Everything After(76)

“What do you think?” she asked Ari when she stepped out of the dressing room.

“Simple, cool, not trying too hard—and stunning,” her sister said. “You look like you’re ready to bring down the house.”

“I am,” Emily said with a smile. “I am.”



* * *



—

Emily was supposed to get her period two days later. But she didn’t. She told Ezra, but she refused to talk any more about it. She was too afraid of what might come next.





67



A couple of weeks after her date in SoHo with Ari, Emily was going over her schedule from Diana. It was D-Day. Or maybe C-Day. The feeling of anticipation had been coursing through her veins since she woke up that morning.

“What should I wear?” Ezra asked, looking at Emily in a pair of boxer briefs and nothing else. He’d told her the night before that he was worried about looking the part, about being cool enough to be a musician’s husband. She’d reassured him with a kiss and told him that she’d help him pick his outfit.

She walked over and kissed him again, the scent of his aftershave assaulting her as she did it.

He ran his hands down her body. All she had on was a pair of underwear and a bra. Her period still hadn’t come, her breasts felt swollen, but she told him she wasn’t going to take a pregnancy test. Not yet. She didn’t want to know, to get attached, until she was sure the baby was there—and would stay. Schr?dinger’s baby, they called it.

“Do we have time?” he said, running his fingers around her nipples, making them stiffen.

A thrill shivered through her body. Emily glanced at the clock on her bedside table. She knew she was supposed to be at the venue in an hour. “If we’re fast,” she answered.

Emily had barely finished the sentence when Ezra scooped her up and brought her to their bed. He ran his fingers over the crotch of her underwear, and Emily could feel the silk sticking to her, making her want him even more than she already did.

“Please,” she breathed, and he knew what she meant.

He stripped off his underwear as she stripped off hers, and when he slid inside her, she felt the familiar sensation of completion. Her body felt made for this, for him, and he slid even deeper, pressing against whatever it was inside her that changed the pitch of her breathing, made her buck against him. “It’s your Skene’s gland,” Ezra had once told her, but Emily didn’t care what it was called or why it felt so good. She just wrapped her legs around him and pulled him in tighter.

The two of them rocked together until Emily felt her back arching and an orgasm rippling through her body. Then Ezra braced his knees on either side of her and brought himself to a climax, too.

He rolled off her, both of them breathing hard.

Emily reached out and grabbed his hand in bed. “Man do I love you, Dr. Gold,” she said.

“I love you, too, Dr. Gold,” he replied, smiling at her. Then his eyes widened as he saw the clock behind her head. “We’ve got to get dressed!”

She sat up. “Your dark-wash jeans,” she said, answering the question he’d asked ages ago, “and your cranberry sweater. And those suede chukka boots Ari and Jack got you for Hanukkah.”

She put on her hunter green cowl neck—Priya had told her it made her hair look fiery—the leather pants, and the shoes she’d finally settled on: the cowboy boots she’d worn to perform in Mexico. She was Rob’s inspiration, but in a way, he had been hers, and she wanted to pay homage to that. She did her stage makeup quickly and left her hair loose, in its natural waves.

“Ready?” she said, as she tamed a few flyaways with hair spray and flipped her head over to spray it upside down for extra volume.

“Ready,” he said, appearing behind her in the bathroom. “I’m so, so proud of you. Have I mentioned that?”

“Maybe once or twice,” Emily said to him smiling, “but I never get tired of hearing it.”





68



When Emily got to the green room, Ari and Jack were there, sitting with Priya and Neel, their VIP passes letting them in early. Ezra’s parents were on their way.

“I’m so happy for you, Em!” Ari said, when Emily sat down next to her. “I spoke to Dad before. He said to tell you to break a leg. I promised I’d send him a video.”

Emily felt her eyes moisten with tears. “Thanks for doing that,” she said. She hoped maybe next time she played, he’d come. Maybe before that she’d go out to see him and they could talk, the way she had with Ezra. Maybe their relationship could be repaired, changed, strengthened. In the meantime she had her sister, she had her husband, she had her friends, who loved her. That was more than enough.

Emily took a breath and tried to focus on the moment, to get herself in the right headspace to go on stage. This was it. She was reclaiming herself, taking back a part of her that she’d given up, hopefully starting a brand-new career—one she knew she was meant to pursue. She’d treated music like an addiction, avoided places that would trigger her desire to play, to be on stage. But now she realized that what she’d thought was bad for her was actually something that nourished her soul. Like being addicted to water or air.

Tony walked into the green room—he had a VIP pass from Rob but had told Emily he’d visit her, too. “No crown?” he asked Emily, touching his own bald scalp.