Twenty-Six
Molly lay on her back, her knees bent because the mattress was about two inches too short for her to stretch out fully. The engine of the bus was humming underneath her left hip, a steady, vibrating rattle that made her teeth click together if she kept her mouth shut too tight.
She was terrified.
It was stupid. She was thirty years old, and she was hiding in a box on wheels, sweating because of a girl who spent her life singing to teenagers.
From across the narrow aisle, there was the sound of Toby’s snoring. From another bunk, Elena hissed quietly, ‘I found the receipt in my emails for the top!’
Then Jax said, ‘Come in here and show me.’
A curtain slid across a metal runner with a sharp clack and then quickly slid back home. Then someone started playing rock on a speaker. Molly was grateful. She had no interest in hearing what came next in Jax’s bunk.
But Molly did wonder if it really was as simple as Jax and Elena had made it.
She pushed her own curtain open very slowly, trying to stay quiet, but it sounded deafening to Molly.
She felt like everyone knew what she was doing and what she was about to do.
She slid her feet out onto the narrow strip of carpet.
The floor was freezing. She was only wearing her green T-shirt and a pair of grey knickers.
She moved down the aisle, her hip bouncing once against Toby’s doorframe as the bus hit a bump somewhere on the motorway. He kept snoring.
Ashley’s bunk was at the very end. The black curtain was drawn shut. Molly reached out and pulled the edge of the fabric back an inch.
Ashley was awake. She was sitting up against the wooden wall, her knees pulled to her chest, looking at her phone screen. The blue light made her dark eyes look enormous. When the curtain moved, she didn’t look surprised. She just set the phone down on the blanket.
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ Molly said.
Ashley looked at Molly’s bare legs, then up at her face. ‘Alright,’ she said. She shifted her weight to the side, creating space.
Molly climbed in. As soon as she pulled the curtain closed behind her, Ashley reached out and grabbed the hem of Molly’s top, pulling it up over her head in one quick movement.
Topless, Molly climbed astride Ashley, and Ashley sat up, her hands going straight to Molly’s hips.
‘You’re cold,’ Ashley whispered, her mouth pressing against Molly’s ear.
‘Warm me up, then,’ Molly said.
Ashley’s fingers found the edge of the grey knickers and yanked them.
But due to positioning, as well as the limited space, they didn’t get far.
The fabric caught around Molly’s thighs, pinning her knees.
Ashley tried to drag them lower but only succeeded in cracking her knuckle against the wooden frame of the bunk.
‘Fuck,’ Ashley muttered.
Molly tried to help, but in the tight space they were just awkwardly wrestling with cotton.
Molly let out a short, impatient breath. ‘Hell with it.’ She hooked her fingers into the waistband herself. With one sharp, vicious yank, she ripped them clean off her legs and kicked them down to the foot of the mattress.
‘That’s better,’ Molly whispered.
It really was.