“I…” Brighton swallowed, never looked away from Charlotte. “No. I don’t think I have, Lola.”
Charlotte’s eyes stung, a sadness she couldn’t parse spreading through her chest. Because in that moment, all her anger and resentment seemed so futile. Because she loved Brighton Fairbrook.She wanted her to be happy, no matter what. She wanted her to find her path, her sun.
“Bright,” she said, and that was all she needed to say, really. Charlotte turned enough so she could kiss her. Slowly, purposefully, with her full wits about her.
“Lola,” Bright said against her mouth, and they stayed like that for what felt like hours, just kissing, whispering each other’s names under the warm spray of water.
Chapter 22
Brighton never thought she’d behappy about being trapped in a tiny cabin with only a single roll of Ritz crackers left to eat and exactly zero pairs of clean underwear left, but she was.
She was euphoric.
Charlotte—Lola—was in her bed. Laughing. Smiling. Kissing. Talking. She felt like they were seventeen again. Twenty. Even twenty-two during the good days in New York, the Saturdays when Lola didn’t have to teach and Brighton convinced her to stay in bed half the day, having sex and watching shows on her laptop.
“So,” Lola said, cracking open the roll of Ritz and popping one in her mouth, “we start in London, then go to Paris, Barcelona, Prague, and we end in Vienna.”
She was sitting up in bed, naked and gorgeous, Brighton’s plaid duvet wrapped around her but haphazardly, so Brighton could still see plenty of skin. Her silver hair was sex-tousled and perfect.
Everything was perfect.
“That sounds amazing, Lola,” Brighton said, taking a cracker too. She lay on her stomach, feet in the air, a sheet barely covering her ass. “I’ve always wanted to go to Prague. All those places, really. How long will you be gone?”
“A month,” Lola said, tapping another cracker against the plate. She didn’t eat it, though, and silence spilled between them for the first time since they’d gotten out of the shower and fallen into bed. Brighton’s mind flitted around a word, a terrifying word, and she assumed Lola’s did too.
After.
Because despite everything they’d talked about in the last few hours—the Fairbrooks, Anna, Lola’s music and how she’d met everyone in the quartet, all the wild things that had happened on this trip—they hadn’t touched that topic.
They hadn’t touched New York. Or Nashville. Or what would happen after Lola’s tour.
And maybe that was okay. They’d only just reconciled, after all, and Brighton didn’t want to ruin it by forcing them headfirst into the exact same problems they’d had five years ago.
She wanted to be happy.
She wanted Lola and Bright back, just for a little while.
Lola cleared her throat and took the tiniest bite of her cracker. Brighton was about to tease her for her rabbit eating, something she always did when she was pondering things, but then Lola looked at her.
“About the Katies,” Lola said.
Brighton groaned and flopped her head into her arms, hiding in the dark cocoon they created. She didn’t want to think aboutafter, and she sure as shit didn’t want to think about the Katies.
Not now, not ever.
“It’s not even about them, Bright,” Lola said. “It’s about you.”
Brighton didn’t move.
“Brighton Katherine.”
She arched her head up. “Pulling out the middle name.”
“At least you have one.”
Brighton cracked a smile, but sadness clouded her chest like it always did when she thought about how Lola didn’t have a middle name because, well, Anna Donovan sucked.
“I’ll give you a middle name,” Brighton said, pushing up to her knees and shoving the plate of crackers to the side. She crawled toward Lola.
