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Chapter 35

Sloan

♪Little Black Submarines | The Black Keys

Fourteen weeks later

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

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

He laughed a little and propped himself up on his elbow, his 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,” he said.

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

Jason scooted up on his forearms until he was hovering over me. He gave me one of his amused smiles, which meant my hair was probably crazy.

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

He grinned and nuzzled into my neck instead.

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

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

Zane always wrote the city on Jason’s hand before he went onstage so he 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?” he asked, looking down on me.

Jessa was the lead singer of his 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.”

He kissed my forehead and smiled, his blue eyes creasing.

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

His smile got deeper. “And their mother’s artistic talent.” He took my hand and curled it up in his.

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

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

I gasped and hit him, and he chuckled.

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

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

He 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.

Maybe we needed to drink more water. I made a mental note to make Jason do that with me—even though he looked great.