T - I like it when you obey me.
V - Don’t get used to it.
T - See you later, Mischief.
I can’t help but smile as I tuck my phone away.
He sends a car, of course he does. I’m just finishing up my hair when it arrives, and I quickly rush to secure the last strand before straightening down my black dress, sexy but casual, not too much but enough that he can see a little cleavage and a flash of thigh. I sent Reagan a photo of my dresses, and she told me I need to go sexier, but I decided against it. It’s dinner, we’re not going to a show or a club. Besides, it leaves a little more to the imagination.
The car ride takes us from the city's neon pulse into neighborhoods I've never been into. I watch the city lights shrink in the rearview, its lights blurring as we slowly drift away. When we finally stop, I'm staring at a home that belongs in some small-town movie, not a rock star's portfolio. Two stories of pristine white clapboard with cornflower blue shutters that frame each window.
A wraparound porch curves gracefully around the front, dripping with fairy lights that make the whole place glow. The picket fence—an actual, non-ironic picket fence—stands crisp and white against a lawn so lush it seems unreal. Hydrangeas spill from the flower beds in clouds of blue and purple. It's not the modern home I expected; it's the kind of place where kids would chase fireflies at dusk.
Travis appears at the door, shirtless, a pair of low-hanging jeans on his hips, his tattooed body like a statue beneath the fairy lights. I get out of the car, thank the driver, and walk over, stopping at the bottom of the porch steps, my mouth still slightly agape.
“You like?”
“You live in a Pinterest board now?” I ask, my eyes wide as I take it all in.
He gives me a slow smile and extends his hand. I take it, coming up the steps. “Most people go rock ‘n’ roll trope. L.A. glass box, man-cave, whatever. But when you were young, you told me that all you ever wanted was a big home with a white picket fence.”
He shrugs, and for the first time since he has been back, I see the boy I remember.
“You remember that?” I whisper.
“I remember everything, kid.”
He swings the door open, and we step inside. The place is all wood floors and warm lights. Houseplants everywhere, booksstacked on every flat surface, but it’s not staged, it’s lived in. It’s weirdly perfect. Like every piece of furniture he has picked is perfectly suited for the picture he is creating, and that picture is a home. The fireplace in the living room tops it, and I could see myself growing old here, that’s the kind of house it is. Travis beckons me into the kitchen. “We’ll do the bedroom tour soon. First, we’re going to eat.”
The kitchen has been redone, but it remains beautifully country, with white wooden doors and a wooden counter. It has a huge island bench in the middle, and so much space to store things, I could put my entire room just in this space alone. Travis pours me wine, then starts chopping onions with terrifying competence. “I googled this all day. It’s supposed to be idiot-proof.”
I laugh. “What is it?”
“Vodka sauce. It’s meant to be epic. If it sucks, we’ll order pizza.”
He works fast, wrist flicking, tattoos flexing along his forearm. I lean on the counter, sipping my wine, pretending not to be mesmerized. I help peel garlic, and he tells me about the first tour he ever went on—a rattletrap bus, twenty states in eight weeks, everyone squashed into one tiny space. Until he got big, and then he got his own bus and the crew got another.
“Always good to come home, though,” he murmurs, brows furrowed as he chops herbs. “But I wanted somewhere I could call home, somewhere that is mine.”
“Is that why you bought the house?”
He stirs the sauce, gaze flickering. “Yeah, and this is my home, always has been. Everything I love is here.”
The intensity in the air steams my skin. I want to say something big, something lasting, but I can’t breathe around it.
He points to the fridge. “There’s dough for the bread in there. Grab it?”
I pull out a mixing bowl, heavy with soft dough. Travis dusts flour across the counter, turns out the dough, and hands me a hunk. “Go on, punch it.”
It's stickier than I expect; flour poofs up, clinging to my arm. I try to knead, but it slides everywhere, and we both laugh. “You’re hopeless, kid.”
“Well, I didn’t have kneading dough on my list of things to do tonight.”
“Oh? Well, let me change the narrative.”
He hurls a handful of flour that explodes across my face. I shriek, lunging after him around the island, my pulse hammering in my throat. We collide against the fridge with enough force to knock the breath from my lungs, leaving a ghostly imprint of our bodies on the stainless steel. Our eyes lock, chests heaving, faces inches apart. The air between us crackles like a live wire. Travis reaches down, dipping his thumb in the sauce, then traces it across my bottom lip, his eyes never leaving mine. I capture his thumb between my teeth, sucking the sauce clean before releasing it with a soft pop. "Not bad," I shrug. "Less vodka, more salt."
He tilts his head, eyes dark, mouth tipping into a grin. “You want another taste?”