She took one more toke off of her joint and then poured herself a glass of wine from the minibar (Aristocrat Records was picking up the tab for all hotel expenses). She sat on the balcony and looked out over nighttime Miami, letting her mind drift wherever it wanted. And where it wanted to drift the most was back to the previous night, when she and Molly had been naked in bed together, pleasuring each other. And what it liked to think about the most was how hot it had been to have Jake watching them.
Life was good.
It was close to one o’clock in the morning when she finally went to bed. She turned the air conditioning on high, stripped down to her panties, and then snuggled up under the covers. It took her awhile to fall asleep. She was accustomed to having Jake’s warm body in bed with her and his absence was quite distracting. Finally, she did drift off and slept deeply and well until 9:00 AM, when the phone rang with her wakeup call.
She got up, took care of her morning essentials, and then got dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a pullover shirt. She combed out her hair and put it up in a ponytail. She took her birth control pill, washing it down with water from the minibar. She then packed up her travel bag, made a quick look around the room for any stray belongings, and then headed downstairs.
She and the rest of the band met in the hotel’s café and ordered breakfast. Charlie and Coop were looking a little worse for wear, but everyone else seemed to be pretty rested and relaxed. Laura ordered eggs benedict with a fruit cup on the side instead of hash browns. It was delicious and filled the hole in her belly quite well.
“Is everyone ready for the first travel day?” Liz asked as Celia signed for their meals and added a generous tip (this too was covered by Aristocrat under the touring contract).
“Damn right,” Coop said enthusiastically. “It’s great to be back on the road.”
“And exposed to all these foreign microbes again,” Charlie said sourly.
“Well, Charlie,” Celia said, “if you’re afraid of strange microbes, maybe you shouldn’t be socializing with groupies after the shows.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Charlie said. “I always make them shower first. And then I wear gloves on my hands and two condoms on my member. And, of course, I never kiss them.”
“Of course,” Coop said with an eye roll.
“I think that might have been more information shared than was really required,” Liz said.
“Hey now,” Charlie said. “You can never share too much about antimicrobial practices.”
“Yeah ... actually, I think you can,” said Little Stevie.
“And you just did,” Liz put in.
Charlie pouted at being rebuffed. Eric, per usual, contributed nothing to the conversation.
Laura and Celia shared a glance. They were both looking forward to the trip to the airport on this first day. They would once again be flying on the King Air 350 between venues and Suzie Granderson, who neither had seen since their trip to Palm Springs nearly eight months ago (Celia had talked to her on the phone a few times though, including just the week before the tour) was once again going to be the pilot-in-command of the aircraft for the entire tour. She had actually turned down a regular assignment in Seattle just so she could be assigned to the Celia Valdez tour. Laura knew, of course, that Celia had a girl-crush on Suzie and that Suzie had the major hots for Celia. She also knew that, on the trip to Palm Springs, Suzie had developed at least a physical girl-crush on Laura herself. And Laura, though she found Suzie just a little bit on the masculine side for her lipstick lesbian tastes, did have to admit that the woman was attractive in her way. And she was very fun to hang out with. It was going to be interesting to see how the dynamic worked as the tour ground along.
They loaded up on the bus and were driven to Miami Executive Airport, south of the downtown area. There, they unloaded, bags in hand, next to the parked King Air. Suzie and her new copilot—an early thirties man with an actual mullet (what is this, 1985? Laura thought when she first got a gander of him)—were standing next to it, both in their jeans and Patterson Aviation shirts. Suzie, seeing the band walking over to her, let her professional face drop and immediately rushed over to them, starting with Celia. She threw her arms around her and pulled her into a big hug.
Celia returned the hug enthusiastically and even kissed the pilot on the cheek. “It’s so good to see you again!” she gushed. “I’m so glad you’re going to be our pilot for the tour!”
“I wouldn’t miss it for anything,” Suzie told her. She then turned to Laura and held out her arms to her as well. “It’s good to see you again, Teach.”
Laura hugged her, enjoying the feel of her firm body against her. “It’s good to see you too,” she returned. “It’s going to be cool having you fly us around.”
“Yes, it is,” Suzie said with a smile that Laura took to be a bit flirtatious.
Suzie then hugged Little Stevie and then Liz and then Coop. She did not hug Charlie, knowing of his germ phobia (and also because he kind of creeped her out) but did verbally greet him and assure him that the HEPA filters and the ultraviolet downstream sterilizers (neither of which actually existed) were in full operation and ready to protect him from those dreaded high-altitude microbes.
“That’s a relief,” Charlie said, obviously speaking the truth. “Then the ultraviolet sterilizers have been shown to be effective in testing?”
“Goddamn right,” Suzie assured him. “Not a single high-altitude microbe made it downstream of the sterilizer. Not even one.”
“Fabulous,” Charlie exclaimed. “Hopefully, the technology will start making its way to the commercial airlines soon.”
“Hopefully,” Suzie agreed. She then turned to Eric, who was standing apart from everyone, his eyes looking at the tarmac, his bag resting on the ground. “And here’s a face I don’t recognize. The new violinist?”
“That’s right,” Celia said. “Eric Pale, violin prodigy. Natalie, as you know, is getting married to your former copilot soon and she elected not to go out with us.”
“Yeah,” Suzie said slyly. “I remember the last tour. Those two got pretty close. She’s living with him in Texas now, right?”
“Right,” Celia said. “Apparently his ex-wife dragged out the divorce as long as she could, but it’s finally official now.”
“I guess she had reason to be bitter,” Suzie said. “Anyway, it’s nice to meet you, Eric.” She held out her right hand.
Eric, keeping his eyes firmly cast downward, shook with her briefly and muttered something that might have been “nice to meet you” or might have been just a multi-syllabic grunt.
“Eric’s a little shy,” Laura said when she saw Suzie’s questioning look. “He has social anxiety disorder.”
“I see,” Suzie said.
“I took my Xanax on the way here,” Eric said softly. “It should be fully therapeutic by the time we take off.”
“That’s uh ... good to know,” Suzie said.
The copilot with the mullet had wandered over by this point. His face was handsome, and he was in good shape. He was tall, taller than your average pilot. His eyes were gray and his hair a dark, dirty blonde. And it was a mullet. Laura could not quite get over that part.
“Hey, everyone,” Suzie said. “This is Njord. He’ll be the copilot for the tour.”
“Nord?” asked Laura. “That’s an interesting name.”
“It’s spelled N-J-O-R-D,” Njord told her, giving her a little flirtatious smile of his own. “The J is silent. Njord is one of the Norse gods, like Thor and Odin.”
“Your parents named you after a Norse god?” Laura asked.
Njord shrugged. “They were hippie stoners,” he said. “And they were really into Norse mythology at the time they had me.”
“Interesting,” Laura said. And what’s with the mullet? she did not say.
“I just got hired by Patterson from West Slope Air,” Njord told her, though she had not asked.