Destiny Rules

Chapter 7

"I mean, I'm envisioning a HUGE world tour," Mick marveled as they all sat around Stevie's dining room table.

Stevie and Lindsey exchanged soft glances at each other from across the table, their eyes continually making contact during all the distracted moments of the meeting when they hoped nobody would notice. Stevie tried not to let it distract her, but ever since Lindsey had arrived at her home, she felt this incredible need to talk to him and be near him. It was all innocent, of course, she simply missed her old friend she reasoned as she sat at the table hoping to look focused.

"Stevie?" Mick repeated, "Earth to Stevie. What do you think?"

"Huh? Oh, sorry, well I do have some concerns with a huge world tour. I have Lily, you know, and I'm a single mom."

Mick nodded, taking a deep breath, "Well, could you bring her on the road?"

"For some of the dates, yes, but I think we should really keep this to a US tour for now. Plus, school will be starting again in September so she'll need to be here. I would be more comfortable committing to that to start with. Maybe we can do a few UK shows as well?"

Mick sighed, "Stevie, that's a lot of European market we're missing. And let's not forget Australia..."

Lindsey chimed in, "Mick, we should be thankful Stevie is on board with a US tour even. That sounds perfectly reasonable to me. We can tack on a week in the UK for several nights there too. That sounds like a reasonable compromise. And who knows, maybe next year we will do Europe."

Stevie bit her lower lip, shocked to hear Lindsey speaking up to defend her. In their entire history as a band, and even before, that hardly ever happened. Mick eyed Lindsey curiously, suspicion now running rampant at this seemingly innocent moment. "Okay," Mick nodded in defeat, "That would be good too. Better than nothing, you're right."

The meeting went on for another hour, everyone reminiscing on The Dance and discussing the ways in which they could top it with this reunion tour. It was decided: they would embark on a two-month US tour beginning in August, and they would take a two-week break in September so everyone could be with their kids for back to school time, much to Stevie's delight. That meant they would have to start rehearsals next month, and that meant that suddenly, this was all very real—and very quickly happening.

"Thank you for having us," Mick grinned, pulling Stevie into his arms in delight, "I am so excited for all that's to come with us. And even more excited to have you back in my arms, Miss Nicks!"

Lindsey eyed Mick as he held onto Stevie a little too closely for his liking. As everyone else said their goodbyes and headed for the door, Lindsey lingered, not quite ready to follow suit. The truth was, he needed to talk to Stevie alone before all of this.

"You coming, mate?" Mick asked turning towards Lindsey.

"I uh....you go ahead. I wanted to talk about some school stuff for the kids with Stevie," Lindsey lied.

Not one person in the room bought that excuse, but after giving them both a knowing glance, Mick led the rest of the crew out the front door with another goodbye. Suddenly, Stevie and Lindsey were left to themselves in her quiet foyer.

"School stuff, huh?" She turned to him with a smile.

He grinned sheepishly, "Sorry, I don't know where that came from."

She shook her head, turning to walk back into the living room without another word. Confused, he took that as a cue to follow her. So he did.

"The truth is," Lindsey began talking as Stevie busied herself with pretending to clean the table. He watched her curiously, "The truth is...I thought we should talk first before all of this begins."

"Talk? About what?"

He took another breath, trying to figure out how to say what he needed to say without making things weird, "Are we....are we going to be okay with all of this? I mean, we didn't exactly discuss the logistics of us on a tour together."

"The logistics?" She questioned with a cheeky grin, "This isn't our first rodeo, Lindsey."

"I know but...well surely you have to admit this will be different for both of us. It's the first tour since we've...well since we've had kids and stuff."

"And stuff?" She questioned, "Is that what you refer to your marriage as?"

"I see you're not going to make this easy for me," he grimaced.

She tried to hold back her smile, "Why would I start that now?"

He groaned, "Stevie."

"Linds, I don't see the big deal. We've both grown up and gone our separate ways. You're married with three beautiful children, I have a wonderful man in my life and an incredible little girl who is my world. We have matured, I'd like to think, since our previous tours. You've even gone a little gray, which means you've definitely calmed down a bit in your old age so hopefully we won't fight as much."

He poked her ribs, tickling her slightly as she squirmed and giggled out of his reach. "You take that back," he warned.

"Or else what?" She challenged.

He took a step closer to her, his lips nearing hers as he whispered, "Don't test me, Nicks."

She raised her eyebrows in challenge, "But that's what I do best."

The corners of his lips turned up slightly, as he backed her into the wall teasingly. She played along, pretending it was all a playful act and game, but in reality, every bit of her body was on fire from this exchange. The close proximity of Lindsey's hips to her own and his warm breath against hers was enough to drive her wild. Every second they didn't act on the impulses they both were obviously developing again made it all the more exciting.

"If I do recall, the wall was a dangerous spot for us," he grinned as his hips inched closer to hers.

"Well luckily we've moved past that," she whispered.

"Luckily," he repeated, staring intently into her eyes.

"So I guess I'll see you at rehearsals next month?" she tried to change the subject. 

He nodded without a word, not fully ready to pull back from whatever this was that happened so quickly. He was simply trying to have a conversation with her about the upcoming tour and how they would work together after all their...history... but as always, they let the chemistry in the air take over instead of using their actual words. And there was so much that needed to be said. Suddenly, the sound of the front door from the other room broke the silent spell that had been cast between them. Stevie hurriedly pushed Lindsey away from her and collected herself quickly with a deep breath.

"Stevie?" Dave's voice called from the foyer, "Are you ready?"

She closed her eyes for a moment as Lindsey watched her intently. "Yeah, I'm in here with Lindsey."

"Oh," Dave grinned walking in to find them both standing there, each looking incredibly frazzled, "Hey Lindsey, didn't think you'd still be here."

"We were just finishing up our meeting, I was just headed out."

"Everything go well?" Dave asked looking to Stevie.

She nodded, "It went great, looks like the tour is a go!"

"Wow, amazing!!! You both must be so excited."

They looked at each other with uncertain smiles. Oh, they were certainly excited. But they were also certainly terrified.