Page 67 of Saving Graces
“Come here,” Rosalie said, appearing out of the semi-darkness. Without switching on any lights, she pulled Kinsey into the shower with her, where they kissed and gently soaped each other’s bodies and somehow, miraculously, managed not to have any more sex. By the time Rosalie had switched on a low lamp and the two of them were dressed, Kinsey had made up her mind.
“I’m not coming back tonight,” she said quietly. Rosalie went still. “I’m not… calling it off,” she reassured her, “at least not yet. But I need to step back a little. I’m feeling far too close to you and if I let that happen there’s a pretty good chance that I’m going to end up getting hurt.”
Rosalie stood a few feet away and just nodded. Her eyes were as conflicted as Kinsey had ever seen them, her expression crestfallen.
“Last week,” Rosalie said, “you said you wanted no strings.”
“No,” Kinsey corrected her, “I told you I wanted you however I could have you. I wanted you so much I thought I could just leave all the strings behind. And I’m trying to but…” She swallowed. “This is me trying not to want you.”
“Kinsey.” Rosalie took a step towards her. “I want you-”
“Oh, I know you do,” Kinsey told her. “Physically. But other than that you don’t know what you want.” Rosalie didn’t argue with her, but her eyes were aching. Kinsey sighed. “I know what I signed up for,” she said, her voice getting firmer, “but I don’t know, maybe it’s about now that I should be calling time.”
Rosalie reached out for her, but didn’t quite touch her. Instead her fingers barely brushed Kinsey’s arm, before her hand dropped by her side. That, in a way, felt like all the answer she needed. Rosalie opened her mouth but Kinsey stopped her.
“I don’t want you to feel bad,” she said. “We were both quite clear about what we were doing. But I know when it comes to you that I’m always going to want more.”
She looked at Rosalie’s beautiful face, her lovely eyes, her soft mouth. She imagined Rosalie in her apartment, her feet up on Kinsey’s couch, across the table in a restaurant, holding her hand in the street on a cold day.
“I think all this sex is going to my head,” Kinsey said after a moment, managing to smile. “Let me have the night, okay? Then we’ll see where we’re at tomorrow.”
“Okay,” Rosalie said quietly. “That’s fair.”
Rosalie stepped in close, very gently brushing the softest of kisses against her mouth. Kinsey cupped her face and stopped her. She met her eyes, tracing her thumb slowly along the curve of Rosalie’s bottom lip. And then she left.
Before
When it happened, it was fast and furious. One minute, Savannah and Cole were playing little gigs all around town. The next, an agent spotted them. Savannah showed up at Coral and Rosalie’s apartment one evening with a bottle of champagne - not cheap bubbles, but actual, technical, French champagne - her eyes wide.
“We got a record deal!” she squeaked, bursting through the door where Coral and Rosalie were lazing back watching TV together.
“What?” asked Rosalie, but she wasn’t in fact surprised. There were tons of artists struggling to make it in Nashville, but it had been wildly clear from the very beginning that Savannah and Cole were the real deal. Rosalie grabbed glasses and Savannah popped the cork, all of them shrieking when it nearly hit Coral in the face. Together, they drank.
“How are you affording real champagne already?” Coral asked, her eyebrows sky high. Savannah bit her lip.
“It’s from the label. We’ve got a case of this stuff at home. But,” she said, looking shocked to even be saying this, “I think we’re, um, rich now?”
“Huh?” Rosalie asked.
“The deal is with Sony. For three albums. They just gave us an advance,” she paused, looking somewhere between awkward and in total disbelief, “of a million dollars.”
Rosalie dropped her glass. Champagne spilled onto the sofa and onto her jeans but she barely noticed.
“What…the…fuck?” She leapt up and hugged Savannah all over again. “I fucking told you, didn’t I? I told you your life was going to stay interesting forever. Holy shit Savannah!”
“You and me,” Coral hit Rosalie’s shoulder, her eyes wide, “we’re going to be sitting around in bars some day saying ‘we knew Savannah Grace before she was Savannah Grace’ and people will think we’re lying. And you,” she pointed to Savannah, whose eyes were sparkling with tears, “you better not forget us little people, or I’ll sell all the dirty details to whatever magazine comes calling.”
Savannah burst into laughter and tears at the same time. She was hovering in the living room like she was too hyped to ever sit down again.
“First up, you two will always be the biggest people in my life. You and Cole, of course,” she amended. “Secondly, Coral, for fuck’s sake, you’re coming with us. Right? We need a band like yesterday.”
Coral blinked. She had her own band, one still playing dive bars and opening acts on tiny side stages.. They were a rock band; Savannah and Cole were country. She sang lead on all the songs; what Savannah was offering would be back up at best. She seemed frozen, poised between two sharply different paths into the future. Her teeth sunk into her lip and suddenly her gaze swung to Rosalie.
The two of them had stayed up late at night talking about Cole, their mutual mistrust of him, their worry about what he would mean for Savannah’s life. And here was Savannah getting tied to him for the foreseeable future by a huge recording contract and imminent success. She was about to get whisked far away from them into a whole new world… alone with Cole.
“I’m in, baby,” Coral said. Savannah cried even harder and hugged her.
Rosalie felt all the air get sucked out of the room. Savannah and Coral were leaving her behind, a world filled with adulating crowds and real champagne glimmering within their reach. She swallowed hard, struggling to keep her expression bright.
