by Avon Gale
“Olive the cellist?” Vix raised her eyebrows. “Was she hot?”
“Mmm.” Sawyer held her hand out and flipped it back and forth a few times. “So-so. Maybe a six. They didn’t last, either. They had this epic fight in orchestra rehearsal before the semester ended.” She grinned. “It was great.”
“You’re evil.” Vix admired that. “I like it.”
Sawyer laughed. “I don’t know about that, and like I said, it wouldn’t have bothered me as much if he’d been honest with me.”
“Maybe he was cheating on her with someone who played a bigger string instrument,” Vix suggested. “A stand-up bass or something.”
Sawyer’s laugh was loud and long. “Oh my God, that’s funny! And probably true. He left me for a cellist, and he left her for a stand-up bassist . . . can you put that in a song?”
“I’ll do my best,” Vix said dryly. She reached out and took Sawyer’s hand, giving it a quick squeeze. “I’m glad you told me. I don’t mind talking about this stuff, but if we add lesbian sex to our late-night repertoire, the guys will definitely get their male gaze in on that action. Well, except Connor.”
“How would that work in a van?” Sawyer asked. Then she went six shades of red, dropped Vix’s hand, and clasped hers on her mouth.
“I meant talk about lesbian sex, but if you want a demonstration . . .” Wait, maybe she shouldn’t have said that. Except Vix was all for the idea of showing Sawyer that sex could be a lot better than it’d been with Patrick the Pitiful Viola . . . violaist? Whatever you called someone who played the viola.
Sawyer was still staring at her, her pretty hazel eyes wide. Vix moved in and gently took her wrists, tugging Sawyer’s hands away from her mouth. “You can say no. I won’t be offended.” Disappointed, definitely.
“I . . .” Sawyer swallowed, hard. They were holding hands, and her fingers tightened around Vix’s. “I don’t want to cause any problems.”
“It won’t,” Vix assured, though maybe she shouldn’t have been so quick to say that. Hadn’t she just told Sawyer how it hadn’t worked with Jeff? “I might not be great at relationships, but supposedly I give great head and am good with my fingers.” She moved in closer, and Sawyer didn’t back away. “You want references? Send Temple Keats a Facebook message and ask her.”
“I’ve seen you play the guitar,” Sawyer said, her voice low and a little unsteady. “I don’t doubt you’re good with your fingers.”
“Well, here, we don’t have—I mean, we’re going to get back in the van and no, sex isn’t a good idea when driving, but we’ve got a hotel stop between DC and St. Louis, so.” Vix disentangled one of her hands and reached up, tugging Sawyer’s head down. “Think about it and let me know. No pressure.”
She kissed Sawyer softly, taking her time. Sawyer was still as a statue for a moment, but she made a hungry sound against Vix’s mouth and suddenly the kiss wasn’t quite so soft. She kissed back the same way she played the violin, and the thought of getting Sawyer in bed was making heat curl low in Vix’s stomach. One hand still held tight in Sawyer’s, the other slid down around Sawyer’s waist and pulled her closer. This would be much easier if they were lying down.
She sucked lightly on Sawyer’s bottom lip and bit gently. She could feel Sawyer’s breasts pressed against her, and Vix let go of Sawyer's hand to trail her fingers down Sawyer’s neck and over her collarbones, down her arm.
Sawyer moved away a little, breathing quick and eyes wide. “So that kiss was better than ninety percent of the sex I had with Patrick.”
Vix’s heart was racing, and her head was a little fuzzy with Sawyer’s scent, the thought of taking her hair out of that ponytail and seeing it get sweaty and messy while Sawyer writhed beneath her. “Only ninety? Really?”
“There were a few times he got me off, but I was thinking about Scarlett Johansson. We’d just watched The Avengers.”
“I’m not dressing up like a superhero,” Vix said. They were still pressed together, in an embrace that was halfway between friendship and something else. Something that might make this more of a problem than Vix had promised it would be, if they took things any further.
“You don’t need to,” said Sawyer, face open and honest, and Vix wondered what the hell she’d done.
The show in DC was a clusterfuck.
Sawyer’s violin threw a string, which sucked, and the crowd was sparse and talkative during their set, which was annoying—people were asked to leave the symphony performances at Juilliard if they were coughing—and the venue was new and had terrible acoustics. It’d been a last-minute addition to the touring schedule, and clearly, they’d never marketed the show or done any promotion because there was barely anyone there. The place smelled strongly of paint.
“We were supposed to play at the Metro,” Kit told Sawyer, as they packed up to leave. “But they had some booking nightmare and so we found this place instead.” He made a face. “The Music Factory . . . they should call it the Paint Factory. Ugh.”
“Seriously,” Sawyer grumbled, storing her violin after fixing the errant string. “Also, why do people come to a show and talk? I think a guy was watching something on YouTube during our performance.”
“Because, my dear Sawyer,” Jeff breezed, slinging an arm around her shoulders, “sometimes this is the most thankless job in the world. And that’s because people are douchebags.”
“It’s DC,” Connor reminded them. “It’s, like, douchebag heaven. They can’t help themselves.”
“They should try harder,” Sawyer mumbled, pushing her hair back. She glanced over at Vix, who was smoking a cigarette simply because they weren’t supposed to. Sawyer knew Vix was annoyed by how poorly attended the show had been and how the audience hadn’t connected with the band at all.
Eventually Vix had stopped trying and sung, her face tilted up to the lights and her eyes closed. Her fingers had been rough on the guitar, the sounds harsher than usual as she played along. Sawyer had probably broken her string because she’d been playing a little too hard herself, annoyed at everyone for ignoring Vix. Her songs were clearly personal, and she was laying herself bare out there on the stage. How could anyone ignore that?
For the first time, they hadn’t done an encore, and Sawyer was glad. She was ready to leave DC, and definitely ready for that promised night in the hotel.
The thought of it made Sawyer flush hot, and she bit her bottom lip lightly between her teeth, remembering how it’d felt when Vix had done that. She’d been insanely turned on by it—hell, she’d been insanely turned on by everything—the kiss, Vix’s smile, the scent of cigarette smoke, Vix’s body against her own, the promise of what they could do together if Sawyer wanted . . .
Oh, Sawyer wanted. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that somehow, despite all the odds against it happening, she had what she’d wanted seven years ago when she’d met Vix under that tree. She had Vix Vincent as a friend—a good one, someone she felt comfortable telling her secrets to, someone she could confide that thing about Scarlett Johansson to (hell, Sawyer had barely admitted to herself that was why she’d gotten off with Patrick that night)—and what would happen if she lost that? What if sex made everything weird? Hadn’t Vix told her that was what happened with Jeff?
No, she told you that them having a relationship made it weird. This was only sex, and Sawyer knew that. She also knew that Vix would be her friend if Sawyer didn’t bring it up again, but how was she supposed to ignore this thing between them if she did that? When they’d gotten back to the van after their walk, Sawyer had changed into her usual pajama pants for bed, sliding them on under her dress as she usually did. Her panties had been wet, and she knew it wasn’t from the performance or walking in the summer night. She wanted Vix, but she had no idea what that meant . . . well, she had some idea. But not enough to know what to expect.
Sawyer had surreptitiously looked up Temple Keats on her phone during their drive to DC. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected—would she look
like Sawyer? What was Vix’s type when it came to women? The second she saw Temple Keats, Sawyer was convinced she herself wasn’t hot enough for Vix. Temple looked like a fifties pinup girl, with her black hair in victory rolls, bright-red lipstick, heavy dark eye makeup. She wore dresses and boots like Sawyer, but the dress had birds on the hem—swallows, probably, given her band’s name—and her cowboy boots were bright red. She was gorgeous, and Sawyer could not get the thought of her and Vix in bed together out of her head. She edited Brad out of the equation and put herself in there, and . . . yeah.
“So, she’s gorgeous,” Sawyer’d said, showing the phone to Vix.
“I know, right?” Vix had grinned and looked deservedly smug. “It was worth Brad for that, let me tell you.”
That was as close as they’d come to the subject of the two of them hooking up. She believed Vix knew what she was doing, that wasn’t the problem. Even Sawyer’s own inexperience wasn’t the problem. It was the possibility of what might happen, how it could fuck everything up if . . . well, if they fucked.
She thought about it as they packed up the van, changing into her PJ pants and a tank top and climbing in the front seat next to where Vix would be sitting. Vix was splitting the drive to their hotel in Lexington with Connor, so Connor could get some sleep. Vix was unusually quiet, smoking a cigarette next to the van (she never smoked inside) and staring off into space, boot tapping a rhythm only she could hear on the pavement. Sawyer thought about going over to her, remembered the show and Vix singing with her eyes closed, and decided to wait it out.
They stopped for coffee and snacks at a travel center outside of DC, and once they were settled in the van again, Vix said, “That show sucked.”
“Yeah,” Sawyer said. “It did.”
“Does that happen in, like, orchestra land?” Vix took a drink of her Coke Zero. She really was addicted to the stuff. Sawyer had to force her to drink a bottle of water occasionally so she wouldn’t lose her voice.
Sawyer nodded, propping her socked feet up on the console. She couldn’t say she was a huge fan of being in this van all the time, but she loved the late-night drives, the highway stretched out and endless. “Yeah. We made our conductor cry once, after a performance of this ensemble I was in my sophomore year.”
“Why?”
“It’s hard to explain.” Sawyer tilted her head. “It’s like . . . you can play all the right notes, everything is technically on point, but there’s something missing.” She ducked her head, thinking about their conversation in Virginia about sex and how it was sort of the same thing. “A lack of passion, I guess? If that doesn’t sound too corny.”
“It doesn’t sound corny at all,” Vix assured her. She drove with one foot propped up next to her, leg torqued in a way that looked painful. “And it makes perfect sense. That’s how tonight felt, you know? Flat.”
Sawyer nodded. She’d been playing music long enough to know how to detachedly observe her own performances. “Yeah. I mean, you sounded great. It wasn’t that.”
“No, things were . . . That started off on a sour note. That whole thing with the venue not being open when we got there, the acoustics, the sound . . .” She made a face. “That fight Kit and Connor got into ten minutes before showtime didn’t help.”
“Was his fault,” Kit murmured sleepily, from the wayback.
“Go to sleep or I’m leaving you at the next Love’s Travel Stop,” Connor retorted. They didn’t sound angry anymore. Sawyer had learned temper flare-ups between those two were common, including everything from sports to politics to brands of soda. She couldn’t remember what had gotten them going this time, but as usual, they were over it before the venue had vanished in the van’s taillights.
“That’s not what Love’s Travel Stops are for,” said Kit on a yawn, and they went quiet again.
“I kind of ship them,” Vix said in a low whisper, with the first genuine smile Sawyer had seen on her face since they’d arrived in DC.
Sawyer giggled and wrapped her arms around her knees. “It’s strange how much I never thought about the crowd before. I mean, in the symphony you have to be silent, but there’s still energy. It’s a different kind. And, like, I think if it’d been a good crowd, we would have forgotten all that stuff about the parking.” She made a face, toes tapping against the console. “Maybe not that paint smell, though. Ugh.”
“Right? Putrid. And what the hell was that color supposed to be? Smokey-Pit Gray?” Vix drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “Yeah, that crowd sucked. And I hate to say that, since the crowds keep us in business, but ugh. I can’t stand all that chatter, but usually if there are enough people into it, I can sort of tune it out. Not this time.”
“It didn’t help that no one was looking at the stage,” Sawyer added. “No one wants to be background music.”
Vix was silent, and then she started wiggling around on the seat. Before Sawyer could ask if she should pull over, Vix triumphantly came up with her notebook and tossed it at Sawyer. “Can you write that down? The bit about no one wanting to be background music. I liked it.”
“Sure.” Sawyer had done this many times, so she knew there was a huge stash of cheap pens in the glove box. Well, the stash had been huge when they’d left Memphis. It was steadily getting smaller, since Vix couldn’t keep track of pens to save her life. She could find a Coke Zero blind in a snowstorm, but the pens went somewhere all alone to die. “I’ll add it to the highway lyrics section.”
“Highway lyrics,” Vix said, in her this is me thinking about lyrics, not asking for a conversation voice.
Sawyer wrote the bit about background music in the notebook, drew a little picture of a cranky-faced stick figure with a microphone and wrote The Music Factory Sucks underneath it. She flipped back to the song Vix had shown her, which was written in the very front of the notebook, copied from a thousand old ones so it’d be the first thing Vix saw when she opened it.
Sawyer knew it was frustrating the hell out of Vix that she couldn’t hear the song that was supposed to go with the words, which were about finding yourself, being comfortable with who you were when you couldn’t stop fighting. She ran her fingers over the word “untitled” scrawled on the top line of the first page of the notebook. Vix’s handwriting started out neat but got progressively sloppier as she wrote. It was the only complete song in the notebook—the rest were just snippets, phrases she liked, quotes. Sawyer was as confounded by writers as other people were with musicians. She had no idea how they made words up out of the air and gave them such meaning.
“So, basically, we’re never playing there again,” Vix said, her voice firm. She sounded like her old self, which Sawyer was glad about. They all knew one bad show wasn’t enough to ruin a career, but that didn’t make it any less of a downer. “And if the crowd talks that much in St. Louis, I’ll pull a Noah Greer and stop playing until they shut up. Yes, I know I say that all the time.” Vix threw a smile over at Sawyer. “Shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything!”
“You were thinking it. You huffed it.” Vix tossed her Coke Zero cap at Sawyer. “Give me back my notebook.”
Sawyer flipped to the section she’d labeled highway lyrics and added, “You do say that all the time” in quotation marks, with a hyphen and then her name. She flipped it shut and handed it back. The ink from the pen had run out halfway through her name. Maybe that was the real reason Vix used so many of them.
“Hey, Vix?” Sawyer thought about the lyrics Vix couldn’t find the music for, heard an echo that sounded like music in the back of her mind. She thought about rebelling, about the panic attack at school. About standing under the lights and playing her violin, angry at the crowd. Playing that first show when it was new and beautiful. The show in Philadelphia that was still her favorite. The kiss on the street in Virginia that was better than all of it.
“Yeah?”
“I’m in.” She knew she didn’t need to say anything else.
“Yeah?” Vix didn’t loo
k away from the road, and Sawyer didn’t look away from Vix.
“Yeah,” Sawyer said, softly.
Vix smiled. Beneath them, the lines on the road vanished in the dark.
The hotel wasn’t exactly the sort of place Sawyer had imagined when she thought about the first place she’d have sex with a woman. Okay, that wasn’t necessarily true—there was a bed, and that was pretty much the only thing in her mind when she thought about this. Which was a little pedestrian, maybe, but she was learning. Still, the hotel wasn’t the sort of place she’d stay if she were, say, in a chamber ensemble for Juilliard.
It was more of a motel. But, whatever, it had a room, a bed, and a Vix. And Sawyer was so nervous she could barely stand it, but she was absolutely going to do this. Yes. She wanted to, could hardly think of anything else in the back of the van while she’d tried to sleep after Vix’s driving shift ended.
But it was still making her nervous, and she’d braided and rebraided one side of her hair so much she’d nearly given herself a headache.
Sawyer was also convinced everyone in the band knew what they were going to do, though no one blinked an eye that they were sharing a room. Of course they were, why wouldn’t they? Still, Sawyer couldn’t help the nerves that everyone would find out and . . . what? Hate her? Want to watch? It didn’t make any sense, but anxiety rarely did. Plus, maybe it was easier to worry about that than going to bed with Vix and being so terrible at sex that Vix never wanted to do it again. Or maybe they weren’t going to do it again, even if it wasn’t terrible.
“Stop worrying,” Vix said, as soon as the door closed. She crowded Sawyer until Sawyer’s back hit the closet, and leaned up to kiss her. “And usually I’d be all for a shared shower, but my God, I have been dreaming about this shower right along with how you’re going to look when I make you come.”
Sawyer’s entire body flushed with heat. Her breath caught in both surprise and desire. “That was . . . What if I . . .” She didn’t know how to say it. What if you can’t get me off, either? What if she was defective?
