“Tattooed,” she says as Bran punches through the door to the hallway that leads to the parking lot.
We get to the bus and Billie’s at the dinette with papers strewn in front of her and her laptop open, talking on the phone. She’s always putting out fires for one of her many clients so it doesn’t surprise me to see her working so late. She gives us a wave and I gesture that we’re heading to the rear lounge. I grab three beers out of the fridge on our way through the kitchen and Billie scowls at me, so I hand them to Bran.
“So, you and your manager have this bus to yourselves?” he asks, glancing at the bunks we’re passing on either side of the narrow hallway on the way to the back of the bus. There are six of them, but three are covered with my clothes.
“Yeah. The band is together in another bus.”
I open the door into the lounge, where there’s a horseshoe sofa around the back facing a big screen TV next to the door we just came through. My guitar is propped in the corner and I’ve got a snapshot of Lilah and me at her grandmother’s tucked into the window casing.
On the other side of the door is a bar with a stocked fridge. By stocked, I mean snacks and sodas. Billie won’t let me keep beer back here, I guess because she wants to think she has control over how much I drink.
Billie hardly ever comes back here, so this is my sanctuary. I mostly play Hearthstone and text Lilah and some of my old The Voice friends when there’s decent cell service. Max texts me a lot, but I’m trying not to encourage him, so about half the time, I ignore them. Sometimes I play some of Lilah’s and my old stuff and picture myself back in San Francisco. I’d say it’s lonely, but the truth is, I like being alone.
I go to the cupboard and grab bags of Cheetos and Doritos, tossing them on the low table in front of the couch. I pull down a tub of Red Vines and set it in front of Lilah. “Had them pick those up for you.”
Bran cracks open a beer and hands it to me, then does the same for Lilah before opening his.
“Pretty glamorous,” Lilah says, looking around as she and Bran settle into seats on the couch.
I shoot her a cynical look. “I’ve always been glamorous.”
She laughs, because it’s so not true. Lilah’s been at my side through every foster home, the group home. We’ve been there for each other when no one else was. She’s the only person I’ve ever shown my insecurities to. She’s the only person who’s ever met the real me.
“So, where to next?” she asks, pulling my guitar into her lap and picking at the strings.
“We’re heading south, L.A. and San Diego, then we cut back through Denver and Texas on our way to Florida, where we wrap up.”
“How many shows all together?” Bran asks.
I click on the TV and find a rerun of The Big Bang Theory, then mute it. “Forty in nine weeks.”
“How’s your voice holding out?” Lilah asks, bringing her hand to her throat with a cringe.
“So far, so good. We usually have a travel day in between shows, so that helps.”
“God, Lo,” she says, looking around again. “I always knew you’d make it. Ever since that first time we sat on that bus stop bench singing Bob Dylan.”
I bust out laughing. “Yeah, that was a big day. Was it four dollars and seventy three cents we made?”
She shakes her head. “It was the way people looked at you. We were, what, nine? Ten? Even then, you had that…whatever. That intangible thing that makes people stars.”
“Wow, that was deep,” I say, then take a long drink from my bottle. “I’m not drunk enough for that yet.”
She slugs me in the shoulder, then her fingers start moving over the strings. It’s a song I haven’t heard for a while—one of the first Lilah wrote. I start singing the melody and she slides in with the harmony.
And, God, it gives me shivers.
This is what I love about music, how it transcends everything and cuts to the root of a person. To their soul.
We’re halfway through the song when a knock on the window behind my head makes me jump. I turn and see Tro just stepping down from where he must have climbed up on the wheel to reach the window. He points at the door up front.
I get up and when I open the lounge door, I see the sliding door to Billie’s bunk is closed and the light’s are out up front. I tiptoe past and go to the front to open the door.
“Hey,” he says.
I look past him and see people still trickling out of the stadium.
I step back and as he moves past me and notice his hair is damp and he smells like soap. I picture him in the shower, then wish I didn’t when my insides begin to buzz.
The door closes and I realize we’re just standing here and staring at each other when he reaches up and combs a hand self-consciously through his dark curls. I’ve never seen Tro self-conscious about anything. I didn’t know he was even capable.
“Billie’s sleeping,” I whisper, shaking off the goose bumps and grabbing a few more beers from the fridge.