Page 69 of Everything After (Everything Trilogy)

LILY

“All set?” Alfie asked as he came up behind me and placed a protective hand on the small of my back.

I glanced up at his face through the mirror, hair still slightly wet from our morning shower and sighed.

My heart still fluttered with a little spark of excitement whenever his focus was fully on me.

“How come you get more handsome with age every day? It’s criminal.

You don’t have one gray hair in sight yet. ”

“Plenty of sex. Sex keeps me young,” he murmured so close to my ear a shiver ran down my smile. He pressed a light kiss to my temple, then met my gaze in the mirror again.

I laughed. “Maybe that’s true. Your one-track mind is so busy working on your fantasies that your body forgets to mark the passing of time.”

“I’ve aged a lot in the past couple of years. You’re the timeless one between us. You get more beautiful every year.”

“You’re just saying that. What if you’re not that into me after I have the baby?”

“Seeing your body change with my baby inside you turns me on. It’s so fucking sexy.

“And after?”

“Your body will be even better. It might even bear the marks to remind me that you carried our baby inside you. Oh, and I can guarantee when the baby gets here, I’ll still be excited to have your body all to myself again.”

“But what if—”

Alfie spun me around to face him, placed his fingertips over my lips, his broody eyes clearly annoyed by my question.

“There are no buts, Lily. You’ll always be beautiful to me.

The connection we have isn’t only based on how you look…

maybe in the beginning before you touched me it was, but never since then.

You could blindfold me, place me in a room with a hundred girls and I’d know it was you the second you touched me.

There has never been another woman who’s had such an electrifying effect on my body, like you’ve got. ”

“Thanks, but I think you know what I’m talking about. Image can be everything at the wrong time. The media pick on women artist, they love to post pictures when we’re not at our best. They don’t usually do that to men, and I’m not as adept at shaking off criticism as you are.”

“Aren’t we all that matters?”

“I wish. But I’m sure the media will have plenty to say, once they know that I’m pregnant.”

“Then they’ll have to deal with me,” he snapped. His protective tone jolted me out of my mood.

“Hell, maybe I’m just finding that I have some time on my hands and nothing else to grumble about,” I said, waving off my concerns.

“Don’t diminish your feelings like that. I’m not dismissing anything you’ve said about the press but aren’t I what matters? Up until now, we’ve lived our lives in the limelight—”

“Oh, I hate these fucking hormones. They make me feel irrational all the time,” I blurted when I realized I’d taken our normal conversation and turned it into my likely persecution by the press.

“Aw, baby. Let’s get back to Florida and take a lazy day in the sun.”

Alfie’s thoughts on a relaxing day were cut short when I had a call from Lennie before we’d even reached Dallas airport.

“Have you left for the airport yet?” he queried in an urgent tone.

“We’re just leaving the hotel now,” I advised as we stepped out onto the sidewalk. Oscar walked ahead of us, opened the limousine door, then Alfie and I climbed in.

“I’ve had a call to say there’s a spot on the Jimmy Fallon show tomorrow night.

There was a South African band scheduled to perform.

Problem is they were flying in from Australia until some bush fires grounded their flight.

They were cutting it fine to begin with what with the time changes, so the production team decided to pull them, and needs a music segment stand-in. ”

“Aren’t we back in the studio on Monday?”

“I figured it’s only a hop to New York then down to Miami afterward, since you’ll be on a plane anyway.”

“I don’t think it’s quite that simple,” I argued, annoyed that he hadn’t taken into consideration that all the traveling felt more exhausting for me right now.

“Well, anyway, I’ve said yes,” Lennie muttered with a note of resignation in his tone that insinuated I shouldn’t complain.

“I’ll speak to Alfie and see you there, I guess.” I hung up before he could say anything else.

Alfie gestured with an upturned hand, then said, “Well? What was that?”

“We need a diversion. Lennie’s agreed to XrAid performing on the Jimmy Fallon show tomorrow.”

“Without asking you first?” he spat, angrier than I’d sounded when I’d told him.

“It doesn’t matter… can you just arrange the flight, please?”

“I’m fucking sick of this,” he ground out. “What the hell’s gotten into him? Wait until I see him,” he threatened.

“Alfie, please don’t interfere. And I think this has more to do with what’s gotten into me,” I mumbled as I rubbed my swollen belly.

A heavy feeling settled inside my chest, lowering my mood.

I felt depressed by how cross Lennie appeared to be about my pregnancy.

It felt as if the man I’d put my faith in had suddenly turned into someone I didn’t know.

“C’mere,” Alfie mumbled, pulling me flush with his body and wrapping his arms around me.

“It’s like I said, baby. Your band have been used to you showing up, being thankful for them choosing you, and you being happy to go with the flow for too long.

But times change, and this is the time they need to show you what you mean to them. ”

“I know…”

“Let’s arrange that flight to New York, get that show out of the way, then you can tell the guys you’re not flying anymore until after you have the baby.”

“Good plan,” I agreed. Lennie’s behavior was tiring, and Alfie had a point—why should I need to be the one to compromise all the time?

“Are you on your way back to Miami already?” Jack asked as we boarded Alfie’s plane, once the new flight path had been scheduled, and accepted in New York.

“XrAid has a gig on the Jimmy Fallon show tomorrow,” I explained.

“You never said anything about that yesterday,” he mumbled.

“I only learned about it half an hour ago,” I muttered. My statement sounded pathetic to my ears, but I wasn’t consulted about accepting it and wondered if Lennie had spoken to my bandmates beforehand.

“Holly’s wedding was a blast. Way too extravagant to be tasteful in my humble opinion. Then again, money talks and her parents have unlimited funds.”

“All that matters is that it was what Holly wanted,” I reminded him.

“All she wanted was Brett, Lily. The rest was for her parents’ benefit.”

I nodded even though he couldn’t see me. “I guess. Look, Jack, we’re about to take off, can I call you when I get back to Miami?”

“Sure. We’re hanging out there until Thursday with Elle and Drew, then flying back to the UK.”

Alfie took my cell phone away from me. “We’re about to leave Dallas and Lily needs some rest.” He cut the call off and dropped my cell phone in my purse. “Come on, let’s get you buckled in.”

It was only minutes after we settled into our seats that the flight took off.

Once we were safely in the air. Alfie stood, unfastened my seatbelt, took my hands and pulled me to my feet.

“Wake us up about an hour before we reach New York,” he instructed Oscar while he led me to the bedroom at the back.

“Will do,” Oscar replied, and gave Alfie a thumbs up sign.

“You, Mrs. Black, need a nap. And I need to chill out and spoon with my wife.”

“Sounds like my day has just gotten better,” I admitted. The thought of his strong arms around me, and his warm body next to mine immediately lifted the cloud that had been hanging over me since I’d spoken to Lennie.

“Well, we have a while, maybe after you’ve had that nap, I can teach you just how much better it could get,” he replied with a wicked grin.

Despite being tired, my heart still skipped a beat when I saw that glint of humor in his eyes, and right then I regarded myself as the luckiest woman in the world.