by Viva Fox
Her fingers dug through her purse again, pausing at her wallet. One quick swipe of her credit card and it would be problem solved. Except it wasn’t really her credit card. Nothing was really hers anymore. Plus, Shane would be able to track her down if she used it.
She had no idea if Shane would actually come looking for her, but she didn’t want to chance it. She wasn’t even sure if he would notice she was gone.
No, she thought, he would notice.
As soon as he walked in the door and couldn’t smell his supper cooking he would be hollering for her. She glanced at the clock hanging above the special’s board. It would be 8:00 in Colorado. Yep, he’d be looking.
Emily imagined him walking through the house looking for her. What would he do when he realized she wasn’t there, she wondered. Call her father? Call her? It would do him no good because she left her phone on the counter before she left. Would he decide she was too big of a hassle to track down and instead try to figure out how to cook his own supper? Emily smiled to herself as she pictured Shane mashing the buttons on the microwave. Getting food poisoning, perhaps.
“What’s so funny over there?”
Emily looked up and to her left, to a couple stools over where the counter wrapped around to the wall. She hadn’t realized someone was that close to her, or that they had been watching her. Just like Shane never let anyone but him be the center of her attention.
She looked at the man that had spoken to her, the one who had most definitely been watching her.
“Nothing, really.” She said, shaking her head and resuming her search for coins.
“Seemed like something.” His blue eyes were no longer on her, he was adding cream to his cup of coffee, stirring it.
She could have just left things like that, rebuffed the stranger trying to strike up a conversation with her. And it had been so long since she had talked to anyone without Shane stepping in that she sort of forgot how. Not to mention that this man was all kinds of good looking. Thick lashes shaded his blue eyes, regarding the cup he cradled in his hands. His dark hair was tied back at his nape and he was so wildly different than Shane.
Her mouth opened and words spilled out before her brain knew what it was doing.
“If it was it wouldn’t be funny to anyone else. Funny in that warped kind of way, you know?”
The smile that slid onto his face should have been illegal.
“Who says I don’t like warped?”
Although his attitude, all confidence and attraction, sent a zip of appreciation through her, she wasn’t in the mood or the position to flirt. Not about this. She had wanted him to look at her again, to talk to her. Not talk about herself. She wished that she would have just let him drink his coffee and she could have sat and stewed by herself.
“Trust me, it’s not what you have in mind.”
“Try me.” He persisted.
“Okay.” She said, turning towards him. “Ever hear the one about the girl who left her abusive boyfriend only to have her crappy car die and nothing but his credit card to get her through until she found a bank?”
There, she thought, he won’t want to touch this situation. He’ll politely go back to drinking his coffee and leave me alone.
The muscle in his jaw tightened, as did the ones in his arms. She couldn’t help but let her eyes wander down to the smooth ink covered sinew. Her brows dipped, thinking back to when she once told Shane she wanted to get a tattoo. It was years ago, but his disgust still rang loudly. He told her she was never to mark her body in that disgusting way. That sure didn’t stop him from marking her with his hand.
“What are you going to do?”
Her eyes snapped back up to the man across from her, the concern in his voice contradicting his rough look. She shrugged.
“Call my sister I guess. See if she can get me a bus ticket.”
He seemed to think about this for a minute, his eyes sweeping over her in a way she’d never experienced. She wasn’t familiar with his kind of attention, a casual curiosity. He wasn’t obliged to care, nor was there any advantage to be taken, yet he sipped at his coffee and wrinkled his forehead at her problem.
“There’s no bus station here.”
“Oh.” She hadn’t really thought it through, yet again. “I guess I’ll think of something else.”
“Can your sister come and get you?”
“Maybe.” His forehead dipped again at her answer, so she added, “Probably. I was just going to call her now.”
Emily slipped from her stool and made her way to the back of the diner. She picked up the phone, plugged in her change, and dialed. While it rang she took a peek over her shoulder to where the man’s stool was now empty.
And when a few minutes later, after she left a voicemail message for Marin and was walking across the parking lot to her car, she was glad to not have to explain her lack of a way out of here. She already knew she was in a predicament; she didn’t need him making it more obvious than it already was no matter how good natured he was being.
The sun was setting over the truck stop, but the Texas heat had yet to ease up. Emily unlocked her car and tossed in her purse, but the heat radiating out from the inside had her shutting the door and leaning against it. It was all up to her to figure out how to get to her sister’s place. No one was going to make the decision for her. And it wasn’t like she had a ton of practice making decisions on her own. She could only imagine what Shane would say right now.
She didn’t wish she had Shane there to figure things out, just that she had done a better job of planning her escape. If she had been smart about things and waited a few days to get things in order this probably wouldn’t have happened.
“Your sister coming?”
Her head snapped up at the sound. Emily looked up into the dark gaze of the stranger from the diner.
“Um, no.” She said, even though it was sure to earn another disapproving stare from him.
He had kind eyes that didn’t care to hide what he was thinking, but there was something dark about him. Something that she didn’t want to mess with, and her inability to figure her shit out seemed to be messing with him. He moved to beside her and leaned against the old car, like it was the most natural thing in the world to do. Like a person accustomed to people letting him do whatever suited him.
“So what are you going to do now?”
“I don’t know yet.” She said, starting to get irritated with his questions.
“You have no plan?”
“What is wrong with you? You don’t even know me, yet you have to follow me around judging my actions. No, I don’t have a plan.” She was waving her arms around, most likely like a lunatic, but she couldn’t find it in herself to care. “This entire situation wasn’t planned. But you telling me that this wasn’t my smartest idea isn’t helping.”
“Hey, cool it. Being alone in a piece of shit, broken down car at a road side truck stop at night isn’t the safest place to be.” He blew out a breath and ran a hand through his shoulder length hair. “Listen, I didn’t mean to make you mad. It’s just that we’re pulling out soon and I was watching you from the window.” He pointed over his shoulder to a bus painted black and silver, the words Thorn Crest painted on it. “I couldn’t drive off with you just standing here, you know, stranded.”
“You were watching me?” She asked, surprised that he really genuinely cared about what happened to her.
“I told you a truck stop at night wasn’t a safe place.” The grin that pulled at the corner of his lips was sinful. It caught her off guard, made her smile back in spite of herself.
“Sorry I freaked out at you. I’m a little out of my depth here. Having that pointed out hit a sore spot.”
“Understood. Which way are you headed.” He asked.
Emily pointed out across the southbound interstate roughly in the direction of Marin’s.
“Us too.” He said. His hand scrubbed across his stubble, his eyes fixed in the direction she had pointed. “Wanna l
ift?” He said after a moment.
“A ride? With you?”
“What are your other options?”
Emily held up her fingers and counted them off for him.
“One, locking myself in my car until I can get a hold of my sister. Two, not getting murdered.”
“I get it. It was just an idea.” He shrugged before pushing himself off of her car. “I’m not a murderer, and you wouldn’t be alone. If that helps. I’ve been on the road for hours. Months, actually. Having some company for a few hours might do both of us some good.”
She looked at him, at the concern around the edges of his eyes. It would have been easy to assume because of his hulking presence, the dark ink line creeping up his neck, his big black boots, that he was one of the people he was warning her about. But she couldn’t make herself believe that. It was hard to disguise the worry in his eyes, just like Shane could never disguise the monster in his.
He wasn’t pushing her to go with him. He wasn’t forcing her to make a choice. And maybe that’s why she wanted to go with him. Or maybe she wanted to make a decision that Shane would never have approved. Whatever the reason was, though, she did.
“Do you have room for my stuff?” She asked, pointing to the duffle bag that she had thrown her things into.
He lifted an eyebrow before smiling down at her. “Yeah, I think we can manage all that luggage.”
He grabbed her bag and Emily locked the car up before they headed across the parking lot. Under the glowing orange lights she looked up at him, his hair brushing against his perfect jaw. He was an interesting man from what little she knew about him. So many contradictions in such short time.
“I’m Emily, in case you’re interested in knowing.”
“I’m Dylan.”
He didn’t seem to want to supply anything else, but curiosity got the best of her as usual.
“So where are you heading?”
“Houston, I think.”
“You think?”
“Yeah. I’m pretty sure, then New Orleans tomorrow.”
She glanced from him to the bus.
“What do you in Houston and New Orleans?”
“I’m a musician.”
“And your band is called Thorn Crest?”
“Ever heard of it?”
“Nope.” That wasn’t terribly surprising, though. If it wasn’t country it wasn’t played in Shane’s house. “Are you any good?”
He smiled at her. “We have some fans, yeah.”
Realization dawned on her.
“So when you said we wouldn’t be alone, does that mean there’s going to be half a dozen rowdy guys on the bus too?”
A smile tugged at his lips again. “Nope. Just us and the driver. One of those luxuries that come with being the front man, I guess.”
“So everyone else?”
“Is on another bus, probably half way to Houston by now.”
We came upon the open door and entered onto the darkened bus. It wasn’t glamorous like she figured a tour bus would be, but it didn’t smell like booze and vomit either, so she wasn’t complaining. The front section held a bunch of amps and cases. Beyond that were the living quarters with a table and kitchen area in the middle of the bus and in the back a space for a queen sized bed. It was clear that Dylan spent many hours in this space, a temporary home. The clutter of a person trying to pack a life into an 8 x 12 foot space.
Dylan set her bag down on the floor near the bed and threw himself into the booth on one side of the table. With not much other choice, she sat down across from him at the table and prepared for a long awkward ride to San Antonio.
The bus rumbled to a start and the doors closed them in. Pulling out onto the highway, the bus pointed them deeper into Texas. As the bus got up to speed and the wheels below them started their steady rhythm, Emily began to fidget in the expanding silence until she couldn’t stand it anymore.
“So you’re the singer?”
“Yep.”
“You must love the freedom of it.”
“Freedom’s not something I lack. I do this because it’s all I know. All I’m good at.”
“You don’t seem too happy about it. You’re allowed to go wherever you want, whenever you choose.”
“And you aren’t?”
She didn’t answer. How could she explain to him that this was the first thing she’d ever done that was of her own choosing, without anyone’s hand guiding her. Forcing her. There were some things people would never understand.
“When I think of a rock star you’re not really what I had in mind.”
He looked back up at her, eyebrow cocked. “I’m not too sure I want to know, but tell me what you had in mind.”
“Well, don’t get me wrong, you absolutely look like a rock star. What with the broody sexiness thing you got going on.” She said, her finger making a circle in the air around him. “But I always thought life would be a big party. No worries, living the dream and all that.”
“Well I guess you caught me at a weird time, then. A couple years ago that would have been the case.”
Getting him to talk was like pulling nails, but she was too curious to find out more about him. And the fact that no one was there reigning her in was a bonus too.
“But not now?”
“Not now.”
“I’m sorry. I talk too much. My dad and my boyfriend are always telling me that.”
“Ex-boyfriend. And why should you care if I think you talk too much. You don’t, by the way, but if I did that’s my problem. Don’t censor yourself around me.” She was stunned into silence. No one ever stood up for her. Hell, with the exception of today, she never really even stood up for herself.
“You really don’t think I talk too much?”
“Don’t get me wrong, you talk a lot. But I don’t mind it.” Dylan settled back into the seat, his features relaxing and his long legs sticking out into the aisle.
“And you don’t think I ask too many questions?” She knew she was pushing her luck, but since he brought it up she needed to know.
“I’m pretty used to getting asked tons of questions. The difference is that most people don’t take time to ask me the normal kinds of questions you are. They do a google search on me and figure they have all the basics figured out so they can skip all that and jump straight into all the weird questions, like what do I wear to bed, or what’s my favourite sexual position.”
“What makes you think I don’t want to know that too?”
“Oh, I’m sure you do, but I appreciate the fact that you want to know the other stuff too. I’m not used to people asking this kind of stuff, I think I’ve lost my ability to have a real conversation with someone.”
“This isn’t an interview. You don’t have to answer me. I’m just curious.”
“No, I want to. Maybe we’re more alike that you realize. I might be living a dream here, but I’m not as free as you think. Some days it’s just as confining as a regular 9 to 5 job.” She very much doubted that, but she like watching him relax a little, liked letting him talk unprompted. “I get so sick of monitoring what I do and say. When we started out we didn’t give a shit about what our managers tried to get us to do or what kind of reaction we got from people. We were in it for the ride and it was great. But now we’ve been in it for so long and it’s more about the numbers and followers and not offending anyone. This is my livelihood and the only difference between being a singer and being homeless is what comes out of my mouth. One wrong move and we’re finished. I can’t even talk to you without trying to monitor what I’m saying so that it doesn’t come back to haunt me.”
“But you’re talking to me now.”
“Yeah.” He half smiled. “I’m finding it hard not to. Like in the diner. I couldn’t help but watch you, clearly oblivious to anything going on around you. I tried to mind my own business, but after a while I realized that even when I was trying not to I found myself watching you. So much so that I finally had to talk to you, just to see
what it felt like to have all of your attention turned on me.”
Emily felt the full force of his attention now and she found it hard to keep steady under it. To not look away
“If you’re not happy why don’t you make a change?”
“It’s not that simple. The band is in the middle of a recording contract that would be more hassle to break than its worth. But once that contract is up that’s exactly what I’m going to do. The other guys will be pissed, but it’s time I look out for myself. And anyways, we’ve peaked. Things are on the downhill and it’s only a matter of time before our label drops us. I know the guys don’t think so, but I can see the signs. It’s time to start moving on.” He turned his eyes from her and looked out the window. “Besides, you can’t have anything permanent when you’re never in one place for very long. Not too long ago that didn’t seem to matter, but it does now.”
“But sometimes you find yourself without anything permanent because you’ve been in one place for too long.” She said, the weight of the day settling onto her shoulders.
Night had settled outside the windows while they had been talking and the glow from a light above the kitchenette was throwing shadows across their side of the bus. Back home the fallout of what she had done would be in the open, the damage done. Ahead of her Marin and the prospect of starting all over again was waiting.
Sitting here in the semi darkness, in the purgatory of her decision, right and wrong seemed to get muddled up. She pressed the heels of her hand against her eyes, holding back the regrets of her wasted years. The exhaustion of it all was heavy.
She felt the seat beside her dip, Dylan’s weight settling next to her. She turned to look up at his shadowed face, the dip of his worried expression.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to cry.” She said with a smile. “I think it just hit me how royally I screwed up my life.”