“Drink enough whiskey before bed and you won’t hear a thing, I swear.”
“Really?” I counter. “That’s your solution?”
“Or you could ask Shawn,” he offers with a shrug. “He’s usually the guy to go to. But you’ve been kind of a bitch to him lately, so—” I shoot him a glare, and his arm slips away from my shoulder as he takes a quick step back. “Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s funny as hell.”
“Anyone ever tell you you’re annoying when you’re happy?”
“Dee,” he answers with a big grin. “All the time.”
I grunt at him, toss my bag into a storage area near the bunks, and make my way through the rest of the bus. The first section, behind the driver’s quarters, is filled with leather benches for sitting. Then there’s the bathroom and lots of personal storage. Then five bunks—a stack of three on one side, a stack of two plus extra storage on the other. Then a kitchenette complete with seating, a minifridge, a microwave, an oven, plenty of storage and counter space, and a massive TV that Mike is already hooking gaming systems up to while Rowan unloads groceries. It’s like she bought out the local supermarket and thinks it’s all going to fit in our cupboards. I consider pointing out that all of the guys are way too lazy to cook and there’s no way in hell I’m cooking for them, but I can tell she’s keeping herself busy to keep from missing Adam before he’s even gone. He’s sitting on a bench watching her, fiddling with the wristbands on his wrists and looking like he wants to pull her into his lap and keep her there for the entire tour. Both Rowan and Dee are taking summer classes—Rowan at the local college and Dee at the local fashion school—or I don’t doubt they’d be coming along.
“Where’s Dee?” I ask.
“She has class.” Rowan throws the last box of pancake mix into a cupboard before turning around. She leans back against the counter, her bottom lip red like she’s been gnawing on it all morning.
“We said good-bye last night,” Joel says from behind me, and when I look over my shoulder at him, he’s smirking at the memory. “She made sure I’d miss her.”
I scrunch my nose at his oversharing, and Mike chimes in with his hands full of wires, “I give it three days before you start whining like a baby.”
“I give it two,” I challenge, and Mike chuckles while he programs the TV remote.
“You’re on.”
“I give it one,” Joel confesses, and Adam laughs before finally reaching out and tugging Rowan into his lap. He nuzzles his nose into her hair, and her eyes close as she hugs his arms around her.
It takes another twenty minutes to get Adam to let her go, but when he finally does, Shawn practically sits on top of him to keep him on the bus. The roadies pile onto theirs; our bus driver, Driver, starts our titanic engine; and then we’re on the road and there’s no turning back.
The first venue is only a few hours north, in Baltimore, and we do an early afternoon soundcheck before breaking for dinner at a local hibachi place and then coming back to mingle with fans standing in line. We take pictures, sign autographs, and get to know all the kids who showed up over an hour before the doors are set to open. Then we head inside and hang out up on the shadowed private balcony to watch everyone file inside.
The first girls to enter practically sprint up to the barrier in front of the stage, securing their places front and center in hopes that they’ll catch Adam’s eye. They all dream that he’ll sing part of a song to them, which he probably will; or that he’ll reach out and touch their hands, which he might; or that he’ll invite them backstage, which he definitely won’t, not with Rowan waiting for him back home.
“Tonight’s going to be crazy,” Joel notes with his entire body stretched over the balcony rail as he watches the rows in front of the stage thicken from two, to three, to four, to five deep. “Was this one sold out?”
“Not as of this morning,” Shawn says, but as the rows continue multiplying, it becomes pretty obvious that more than a few tickets have sold between this morning and now.
“What are we doing after the show?” I ask, my stomach churning with nerves I wish I could control. Venturing into the pit after a show at Mayhem is one thing—most of the fans have seen the guys perform a hundred times and are used to having access to them—but performing out of town is different, and I have a feeling this crowd would eat us alive.
“We’ll hang out backstage until shit dies down,” Shawn says, calming my upset stomach. “Then we’ll head to the bus.”