60 - Shiny Smarts

“Morgan or Angel?” Tony casually inquired, approaching the bed just as she closed the laptop. scrubbing a towel over his wet hair.  He let the damp terrycloth drape around his neck, keeping an eye on her while reaching for his watch from the nightstand. 

Lilah’s shoulders had gone abruptly rigid and she’d frozen mid-yawn when she heard his voice.  He thought it odd, because she’d emailed her online friends in his presence several times over the last couple of weeks.  She’d even gone so far as to tell him a little about them.

He knew Morgan and her husband lived in the Northwest US and that Angel was from Down Under.  He also knew that the two women were near polar-opposites, differing in both personality and physical appearance.  From what Lilah said, the only thing they seemed to have in common was a love for his brother.  What she didn’t say was that they also shared a love for Lilah, but he was comfortable making that educated guess all on his own. 

Her reaction was made even stranger by the fact that she had to clear her throat before answering.  “No.  Andrew.  I was remindin’ him to pick me up at the airport tomorrow night.”

That explains it.  She misses her kid.

He folded a leg under him and dropped to the bed, trying to get a peek at the eyes she had trained on the rumpled sheets.  Palming her thigh, Tony made an appropriately sympathetic noise.  “Bet you’ll be glad to see him.”

Eyelashes fluttered several times in quick succession and he knew he was right.  Mama Lilah was feeling a little emotional and homesick for her boy.

“Of course I will,” she declared quietly, brushing fingertips beneath her eye to remove the moisture that had willfully escaped. 

“I’m sure he’ll be glad to see you, too.”  This heaviness was a little much for their last day together.  It was time to switch their attention to fun things – things that didn’t include the way his stomach coiled into knots upon seeing her tears.  “I assume you’ve heard there’s a wrap party tonight for the band, crew and some VIPs?”

“Mm-hmm.  I think I heard Jon and Richie talkin’ about it.”

“Were you planning to go?”

Laughing, she traced a fingernail through the hair on his forearm from wrist to elbow.  “Am I invited, or was that a polite way of askin’ if I was goin’ to crash?”

Tony counted that as one of the stupidest things he’d ever heard.  The two of them had practically been joined at the hip since Dusseldorf.

“I’m going, so of course you’re invited.”

She inclined her head, dark hair shielding her face as she shook it back and forth.  Without being able to see her face, he couldn’t tell if it was sadness, disgust or denial that prompted the action. 

“What?” he asked when she didn’t seem inclined to offer an explanation. 

“Jersey,” she said patiently, lifting her face.  “You assumed I’d heard about party.  You can’t really expect me to know I’m invited if you didn’t actually take the time to tell me about it…  Can you?”

“I told you I’m going.  You’ve been everyplace else with me lately.”

“You told me you were going, like… two seconds ago.”  Closing her eyes briefly, she smothered a yawn and this time she was smiling when she shook her head.  “It doesn’t matter.  Since I’m invited, yes, I’d like to go and say goodbye to everyone.”

A noticeable aura of failure clouded his head, giving Tony the distinct impression that he’d fucked something up.  She was upset that he hadn’t asked her to be his date to the party?  Or that he assumed she would be?

You haven’t pulled a single punch with her since you met her.  For Christ’s sake, why would you start now?

So, with a slight variation, he put voice to the questions he had just asked himself.  “What’s the deal, Bluegrass?  Are you ticked that I didn’t ask you out on a date?  Or that I’m taking you for granted?”

“For a smart man, you can be an idiot sometimes,” she chortled softly, picking up his hand and flipping it over to trace patterns in the palm with her fingertip.  “I’m not ticked at all.  All I was trying to say was that if you didn’t tell me about the freakin’ party, there wasn’t much logic in assumin’ I’d know I was invited.”

Everybody had been talking about it.  Of course she would have known…

Jeez, man, just apologize and move on.  These are minutes of your life you’re never gonna get back.  Why waste them on stupid shit?

“Lilah…” he sighed, inverting his hand so he could settle her palm against his and lock his fingers around it.  “There’s a wrap party after the show tonight, and you’re invited.  Do you want to go with me?”

She rained one of her brightest smiles on him and the tinkling laugh that accompanied it was a sound he’d forever associate with Lilah.  He loved her laugh.  “I do.  Thank you for askin’.”

“Think nothing of it,” he assured her with a grin, tugging her forward for a quick kiss.  He was going to miss kissing on her whenever the mood struck him.  She never turned him away, always meeting his lips with an eager smile.  He could count on one hand the number of women who had made him feel as wanted as she did – with fingers left over.  “Wear the peek-a-boo Harley shirt?  And those tight jeans you bought in Athens?”

“Okay,” she agreed readily enough, but a little frown puckered between her eyebrows.  “Now I really wish I’d gotten those boots we saw yesterday.  They’d be perfect for this.”

As she sighed and resigned herself to wearing the sparkly sandals she usually wore to the shows, Tony eased off of the bed.  Extending his hand for the middle dresser drawer, he drew it slowly open.

He knew exactly which boots she was talking about:  ankle-high with chunky, tapered heels that were coated in rhinestones.  While the foot casing was black leather, there was rhinestone-crusted black lace that made up the ankle casing.  The minute they’d walked into the little downtown Lisbon shop, Lilah had been drawn to them like a magnet, but refused to buy them for herself. 

Sending her on ahead under the pretense of having dropped his wallet in the shop, Tony had bought the boots and arranged for delivery to their hotel.     The way she loved shiny shit, he couldn’t help but want her to have something to remember him – and this trip – by.  Yes, he’d taken hundreds of pictures on their bike jaunts around Europe that he would give her, but this was…  shiny shit.  It held a special place in her heart.

“You mean these boots?”  he asked with a deceptive nonchalance, the sparkly treasures dangling from the mere tips of his fingers. 

Lilah slapped a hand to her mouth and her eyes went as round as a golf ball.  The strangled squeal that stole out of her clamped lips had him grinning like a dumbass and patting himself on the back. 

“Nobody’s ever bought me shoes before!”  she exclaimed breathily, holding her hands out to accept the gift.  The way she stroked the light-refracting heels gave Tony the vibe that he was intruding on a private – or a religious – moment. 

Women and shoes.  What the fuck?

“Well, you DO live in Kentucky.  I hear shoes aren’t really a thing in that part of the world.”

She flipped him off without ever letting go of the boots.  That was a move he’d never seen from Lilah.  Too much time with him had plainly corrupted her if she’d taken to snapping off a Jersey salute. 

Good thing she’s getting sprung tomorrow, then.

She dropped one shoe to the mattress, unzipping the other one and tucking her bare foot inside.  Twisting her ankle to admire the shine, she glanced up at him with the widest grin he’d ever seen.  The woman was practically glowing over a pair of damn shoes.  “I love these, but I assume you know that.”

“I had a sneaking suspicion,” he drawled wryly, butt parked against the dresser as he watched her play footsy dress-up.

With both boots on, she crossed her legs, twisting her other ankle so she could fully appreciate the glitzy tackiness on that heel as well.  “You’re going to do positively wicked things to me tonight, aren’t you?  This your way of softenin’ me up and ensurin’ my receptiveness?”

Tony snorted.  “Jesus, doesn’t anybody ever get you a gift just because?  Yeah, I’m gonna do wicked things to you, but at this point I’m pretty damn sure you want me to.  Bribery never crossed my mind.”

“Really?”

She was legitimately surprised that he didn’t want something in return for those bedazzled booties.  It almost made him mad.  Not at her, but at the dumb fuckers she’d been married to.  Did they not have the faintest idea of the right way to treat a woman like Lilah?

“Yeah, really.  You might find an ocean of umbrella drinks floating your way tonight, just because I’m always trying to shake loose an extra inhibition or two from you.  But there are no strings attached to the Rhinestone Cowboy boots.”

Tony sought to convey his sincerity with an unwavering gaze and Lilah met it readily enough.  The funny blue-green irises that he’d never seen before her, and would likely never see after, regarded him thoughtfully. 

“I’m really, really bad at acceptin’ gifts and I certainly never expected you would do anything like this.  It makes it both lovelier and more awkward for me. So…  I guess I’ll just say thank you.”

“You’re welcome.  Now…  back stage or out front tonight?”

Spinning on  her butt, she twirled so that her feet hit the floor with a bedazzling ‘thunk’ and came to join him.  She hooked her thumbs into his belt loops and tipped her face up to his.  “Out front if that’s okay.  It’s the last one for who knows how long and I want the full concert experience.  But…”  she squinted one eye as though she were throwing a grenade and ducking for cover.  “Could I play the ‘sleepin’ with video director’ card and come in through the back?  So I don’t have to fight the crowd?”

Tony smirked and lazily dropped his open palms over her shoulders, pleasantly surprised.  Typically, he had to specifically offer her the option of coming through the back before she would even consider it.  More times than he could count, Lilah had queued up with the locals to get her ‘right’ place in the Diamond Circle, because God knew she wouldn’t ask him for a damn thing outside of bed.

Hey.  That’s a minor miracle in itself.  And it ain’t all that bad, bub.

 “The last day and your true colors are finally showing, huh Bluegrass?  You’ve been using me all along.”

A miniature thundercloud swept in, blanketing her face and taking up residence in the form of an astonished frown.  “Yeah, that’s it.  I’ve waited two months to play my trump card.  Ya caught me, Sherlock Holmes.”

He couldn’t keep the grin off his face.  She was pretty damn cute.  Until….

“Ouch!”  He slapped the hand away that had just pinched the hell out of his nipple.  “Goddammit, Lilah, you’re supposed to leave those alone.”

“And you’re not supposed to be mean,” she volleyed back with a little huff of annoyance.  “You know how that crap bothers me.”

He did.  Jesus, he did.  She would rather die than have anybody think she was hooked up with him for special favors.  After the first week, he’d gotten sick of hearing about it and dared her to say it one more time.  Smart girl that she was, she took him at his word.  This was the first word she’d breathed about it since then.

Tony emitted a tiny growl and hauled her against his chest.  “And you know how that nipple crap bothers me, but I’ll buy you a drink or six tonight, just the same.  To make it up to you.”  Inclining his head, he landed a soft peck on her lips and conjured up a wicked leer.    “Then YOU can make it up to ME.”

The thundercloud was swept away by the rays of sunshine that broke through her eyes.  Whatever the handful of flaws he found in Lilah, her perpetual eagerness to do the naked Mambo with him made every single one of them insignificant.

“Well…” she sighed, relaxing against him and combing through his chest hair with a single French-manicured nail.  “How about I buy my own drink or six and we’ll make it up to each other?”

Had he mentioned what a smart girl she was?