are we in?” I asked, yawning.

She shifted to look at her hand. “Last night was Atlanta. So I’m thinking Memphis?”

Zane always wrote the city on Lisa’s hand before she went onstage so she wouldn’t thank the wrong place.

“Aww. I’ve always wanted to see Memphis,” I pouted. We’d be gone by tonight.

“Why don’t you skip sound check and go sightseeing with Jessa?” she asked, looking down on me.

Jessa was the lead singer of her opening band, Grayscale. She was also very good friends with Lola. I didn’t hold it against her. Jessa was actually pretty nice, and we seemed to have an unspoken agreement that we didn’t discuss Lola, which helped. Zane was super close with Jessa’s personal assistant, Courtney, so we all hung out a lot. We always got rooms next to one another so we could go in and out the connecting doors and borrow curling irons and watch TV together.

I shook my head. “I’m not going sightseeing without you. If we’re not seeing Memphis, we’re not seeing it together.”

She kissed my forehead and smiled, her doe eyes creasing.

I put a hand up to her cheek. “I hope our kids get your eyes.”

Her smile got deeper. “And their mother’s artistic talent.” She took my hand and curled it up in her.

I sighed. “I haven’t done anything talented in a while.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Well, maybe not artistically. But there was that thing you did with your mouth on the bus last week.”

I gasped and hit her, and she chuckled.

“You know how I knew you were the girl for me?” she asked, pulling me into her, her forehead to mine. “When I saw you licking that chip bag. I said to myself, ‘That’s her, Lisa. She’s the one.’”

I giggled, and she started to tickle me. I shrieked and tried to wriggle away from her, and she laughed. Then her alarm went off again and all the fun abruptly stopped. We both let out a sigh and got up and wandered to the bathroom.

She handed me my toothbrush and we stood over the sink brushing our teeth in our well-practiced routine. I stared at myself in the mirror. God, I looked like hell. Like I needed to be dipped in a full-body moisturizer or something. I had dark circles under my eyes and I was pale again. Even though most of our hotels had pools and spas, we didn’t have time to use them.