Burning Tracks (Book Two: Spotlight Series)

by Lilah Suzanne

  Gwen hums against the hot, spread-open center of her, drags her tongue in long, flat passes up and down Flora’s labia, and then fits her lips over her swollen clit and sucks.

  “God.” Flora groans and gasps and bucks her hips when Gwen gets the pressure just right in just the right spot.

  Gwen pulls back then, not meaning to tease but not wanting it to be over just yet. She knows Flora is close by the quick, greedy lift of her hips, by the way her free hand is clutching and scrabbling at the headboard behind her. Gwen loves this, loves the taste of her lingering on her tongue, how responsive she is, and how after nearly ten years it’s no less incredible than that first night, in Gwen’s shitty off-campus apartment with a mattress on the floor her only furniture. Flora, so sweet, so beautiful, had looked at Gwen with her dark, serious eyes, and Gwen had never felt so understood before. She didn’t know then what they would become, of course, she just knew that she had to see Flora again. Had to keep her, somehow, in her life.

  “G,” Flora says, sharp and breathless. She’s never very commanding, not aggressive with what she wants. She doesn’t need to be. Gwen knows.

  Gwen smiles, tilts her head and darts her tongue to either side and just underneath the swollen bud, slides two fingers inside her and crooks them. Flora arches and moans and drops her knees wider. Gwen works her up until she’s twisting, moaning brokenly, and gripping at the sheets, the headboard, the pillows behind her. Then finally Gwen moves to lick one spot, staying there, letting Flora ride her tongue and clamp her thighs around Gwen’s head and come, arched high and tight off the mattress.

  Flora eases down with happy hums and a satisfied smile, her eyes heavy with love and lust. Gwen hovers over her; this beautiful, smart, kind, nurturing woman that Gwen gets to keep ‘til death do them part.

  “Come here,” Flora says huskily, making the heat in Gwen’s belly spread low, pulsing between her legs. Flora is happy, and that can be enough for Gwen.

  A few days later, Flora is the same position: lying prone but propped up, legs parted wide and fingers in a white-knuckled grip. Only this time it isn’t Gwen’s head settled between her thighs, but Dr. Anisha Alapati and a syringe full of their donation sample from Mr. Blond-Haired Blue-Eyed Number 3876.

  Flora is anxious on the examination table; the sterile paper beneath her crinkles as she shifts and breathes in calming patterns and adjusts and readjusts the shapeless gown that covers her from neck to knees. Gwen sits on a stiff plastic chair next her, holding her hand.

  “Okay.” Dr. Alapati wheels back her stool, stands, snaps off her gloves, and goes to the sink to wash up. She’s slight and short, with a dark blunt bob, a slim face, and a crisp, lilting accent. “Stay in this position for five to ten minutes, and I’ll be right back.” She lowers the inclined end of the table so Flora’s hips are elevated above her head.

  “This is weird, right?” Gwen wanders around the room now that her hand has been released from Flora’s vise-like grip. She picks up a 3-D model of a uterus, ovaries, and fallopian tubes. “Little spermies, just swimming on up there.” She demonstrates with a finger along the model.

  “I’m trying to not think about it,” Flora says. Paper rustles beneath her as she shifts in her unnatural position.

  “I bet we have a front-runner already.” Gwen plops the model back on the desk. “We’ll call him Steve. Steve the Super Swimmer Sperm.”

  Flora laughs and shakes her head. “You’re ridiculous.”

  To distract Flora from her obvious discomfort, Gwen starts to reply with further details of Steve’s continued race to the ovum, but her phone rings in her pocket. She lets it go to voicemail, then checks it and wishes she hadn’t.

  “What?”

  Gwen bites her lip, releases it. “It’s Nico.”

  Flora looks up at the ceiling and folds her hands on her stomach. “It’s fine. It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

  “Okay.” She pulls her phone out, hits call, then says, “Go Steve, go!” before ducking out into the lobby.

  “Oh, good,” Nico says when he answers. “Are you busy?”

  “Trying to get my wife pregnant, but other than that.” After a hugely pregnant woman gives her a funny look, she goes into the main lobby.

  “Shit, sorry. I forgot that was today.” He sighs loudly. “Okay, never mind.”

  “Nico, what is it. Just—hop to it already.”

  “Fine, okay. I was thinking about heading back to L.A. for a while. Hit some shows, meet with some new designers. I know we decided on everything for Clementine’s next tour and press blitz, but I was thinking I’d like to do some different things.”

  “And you can run away from Grady,” she points out.

  Nico is quiet, and she can just see him, at his desk with his head in his hands, the coif he tries to keep so artfully disheveled ruffled into haphazard spikes from running his fingers through it so much. “Maybe we both need space.”

  “Maybe,” Gwen agrees. Maybe not. “You know that’s not really going to solve anything, though. Like you have to deal with it eventually.”

  “I know. I—” He releases another frustrated huff. “He’s doing the thing now where he pretends everything is just super-great and wonderful. Like he’s over-the-top manic happy right now, and honestly? It’s worse than him being angry and silent. I don’t know how to reach him. I don’t know if he wants me to reach him.” He pauses, and she can hear him shift, can hear the muted swish of him scrubbing his hand through his hair again. “If you think I should stay... I mean, you can go to L.A. instead.”

  Of course she wants to go to L.A. But it doesn’t matter just how badly she wants to or how much Nico really should stay and work things out with Grady; she can’t leave Flora right now. “No, you go. Take a little time. I’ll keep an eye on him for you.”

  “Thanks, Gwen, you’re the best.”

  It still warms her heart every time, even when they disagree. “I know,” she says.

  “Everything okay?” Flora is sitting up when Gwen gets back to the room, and Dr. Alapati is filling out a check-out form at the desk.

  “Fine.” Gwen smooths the flyaway hairs that came loose from Flora’s braid when she was lying on the table. “How do you feel?”

  Flora smiles, then ducks her head. “I have a good feeling about Steve.”

  9

  Gwen spends the next two weeks hip-deep in meetings and phone calls and fittings and all of the drudgery and administrative duties that Spencer abandoned. She checks on Grady from time to time, though he’s spending most of his time in the studio “exorcising his demons,” as Clementine claims. Gwen is back and forth with Nico on the looks he’s putting together, nudging him to go with his more daring choices: yes to sheer skirts, yes to gingham, yes to a slouchy pastel trench; no to parkas, no to culottes, no to whatever that fringed and feathered thing is supposed to be.

  “It’s couture,” Nico says. “You love that crap.”

  “It’s not couture, it’s hideous,” she replies, while inputting a backlogged stack of shipping receipts into Excel.

  “Same difference,” he sniffs, like the snotty pain-in-the-ass that he is. She misses him like crazy.

  And in those two weeks Flora changes. They don’t know if the insemination took, but Flora acts as if it has. She switches from black tea to one made of alfalfa and nettle leaves that smells like steaming cut grass; she eats dark greens and lentils and handfuls of walnuts and pumpkin seeds for zinc and omega-3 fats. She stops drinking wine and eating sushi and taking hot baths. Gwen takes over scooping the litter box to avoid toxoplasmosis and microwaves their lunch meat in case of listeria.

  They don’t know if they have so much as blastocyst, a mere blob of cells, and already this potential baby is taking over their lives.

  Gwen gets the call when she’s facing down a stack of FedEx boxes nearly as tall as she is, waiting to be ope
ned and organized and steamed and prepped.

  “I threw up this morning!”

  “Oh.” Gwen searches her desk drawers for the box cutter, then pauses. “Are you taking a sick day?” No way she can go home early and tend to Flora. It’s going to take her forever to go through all of the clothes and accessories by herself. And she cannot afford a stomach virus right now.

  “Gwen, this is a good thing,” Flora says, drawing the words out. “Think about it.”

  She tugs her mind out of work mode. Throwing up. Why is Flora happy about—

  “Oh.” Gwen blinks and blinks and then widens her eyes. “Oh! Oh my god! Did you take the test yet?”

  “No, I wanted to wait for you. Can you come home?”

  “Of course, yeah. I’ll be right there.”

  The boxes can wait. She won’t be able to focus now anyway, and the most pressing items are for Grady, whom she hasn’t been able to track down all day. And Clementine will understand. She races home, parks crooked in the driveway, races upstairs, races into the bathroom with Flora, helps her fumble the little purple box open and then waits.

  “I never thought I’d be excited about you peeing on stuff.”

  Flora wrinkles her nose. She’s perched on the edge of the bathtub, staring down at the little white stick in her hand. Gwen kicks her feet in the air, up on the counter next to the sink. Gwen makes a ticking sound with her tongue and checks the timer again. Only thirty seconds have passed. Time is going slower. Soon they’ll be frozen, stuck in this moment, this place, their lives still and unchanging.

  One minute.

  Flora stares at the plastic stick, and Gwen stares at her. She’s fresh from work and still dressed “teacher-mode” in an A-line skirt and colorful blouse. Soon she’ll change into something more free flowing: a gauzy dress or a gypsy skirt or wide-legged patchwork pants. Flora claims to know nothing of style, says that’s Gwen’s deal. But she has one, has presence and grace without even trying.

  Two minutes. Gwen smooths her hands over her outfit of red and black and leather, buckles and heavy chains. She’s a punk rock wild child all grown up, and it hits her for the first time. She’s going to be a mother. Like, really, for real, a mother.

  Not as if she didn’t know; every step of the way she’s been aware, of course, of the path she’s on. And yet as long as she was wholly focused on one step a time, she could forget where they were leading.

  She’s going to be a mother.

  The timer dings, Gwen jumps, and Flora flips the stick over. Gwen doesn’t need to read the test stick to know the results: the elation and relief on Flora’s face tells her everything. She jumps up and hugs Gwen so hard that she slides off the counter and into Flora’s body. If it weren’t for Flora holding her up, Gwen would collapse right onto the hard tile floor.

  She allows herself one day to panic. Then after that it’s easy enough to get swept up in Flora’s happiness. That’s all Gwen wants, to make Flora happy; that’s enough.

  Then it’s back to work.

  “Hey! Gwen!”

  Grady and Clementine are performing together at the star-studded charity event downtown tonight. Usually Nico would dress Grady the day of, and keep tabs on Grady the night of, but he’s still in L.A. So Grady is hers, and Grady is—

  “So happy to see you! Come on in!” He hugs her tightly and then moves aside so she can enter his house. Once she’s inside he hugs her again, his big strong chest and big muscled arms engulfing her. The clothes she brought are crushed between them; her face is pressed to Grady’s defined pecs as she says, muffled, “Hi, Grady.”

  “Oh! Is this for tonight? Awesome! I love it!” He takes the garment bag and tosses it on the bench in the entryway.

  “You didn’t even look at it,” Gwen points out, trailing him into the living room.

  “I’m sure I’ll love it. You’re amazing, of course I will.” He turns and flashes that charming sly grin. Manic happy, Nico had said.

  The living room is littered with instruments and food wrappers, balled-up sheets of paper and fast food napkins with illegible scraps of sentences in bleeding ink. There are cans and bottles of soda on the floor and side tables and nearly covering the hammered steel coffee table.

  Gwen can see Nico’s touches all over this house: new, modern furniture; commissioned local art on the walls and shelves; new, textured wallpaper in a deep rust color; a huge bamboo plant withering in a corner; a neat stack of celebrity and fashion magazines piled next to the couch, buried under the soda cans; and a shelf with board games and well-loved books taking up nearly an entire wall, now that the study upstairs has been converted into an enormous walk-in closet. It certainly doesn’t appear as if he’s been keeping a secret apartment downtown.

  “So, do you want me to come by before the event? I can meet you at the office or you can come by Clementine’s house.”

  “Nah.” Grady hops over a discarded electric guitar and kicks a soda can with a sharp ping in the process. It clunks against the opposite wall. He brushes candy wrappers and pillows off the couch, pulls something up and turns back to Gwen with a huge grin. “Check it out!”

  It is a purple knit scarf roughly the size of a boa constrictor. “Wow,” Gwen says, because, wow. “Did you make this?”

  “Yup.” Grady drapes the scarf over her shoulders, wraps it around once, then again. And still the ends dangle past her knees. “You’re so tiny,” Grady says with a laugh. “All tiny and cute.”

  “Like a squirrel?” Gwen says from beneath the many thick folds of the scarf. She pushes it down and away from her face.

  “No, no,” Grady says, tugging the scarf where it’s pressed up to her ears. He tips his head, leans down and holds really intense eye contact for a long, charged moment. “Huh.”

  “Wh—” Gwen can’t stop noticing how soft his lips look. She should ask him what kind of lip balm he uses. “What?”

  “Your eyes,” Grady says in a low, soft voice. He tilts his head in, so close she can feel his warm breath. “They’re blue, but more of a blue-gray. It’s really stunning.”

  Why can’t she stop watching his lips move? How is his jaw perfectly square? And who smells that good, just naturally?

  Grady wets his lips, flashes one more crooked grin, and then steps away. “Keep the scarf. It looks good on you.”

  Gwen nods, still a little dazed. “Yeah okay.” She presses the soft material to her flushed cheeks. When Grady Dawson turns on the charm, he really turns it on; she both envies and pities Nico. Gwen shakes her head and starts to shed the scarf. “I’ll see you tonight, okay? Call me if you need anything.”

  He’s already walking away, off to the kitchen to fuel up for whatever insane extreme sport or hyperactive shenanigans he’s heading to next. Just as long as he’s finished by eight and doesn’t maim himself, it’s not the worst way to deal with feeling betrayed.

  “You should come tonight!” he calls from the kitchen.

  Gwen finally manages to unwind herself. “Uh, Flora’s been having a lot of morning sickness, which they should really call all-day sickness; it’s awful. I should probably be there to hold back her hair and rub her feet. You know, fun Saturday night stuff.” She makes a jazzy sweep in the air with her hands.

  “Oh, that’s right! A baby!” He’s got a half of a sandwich crammed in his mouth, but Gwen gets the gist of it. Grady swallows. “That’s heavy. A baby.”

  Gwen leans against the kitchen island. “Yep.”

  “Mmm,” Grady mumbles around another bite. “But you guys are settled. You’re ready to give up your life for a kid. I admire that. My parents just—” He takes yet another huge bite, then flaps his hand in a dismissive sort of way. “Took off.”

  “Yeah,” Gwen says. Are they talking about his parents or Nico? “I guess we know what we’re getting into here.”

  Grady smacks his hand flat on the m
arble top of the island. “Commitment.”

  “Right.”

  Grady spins around, flings the refrigerator door open so hard it crashes into the counter and all the bottles and jars inside rattle loudly, yanks out another can of soda, plunks it on the counter and snaps open the tab. Soda spurts from the top; he doesn’t notice. “Because you know, if you say you’ll stick around, you stick around. Like you don’t have a secret apartment, I bet. Right? I bet.”

  Talking about Nico, then. Grady chugs the soda, belches, and then goes to the fridge again. When he spins back around, Gwen gently takes the can from his hand. “Hey, hi there, why don’t you take it easy on the Mello Yello before your heart explodes?”

  Grady gives the can a look of longing, but nods. “Yeah. Right. Yeah.”

  “Also? You should call Nico and tell him how you’re feeling. Honesty, same team, three-legged race, remember?” She pulls her phone from her pocket, picks up a discarded piece of paper from the floor, and a finds a pen. The paper has the words rock opera? timpani? written on it in Grady’s messy scrawl.

  “Is that what you would do?” Grady asks as she writes down the address and time of the event. “Total blunt honesty, even if it might upset him and make things worse?”

  She taps the end of the pen on the table and pushes the paper toward him. “I don’t know,” she answers. She’s struggling with that herself right now, and as much as she hates to admit it, “It’ll come up one way or the other, eventually.”

  And sometimes, late at night when Flora is curled up, softly beautiful and fast asleep, Gwen watches her in the dark and thinks about the baby growing inside of her, and the prickling itch of doubt turns to full-blown panic.

  She’s has eight more months to make it go away. The itch turns into the steady tick of a clock counting down.

  10

  Clementine’s place is no mere house, no simple building of rooms and furniture and appliances, but an estate. A spiked iron gate surrounds a Tuscan villa-style mansion: three floors, pale stone exterior with arches and sweeping spiral staircases, intricate iron balconies, columned front entryway, stacked tile roof, pool, guest house, greenhouse, stables and a studio, all on acres of perfectly manicured grass and sculpted hedges lining the long, winding driveway. Gwen parks next to the burbling courtyard fountain, carefully unloads the gown, shoes, and jewelry, heaves her travel case onto her shoulder, and hobbles to the double-arched front door.