Chapter 10 #2
He hits a sour note and scowls down at the guitar like it offended him personally. “Maybe the guitar needs coffee too,” I suggest before I can stop myself.
His gaze flicks up, surprised. “Maybe the photographer needs to keep her opinions to herself.”
“Maybe she’s trying,” I counter, “but the guitarist keeps making noise.”
He tugs one corner of his mouth up. “You’d miss it if I stopped.”
Would I? my traitorous brain asks. I roll my eyes as I answer. “Trust me, silence is underrated.”
He studies me for a beat too long. It feels like being held under a microscope. “You haven’t shut up since you got on this bus,” he observes. “You don’t strike me as someone who likes silence.”
“You don’t strike me as someone who knows me,” I shoot back. For a second, something flashes in his eyes. Hurt? Offense? It’s gone before I can name it.
The bus hits a series of bumps in quick succession, jolting us. The table rattles, and our knees knock together under it, hard. I slam my hand down to keep my laptop from sliding.
His thigh stays where it is. Solid. Warm. Impossible not to notice.
“Sorry,” I mumble again, not trusting my voice.
“I told you,” he clips, “it’s fine.”
The words are softer this time. Less barbed wire, more bandage. Heat creeps up the back of my neck. I focus on cropping a photo of Luc mid-scream, hair flying, mic cord wrapped around his wrist like a tether to sanity.
Time stretches. The bus eats miles. The sky outside shifts from bright to blazing to that late-afternoon haze that makes everything look like a memory.
At some point, Hayden slips off to his bunk.
Mikey disappears into the back with his phone and a pair of headphones, muttering about catching up on messages.
It’s just us. I don’t realize it until the silence changes flavor.
The background noise of the boys drops out, and suddenly I can hear smaller things; him shifting in his seat, my own breathing, the slide of his thumb along the guitar’s neck.
My knee is still close to his. Close enough that if either of us moves the wrong way, we’ll touch again.
“About the other night-” The words are out of my mouth before my brain approves them.
Dean glances up. His hair has fallen forward over his forehead; he pushes it back with a quick, impatient sweep of his fingers.
“I’m not drunk now,” I bumble out, picking at a nonexistent thread on the leg of my shorts.
“So, if you’re waiting for an altered-state confession or apology, you’re out of luck.
But,” I swallow. Why is this suddenly hard?
“I was an idiot,” I admit. “Ya know, with the drinking, the tequila and the… words.” I gesture vaguely at the air between us.
He just looks at me. No snide remark. No mocking smile.
“Don’t get used to this,” I spit out. “It’s not a habit.”
One corner of his mouth curves, slow and genuine this time. “Didn’t think saying sorry was in your vocabulary, camera girl.”
“It’s not. I didn’t,” I retort defensively. “This is just me taking accountability. Don’t make it weird.”
He huffs a quiet laugh, looking down at his guitar. “Too late.”
The sound warms something in my chest. I hate that it does.
I shift in my seat, pulling my camera bag closer, like a physical barrier will somehow help.
We lapse into a different kind of quiet after that.
Less sharp. Less full of land mines. The kind of quiet that feels like sitting in a truce. Or a waiting room.
I pull up a shot of the crowd in Salt Lake, a sea of faces and hands and devotion.
In the front row, a teenage girl with eyeliner smudged down her cheeks clutches her chest like Luc just rewrote her DNA with a lyric.
It’s a good photo. Maybe even a great one.
But my cursor drifts down to the next image.
Dean in side profile, on the edge of the stage. Backlit in gold, head bowed, hand braced against the wall. The exact same posture he had on the side of the highway when the world cracked open under someone else’s wreckage.
My thumb hovers over the trackpad. I zoom in unconsciously. I can see the tiny lines at the edge of his mouth, the tension in his jaw, the rawness in his eyes. This is the story. The real one. Not the glossy legend, not the curated version.
The truth. I should keep it. My editor would salivate over this. Instead, I press delete. The confirmation box pops up. Are you sure? I hit yes. The image disappears.
“You did it again.” His voice startles me. I snap my head up, heart leaping. He’s watching me with an intensity that feels like it could peel paint.
“Did what?” I ask, even though I know.
He nods at my laptop. “You keep deleting the good ones.”
“It wasn’t good,” I defend.
He tilts his head. “You’re a terrible liar.”
“You’re a terrible conversationalist,” I counter. “We all have flaws.”
His gaze doesn’t budge. “You did it the other night too. After Seattle. Thought I didn’t see you. You get something real, but then you throw it away.”
I swallow. My mouth feels dry. “Like I said before, not everything belongs to an audience,” I explain quietly. “Sometimes it’s just a moment. Between people. Not for sale. I try to maintain that line between what’s okay to share and what’s not.”
His jaw works. For a second I think he’s going to argue, to push. To accuse me of holding out, of not doing my job. Instead he says, almost under his breath, “The world doesn’t deserve that kind of loyalty from you.”
The words mean more than they should. I look back at my screen so he won’t see the way my expression cracks.
“You hungry?” he asks abruptly.
The subject change whiplashes me. “What?”
“You’ve been chewing on that same piece of gum for three hours.” His gaze darts to my mouth. “Which is either a kink I don’t want to know about or proof you haven’t eaten.”
My face heats. I didn’t realize he noticed. “I’m fine. I’ve got bars.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen your bars.” He smirks. “Protein and cardboard. Real gourmet.”
“Some of us respect our arteries.”
“Some of us burn enough on stage to earn pancakes,” he counters.
I blink, my brow furrowing. “Pancakes?”
He shifts and reaches into the small storage space under his bench. When he straightens, he sets a Styrofoam takeout container on the table between us, along with a cardboard coffee cup that smells like heaven.
“I grabbed them at the last gas station when you were in the bathroom.” He doesn’t meet my eyes when he speaks. “Since you ate them last time, figured it was a safe bet.”
I stare at the container. At the steam curling from the coffee vent hole. At him. “Why?” I can’t help my suspicion.
He shrugs, shoulders rolling under the worn cotton of his shirt. “Can’t have the enemy pass out from low blood sugar. Would really fuck with our schedule.”
My lips twitch. “So, this is purely for tour preservation.”
“Something like that.” His eyes flick up, catching mine. There’s a softness there he probably doesn’t realize he’s letting me see. “Eat, Sadie.” He almost never says my name. It feels different than camera girl. Too intimate. Too… real.
I pop open the container. Warm, fluffy pancakes stare up at me, butter melted in a small puddle. My stomach growls, loud enough to rat me out. “Traitor,” I mutter at my abdomen, then reach for the plastic fork. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” He says it like it costs him something and he’s choosing to pay anyway.
I take a bite. The pancake is perfect. Warm, soft, just sweet enough. I have a sudden, ridiculous urge to marry whoever cooked it. We don’t talk while I eat. He goes back to his guitar, quiet, almost absentminded. The bus rolls on. The sky outside softens as the sun dips, turning everything amber.
By the time the last pancake is gone and the coffee cup is empty, the world outside the windows has gone mostly dark. Highway lights flash past in regular intervals. The driver calls back that we’re about an hour out from Lincoln.
The bus feels smaller somehow. Tighter. Hayden returns from his bunk and flops into the bench behind us. Mikey reappears, hair mussed, hoodie half-on, offering the room a lazy, “We there yet?” before collapsing across the opposite seat.
My laptop battery icon finally ticks back into the green. I save my work, shut it down, and unplug the cord, winding it with careful fingers.
“You okay?” Dean inquires suddenly.
I glance up. “Yeah. Why?”
“You’re quiet.”
I arch a brow. “You say that like it’s a medical emergency.”
“With you, I’m not ruling it out,” he jokes lightly.
I snort. “Don’t get used to it. Just trying to make sure I survive the next week without getting fired for murder.”
His gaze lingers on my face for a beat. “You’re not getting fired.”
“How do you know?” I challenge.
“Because Cherry would kill us before she let you go.” His tone is matter-of-fact. “You’re good. We like you. Even when you hiss.”
“I don’t hiss,” I protest.
Mikey raises a hand without opening his eyes. “You definitely hiss.”
“Bunch of babies,” I grumble.
The bus slows gradually, the hum of the engine shifting as we pull off the highway. We drift through a series of turns, city lights getting closer, brighter, sharper.
I stand, stuffing my laptop and camera into my bag. My legs have pins and needles from sitting too long. I stomp my feet a little to wake them up.
“Five minutes,” the driver calls. “We’ll pull up at the Sapphire.” Because of Lily’s connection and long-time employment, we’ve been staying at the Sapphire Resorts whenever we can. The rooms are always nice here, but to be honest, any bed beats the bunks.
Through the windshield, I can see the Sapphire Resort sign glowing in deep blue against the night, and the sleek glass, steel, and stone building rising up out of the flat Nebraska darkness like someone dropped a skyscraper in a cornfield.
It’s beautiful in that expensive, cold way. High ceilings, polished floors, too many reflective surfaces. A place built to make people feel smaller and richer at the same time.