Reverse (Bittersweet Symphony Duet #2)

TWENTY-EIGHT “Steal Away”

TWENTY-EIGHT

“Steal Away”

Robbie Dupree

Natalie

G aping at the footage on the cell phone, I glance back at Jason Garett, aka Tack, Easton’s hired drummer, as he grins back at me from the first row of the van. Stunned, I flit my gaze to Easton, who opted to drive while I ride shotgun.

“You outran a fucking tornado?” I scold in my Bactine and Band-Aid maternal tone.

“We were at a safe enough distance,” Easton defends weakly, a grin brewing on his lips.

“That’s a bit of a stretch. Look at this,” Tack admits, thrusting a picture of golf ball-sized hail cradled in his heavily tattooed hand toward me.

“Jesus, Easton,” I chide, which only makes his smile bloom.

“Crazy, right?” Tack shakes his head before pulling a beer from the cooler on the floorboard and thrusting it toward me. “Want one, Nat?”

“No thanks, I’m kind of a lightweight,” I admit. “I’ll wait for the show.”

A question strikes me then. “Easton?”

“Yeah?”

“We aren’t sleeping in the van, right?”

He chuckles. “I wouldn’t subject you to that.”

“We tried a few nights the first week,” Tack says with clear annoyance, lifting his chin in Easton’s direction. “This fucker insisted on it, but it was a nightmare.”

“Too fucking right,” Syd pipes from next to him.

“So sorry you missed your morning tea, darling,” Easton says unapologetically.

“As you should be.” Syd snarks back in his British accent.

Easton shrugs. “I tried. But the vote was three to one, against me.”

“Not that our win did much good. Now, after endless hours in this filthy fucking van, we’re stuck staying in the cheapest hotels,” Syd adds, his prominent accent making his snobbery sound a bit more comical. “I draw the line sleeping with these smelly bastards, and bologna is not proper food.”

“Ah!” I say, turning to Easton, “that’s what’s lingering in here. I couldn’t place it!”

Easton chuckles and glances over at me. Much to my dismay, upon entering the van, I had to control my gag reflex. Easton’s blue cheese assessment far kinder than reality. I would go so far as to say the van smells like a blue cheese-covered, heavily used gym sock that’s been freshly baked in the sun.

Easton had laughed hysterically at my reaction as I immediately rolled down the window, trying to mask my gags.

It took the better part of the first hour of our trip for me to be able to handle it. Still, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. The band has been nothing but welcoming in a way I wasn’t expecting, and I got the eclectic part of Easton’s warning right away.

Tack was raised in the Midwest. His monstrous meat and potatoes build bred deep in a slice of Americana. He definitely sports the rocker look with dark brown hair and darker brown eyes. His mismatched clothes somehow work, and he’s got more ink than visible skin. So far, he’s been the most talkative of the three.

“Now this was a good fucking night,” Tack says fondly, lifting a picture to LL, aka Leif Garrison, Easton’s lead guitar player, who sits with his back to the window, his arm stretched out on the second-row seat. Though Scandinavian born, with white-blond locks and sparkling blue eyes, his Sussex-raised accent is unmistakable. LL’s looks are striking in contrast to the other three’s dark and broody.

Syd Patel, the oldest at twenty-nine, is Easton’s UK-born bassist. His skin is the most beautiful hue of dark brown, thanks to his Indian heritage. The quietest of the three, mainly because he hasn’t stopped vaping and drinking since I got into the van, he’s been forthcoming enough to make me feel at home amongst them.

“This crew,” Easton muses between us, “it’s almost like a setup for a joke.”

As I take them all in, LL returns my curious gaze the longest, a Guinness can clutched in his hand.

“Maybe,” I say, turning back toward Easton, “but this is really happening. You’re doing it. You’re on your way to play another show right now.”

“Yeah, it’s amazing. But something wasn’t right.” He glances over to me. “It hit me in Oklahoma that I needed to pick up my favorite instrument.” Jumping on Easton’s bold and slightly infuriating declaration—knowing he didn’t really mean the misogynistic insinuation—I unbuckle my seatbelt and turn on my knees, gripping the headrest. Easton objects immediately by slapping my ass, hard.

“Just for a second,” I say, waving him away.

“Put that buckle back on, now ,” he barks.

“Chill,” I dismiss. “So . . .” I give each of them a pointed stare. “Tell me about the ladies,” I waggle my brows, “how’s the action?”

LL is the first to smile, and I point at him. “Ah ha!”

Glancing over at Easton in time to see his nostrils flare, Tack speaks up as Syd smirks out of the window.

“What do you want to know?” Tack asks.

“Well, do any of you have a lady in waiting back home?”

“Fuck no,” Tack replies, “and it’s a good thing because—”

“Don’t you fucking finish that,” Easton warns, all too aware of what I’m getting at. Right now, it’s my only line of defense, so I press in.

“Oh, but Tack, I think you should,” I draw out.

“I’m divorced,” Syd offers, tapping his bare ring finger, “no birds to speak of at the moment, which I also consider a good thing.”

“And you, sir,” I ask LL, whose looks could vaporize panties worldwide. The man is stunningly gorgeous, though no Easton Crowne.

LL’s lips curve in a devious smile. “I’m a gentleman.”

Even Easton protests with a loud sigh of “Bullshit” as various debris retrieved from the floorboard flies toward LL’s head. As the chaos erupts, Easton’s fingers discreetly skim up my thigh, and I immediately turn toward him and catch the opposite of what I was expecting. He’s glaring at me in warning, a take no prisoners look marring his features. “Seat belt, now , or I’m fucking pulling over.”

“Geesh,” I turn back and buckle in. Seconds later, Dion’s “Only You Know” comes on through Easton’s playlist, a rare repeat. Easton turns it up, keeping his gaze on the highway as more anarchy erupts from the back of the van.

“What the fuck is this, golden oldies?” Tack wrinkles his nose.

“Exactly, it’s a classic. Listen up, and maybe you’ll learn something. Also, if you’re not driving , you don’t get a say,” Easton barks in his no fucks given tone.

Apparently, it’s a van rule.

Not long after, I get lost in the melody, in the memory of those minutes he played for me in that hotel. For several seconds, I mentally trace his profile. Though he doesn’t look over at me, I know he’s right there with me. When the song ends, his gaze finally slides over to mine.

“Your first time,” I whisper between us. “I wish I would have recorded it.”

“It’s better you didn’t,” he says in a way I know would tarnish some of the intimacy of that memory, and I slowly nod in agreement.

I’m tempted to fling myself at him, even with the burn of the groupie talk chattering in the back of my mind. I can’t help but ogle him freely, and I do, for miles. That is until Tack grips both our headrests with his heavily inked hands, his head popping up between us.

“So, what’s the deal with you two?” Tack cants his head toward Easton, his question directed toward me. “This fucker was tightlipped the entire way to Austin and only admitted we were picking up his girl five minutes before we pulled up.”

Easton shoots a quick look my way, forcing me to answer on our behalf, his expression muted.

“We’re friends,” I say, with a lead tongue, the words feeling like a betrayal. “ Close friends,” I emphasize, glancing over to see Easton checking his blind spot as he shifts lanes, his reflection revealing he’s not at all happy about my answer, jaw ticking in response.

It’s not like I’m happy about it either, but we can’t be anything else, and somehow, I have to figure out a way to make him understand it while continuing to convince myself of the same thing. I wonder how many times you can lie to yourself before it becomes habitual. That’s what I feel like right now, a liar, because how in the hell am I going to resist this man? But I must. I have to make those words true. My father always taught me the right thing and the hard thing are often the same thing. In the case of Easton Crowne, my resistance to him will be my biggest test.

Unsatisfied, Tack presses in. “How did you close friends meet?”

That’s the crux of it, and I say it out loud to remind us both . “In the most impossible of situations. Trust me, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me,” Tack challenges.

“Hey, man, sit back,” Easton bites out lightly, “I can’t see out of the rearview.”

Tack rolls his eyes at Easton’s blatant attempt to end our conversation. It’s effective enough. Soon after, the guys start to chat amongst themselves, beers popping at random.

Briefly, I worry that they’ll be drunk by the time they have to play, but Easton looks unconcerned as he stares out at the rapidly darkening road.

After too many miles of uncomfortable silence, a rarity for us, I finally state my piece.

“I’m sorry . . . I didn’t know what else to say.”

He gives me the subtle dip of his chin, but I know that’s not the answer he wanted. In the next two days, I’m determined to make him understand it’s the only answer I can give.

The minute we pull up to the small auditorium, the guys exit like their asses are on fire, having only half an hour to spare before the show starts. Easton had refused to pull over for a third piss break, and the guys threatened to unload in the sea of Gatorade bottles on the floorboard. Needless to say, there was no going back after they’d broken the seal. We ended up stopping four times before we made it to the venue. They all seem in good spirits now, even Easton, who I had refused to let go radio silent on me the rest of the way to Oklahoma. Surprisingly, he seemed just as eager to get us back to the cheerful place we were in when he picked me up. As we caught up, I could see such a change in his posture from the time we met. His smiles are granted far easier. The more I observed the differences in him, the more I realized some of his ill demeanor was due to the fact he was at his own crossroads when ours merged.

We’d been there for each other when we both needed someone to help us put things in perspective. It’s no doubt one of the reasons why we bonded so quickly, and it seems so—unforgettably. One thing I know for certain is that he gifted me the perception I need. Unfortunately, he’s done it in a way that’s brought on a whole new set of challenges. Challenges like trying to keep my legs from wrapping around his naked waist for the next forty-eight hours.

It’s clear now we’re both on the other side of the road we merged on, having chosen our respective directions. Unsurprisingly, I’ve stayed the same course—a course I’ve chosen my entire life, as has he. My path isn’t as full of solutions as his is, though—something I’ll be hard-pressed to admit to him.

As much as I love the intense Easton I met who was weighing a major life decision, this Easton is just as alluring, if not more enigmatic, which will make the next couple of days much harder.

Mulling over the task at hand, I catch sight of a familiar face as an identical second van, which was absent during our road trip, pulls up beside us.

“Oh my God!” I exclaim, and Easton flashes me a grin before l haul ass toward the driver’s door of the second van. Joel steps out looking gorgeous in a simple white T-shirt and jeans, a ready smile for me as he opens his arms and I fly into them. “Hey, you!” I greet, feeling the warmth in his embrace as we hug tightly and pull back slightly with matching grins. “Is it weird to say that I missed you?”

“Not at all. We bonded fast, and we weren’t the only ones.” He lifts his chin, gesturing behind me, and I follow his line of sight to catch Easton’s gaze darting warmly between us before Joel leans in on a whisper. “And in case it’s not evident, you’ve been missed, too.” Before I can get a read on Easton, the back door of the arena bursts open. Easton’s eyes slip from the two of us as he’s greeted by a man who eagerly pumps his hand with both of his own. Joel and I chuckle as Easton widens his eyes at us helplessly. The man talks a mile a minute, clasping his palm on Easton’s shoulder before ushering him toward the door.

“You told him, didn’t you?” I turn back to Joel as Easton disappears inside. “That I was crying when I left, you told him.”

Joel shakes his head, not a trace of guilt to be found in his expression.

“I didn’t have to.”