beautiful child

5

Lindsey hadn't been able to get Stevie to even look his way in the past week and a half. Mick had pulled Stevie aside before the show, just out of earshot from everyone else.

"What did you two fight about this time?"

"We didn't. Kristen is pregnant again. I've fooled myself for long enough, Mick. I'm not going to be his mistress anymore. I deserve better than that," Stevie huffs. It's all a front, Mick knows that. Stevie knows he knows. She's just hoping to convince herself with this act, too. Convince herself that she's okay always being his second choice.

Now she's laying on the couch in her dressing room, clutching tightly to a steaming mug of tea. She'd been a wreck since Goodbye Baby, forcing Lindsey to pick up the slack. A new round of tears starts up, and her mascara burns her eyes. She's long since given up blotting the black tears away, letting them trail down her cheeks, all the way down her neck. Kristen had surprised Lindsey again tonight, and the smug look she'd given Stevie, sobbing as she'd hurried off stage, was enough to pitch her over the edge into hysterics.

Stevie sips her tea. She had never lost it like that on stage, and the pitied looks from Mick and John hadn't helped her complete mortification at all.

As she stares into the dark liquid in her mug, she begins sobbing once more.

"Come on, sweetie, let's go," Karen says, squeezing Stevie's shoulder. She finishes her tea and grabs her purse. She wipes at her cheeks, but it does little for the dried mascara.

She follows Karen down the winding hallways. They pass the green room, and have to wait while the crew moves some equipment through the cramped hallway. Stevie keeps her head down, refusing to meet the blue eyes she can feel staring at her.

She looks up only once, when Karen asks her if she wants anything to eat. She shakes her head, her eyes meeting Lindsey's for half a second before she's out of sight.

He can't get the image of her, cheeks streaked with black mascara tear tracks, out of his mind. Her eyes showing him the full extent of the heartbreak she would never breathe a word of. Even as he tries to fall asleep, he can't stop thinking of her, his wife curled against him, all sharp edges and cold skin where Stevie is warm, soft.

The second Kristen is gone, Lindsey makes his way to Stevie's room. She's out, but he has plenty of time. He sits on the floor, leaning against the door.

She shows up a few hours later, freshly manicured. She hardly gives him a second glance, stepping over him to unlock the door. He stands, watching her anxiously. She barges into the room, bustling around like he isn't there to grovel. He takes the lack of a slamming door in his face as an invitation, and shuts the door quietly behind him.

She's trying her very hardest to look pissed off without letting the tears building up in her eyes fall.

"Will you stop?" He asks, watching her pacing between the suitcase in the living room and the clothes she has laying out on the bed, putting her outfits away.

"No."

Lindsey holds in his eye roll and perches himself on the edge of the coffee table, waiting for her to be finished. She does, quickly, unsure of what to do next. She lingers in the bedroom doorway, wringing her hands.

"Can we talk now?" He asks.

"Lindsey," She says, her voice shaking as she forces herself to look up at him. He can see the unshed tears glistening in her eyes. His heart aches.

"I can't be your second choice anymore. We can't keep doing this. I'm the other woman. I can't flatter myself anymore. You're married. You have kids. Your wife is pregnant. I can't keep letting myself get hurt, thinking that it's going to be different this time. Because at the end of the day, you go home to her. I can't keep being your backup plan, Lindsey. It's killing me."