That Damn Rose

The Day After

Ok. So this is my first story I'm posting and I really hope you guys like it! Let me know if I should continue it or not...I wrote it in one fell swoop so I am not sure how it is! Any feedback is welcome :) Ok. Enjoy!

That damn rose.

 

The rose Lindsey had given her sat on her bedside table right on top of her journal. And she had not been able to stop staring at it since he had given it to her last night. Of course he had given one to Chris too and she knew it was a purely platonic gesture but it was a rose, from him, on Valentine’s Day. She knew it was silly but after the show she had put it carefully in her bag and kept it hidden until she got back to her room, where she had proceeded to write in her journal and continue to stare at the rose…which is what she did until she fell asleep that night and what she had continued to do this afternoon (her morning) before she got up.

Sighing and forcing herself to go away from her object of obsession for a minute, she wandered into the sitting room and sat down on the couch. She was completely alone in her suite and didn’t have a thing to do until Tuesday. She looked around the room restlessly. Facing the ancient debate of wanting to do something, but not wanting to have to go anywhere. “Damn cold” she thought. “I can’t even go shopping here”

Looking around again, she had spotted her bottle of champagne that the venue had given each of them last night. Stevie went over and examined it, noticing that it wasn’t bad champagne and it was cold and it had been forever since she had indulged herself…so who cared what time it was.

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Stevie was halfway into the bottle of champagne, and tipsy enough that the NCIS marathon was not doing it for her anymore. She got up to wander around and when she saw the rose, she became fascinated again. Taking both her glass and the bottle of champagne into her room, she sat down on the bed and took the rose into her hands. When her and Lindsey were a couple they often exchanged simple things like this. They didn’t have much; their gifts were never extravagant or excessive. But they were so precious and Stevie remembered them like it was yesterday.

Lindsey. Feeling the soft petals beneath her hand, she wondered how the hell they had gotten to this point. Even in the past year things had changed so much.  2013 had been glorious for the both of them, they had some bumps along the way, but they were truly able to just be themselves. To be silly, to be caring and loving in a really open way that started as something Stevie wanted to express onstage. But as the tour went on, it started manifesting offstage as well.

When John got sick, the closeness from the tour had made them seek refuge in each other. He had spent the night in her bed twice, completely platonically and nothing happened. Then, in Sweden he had dedicated a song to her, completely out of the blue, and she was not expecting it at all. That night he had come to her and they crossed a line they hadn’t crossed since 2004. It was amazing, loving and she had gotten attached. She lost it at Vegas and that is when she knew she had to pull back. So although she was excited for Christine to come back, she couldn’t. She couldn’t go into the studio so soon, couldn’t be around Lindsey in that way. So she did her own thing. She went to Nashville and recorded 24 Karat Gold. She tried to immerse herself so far into her solo career that when it came time to head into rehearsals she had built a wall so high around herself so he couldn’t get in. Mission. Accomplished.

She knew he was pissed, and for some reason that didn’t stop her. She kept doing things that could be an instigator for him to yell at her but he didn’t. He wasn’t biting. This tour had mellowed them out a little, but they were nowhere near what they had 2 years ago. Which is what she wanted and yet she saw that rose and all she wanted was to be wrapped in his arms and him never letting go. Not even bothering to use the glass, she took the champagne bottle and had a giant swig.