NONE OF US—none of us—could have predicted the way our album would blow up the first week of its release. Big bands like Cutting the Line and The Lost Keys are extremely vocal about loving our work, and all it takes is a few shares from a few big names. Social media explodes, shows sell out, and we add even more dates to our already booked tour.
Which means more time on the road. More time with Shawn.
“What’s with the purple?” he asks as I lug my guitar case and overstuffed backpack toward the bus, one slung over my left shoulder and the other slung over my right. My shades are down, my hair is a freshly dyed mix of midnight purple and black, and my asskickers are laced tight.
“What’s with your face?”
I walk past the irked look he gives me and stare up at our new bus. It’s gray and silver, a single-level behemoth that’s still tall enough to put most tour buses to shame. The guys apparently know someone who owns a whole fleet of RVs, and for this month-long US tour, we needed something that could actually make it under overpasses without getting split in half. Taking back roads on the tight schedule we’ve booked just wasn’t going to cut it, so the guys scored us two sleeper buses—one for the band, and one for our crew.
“What’s your problem?” Shawn asks from beside me, and I let out a heavy sigh. The past eight weeks since we nearly hooked up on the bus have been miserable. It’s not that I enjoy being a bitch to him . . . it’s just that I can’t help it—not after being ignored by him for almost an entire month and having my anger fester the entire time. Now he’s talking to me, but now I couldn’t care less what he has to say.
If I was a mature, rational, reasonable adult, I’d realize he made a mistake that night just like I did and that I shouldn’t hold a grudge. I’d forgive—or at least pretend to forget—and act like a professional. I’d move on.
But as it is, I grew up with not one, not two, not three, but four older brothers. I grew up teasing and pranking and learning how to be a giant pain in the ass. “Moving on” isn’t part of my repertoire, but “getting even” is.
“Are we seriously going to continue talking about your face?” I ask, and when I glance over at him, the look he’s giving me isn’t nearly as satisfying as I thought it’d be. I’m not sure which is worse—having him forget me, or having him hate me.
It hurts to know that he’s probably already forgotten the way he kissed me, when I can’t stop thinking about it. It makes me want to hate him, which just makes me that much more frustrated that I can’t.
With his eyes on me, I sigh. “I didn’t get any sleep last night,” I offer in the most apologetic tone he’s going to get.
It’s not a lie. I tossed and turned in anticipation of today. For the next month, I’ll spend every single day with him. Every. Single. Day. We’ll travel together, perform together, sleep practically on top of each other.
I thought about not showing up this morning.
“Better get used to it,” Shawn says, and I can’t even look over at him as he talks to me. I’m sure the morning sunlight is hitting his hair just right. He probably has a layer of scruffy stubble because he can never just do me a favor and give himself a clean shave. And he’s probably wearing a T-shirt that feels just as soft as it looks.
A few roadies pile off the smaller bus to finish loading equipment into a trailer attached to the back. One takes my guitar from me.
“I think you’ve got the last bunk,” Shawn adds, and then he walks to the door of the bigger bus, stepping one foot up and turning around when I don’t follow. “Are you coming or what?”
And of course, he’s right. In all of my stalling this morning, I’m the last to show up, which means I get last dibs on bunks, which means I’m on the bottom . . . right across from Shawn. I stare down at the black comforter like it wants to chew me into pulp, swallow me down, and throw me back up.
Joel startles me out of my misery by hooking an arm roughly around my neck and staring down at the bed with me. He turns a bright smile in my direction—one I hadn’t seen before he and Dee made up. It was the night of her birthday party at the end of May—he drew her a picture, she kicked his door down, the rest of us waited to see whose body we’d have to bury, and then we found out they made up. I’ll never understand those two, but at least they’re both smiling again.
“I hope you brought earplugs,” he says, and—oh, God, no. Everyone had warned me about his snoring—Dee, Rowan, Adam . . . everyone. And still, I forgot my damn earplugs.
“Shit,” I hiss. “Please tell me you have extra.”
“Why would I have any?” he says with far too much amusement. “I sleep just fine.”
My face falls, and his blue eyes glimmer as he laughs.
“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.”
My attention drifts to the pretty girls in the front row again, and I wonder if any of them will be coming back with us. Ever since my drunken night with Shawn, there’s been nothing to stand in the way of groupies and him after shows. I’ve made a habit of ending the night early just so I don’t have to see him go home with them.
“There will probably be some fans hanging out near the bus,” Mike adds, answering my unspoken question: Shawn won’t have to take them back to the bus, because they’ll already be there waiting, like hot and fresh delivery. “But it won’t be anything too crazy.”
AND HE’S RIGHT—it isn’t anything too crazy. After the show—a loud, manic, incredible first show of our tour—my tired muscles carry me across the parking lot and I realize that what is crazy is how groupies can dress in public without getting arrested. My eyes rove over tits hanging out of tops, asses hanging out of skirts, bellies on full display. A few of the girls have their boyfriends’ arms draped around their shoulders, but I’m guessing that isn’t going to stop them from slipping the guys their numbers, not if I’m judging by the desperate way they shouted at the band from the crowd tonight, or the panties that kept flying onstage.
I root a hair tie from my pocket and pull the thick of my long purple-and-black hair up into a knot on top of my head, casting a glance at Shawn while I fight with the flyaways. I wonder which hair color he’ll opt for tonight. Bottled red? Boxed brunette? Bleached blonde?
My eyes swing back to the group clustered in front of the bus, and I try to concentrate on only the fans—the ones with their tits and asses covered, the kids wearing gear they’ve purchased from the merchandise booth during other tours, the ones who look like a hot mess because they moshed their asses off inside and didn’t immediately run to the restroom afterward to straighten their hair extensions and reapply a metric ton of makeup.
Everyone applauds and whistles as soon as they spot us, with the groupies already pushing out their chests and playing with their hair. Adam uncomfortably hugs one who throws herself at him, and then he has to physically peel her hands from around his neck when she won’t let go. Joel sticks to one-armed hugs and his slip-away maneuver, intentionally throwing all of his attention at the fans who aren’t half-naked. Mike, the trooper that he is, intentionally intercepts the most desperate of the groupies when they won’t let go of Adam or Joel. And Shawn gives a lot of attention to the groupies too, but he looks much happier to be doing it.
I smile for pictures and sign things—and try not to glare at the blonde who’s busy taking a selfie with her lips on Shawn’s stubbled cheek.
“Do you three want to see the inside of the bus?” Driver asks the three bodies in the three smallest skirts after all of the fans have gotten pictures and autographs. He’s playing the role of recruiter, which I don’t doubt he’s done a thousand times before. It’s probably in his job description: find hot chicks for Shawn to bang, invite them on bus, drag them off afterward.
Shawn’s eyes dart to me at the same time mine dart to him. “Oh, uh, not tonight,” he stammers, shaking his head at Driver. “I told you, not this tour.”
Not this tour?
Not this tour.
It hits me then, why he’s saying no. It’s not because he doesn’t want them to come on board. It’s because he thinks I don’t want them to. He thinks he’s doing me a favor. Like he’d be hurting my damn feelings. Like I have feelings.
I deliberately roll my eyes at him and smile at Groupie One, Groupie Two, and Groupie Three. “Shawn’s just a party-pooper. Come on, I’ll show you where he sleeps.”
ON THE BUS, I walk the slut parade back to the bunks, pointing out Shawn’s bed and ignoring the irritated look he gives me as I play the role of tour guide.
“Where does Adam sleep?” the bleachiest bleached blonde asks, casting a flirtatious smile over her shoulder at Adam, who isn’t paying her even the least bit of attention. He’s sitting on a bench next to Mike, his black-painted fingernails typing texts back and forth with Rowan.
“Adam sleeps with his girlfriend, Rowan,” I answer in a no-nonsense tone that shuts the girl right up. They always want the lead singer first, always—because they think he’s the fastest way to get their name in a song or their face in a gossip column.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
Undeterred, she turns that flirtatious smile on Shawn, just like I knew she would. “But you don’t have a girlfriend, right?”
Shawn tears his gaze from her to shoot me a cold stare that I return with an oversweet smile. I continue leading the girls to the kitchen, where he leans against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. Joel locks himself in the bathroom, probably to call Dee, while I pour the groupies drinks.
I offer Shawn a drink too, but he’s a statue. With the way he’s looking at me, I’m guessing the only thing he wants is to tape my big mouth shut or kick me off this bus. But I keep egging the girls on, like I have something to prove. Because I feel like I do.
I don’t like Shawn. I don’t need Shawn. I don’t want Shawn.
“Yeah, Shawn, drink with us,” Groupie Number Three says, positioning herself in front of him and lifting her lipstick-stained glass to his face. Her red hair is a silken waterfall tumbling over her shoulders, and I have to look away.
I’m driving a knife farther into my own heart—because I need him to know it.
I don’t like him. I don’t need him. I don’t want him.
I don’t love him.
I need myself to know it too—to believe it—but when the girl giggles, I can’t help it . . . I listen, I watch, and I hurt.
I watch as Shawn’s hand covers hers, as he lowers the glass she’s holding, and as he leans in to whisper something in her ear. She giggles again, and he grins before turning those green eyes on me. “Sure, Kit, pour me one.”
He turns on a charm I’ve always wished he’d direct at me, using that voice and those smiles that I’ve always wished I could claim for myself. He hijacks the tequila bottle from my hands and pours the girls drink after drink after drink while I stand by pretending not to care—even though I can’t help noticing that Groupie One’s breasts are bigger than mine, that Groupie Two’s lips are fuller than mine, that Groupie Three’s legs are longer than mine.
I stay until I can’t take it anymore—until their hair-flipping makes me want to claw my eyes out and their giggling makes me want to gouge my eardrums out. Shawn is too busy being fawned over to even notice me go, so I sulk my way down the long aisle of the bus, closing curtains behind me until I’m plopping down on a bench next to Mike. Joel is still holed up in the bathroom; Shawn is back in the kitchen with Big Boobs, Perfect Lips, and Long Legs; and Adam . . .
“Where’s Adam?” I ask. Mike hands me a half-finished beer I desperately need, and I gladly accept it. “Thanks.”
“He said something about seeing if he could get on the roof, and then he was gone,” Mike says.
“What about Driver?”
“Probably went to the other bus to take bets on Adam falling and cracking his head open,” Mike says dismissively. I chuckle until he says, “Any reason for your sudden love of groupies?”
“Who doesn’t love groupies?”
It doesn’t escape me that I’m asking the only guy in the world who doesn’t love groupies. Mike isn’t in the band for the girls or the fame. He’s in it because he loves the drums—and because the guys are his family, and he’s theirs.
“Tonight?” he says by way of answer, his eyes big, brown, and sincere. “Shawn.”
I grunt and take another sip of his beer, staring longingly toward the first closed curtain separating me from the kitchen, because I could really use a stronger drink but would rather swallow broken glass than go back there. “Shawn was enjoying himself in the kitchen, trust me.”
“Shawn didn’t want them on here in the first place.”
“Shawn thought he was doing me a favor.”
“So?”
“I don’t need his favors. I’m just one of the guys.”
“Hmm,” Mike hums.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“What?”
I’m seriously going to punch him if he says “nothing” again, but he doesn’t get the chance because Joel emerges from the bathroom looking ragged, like he’s been scratching his fingers through his Mohawk until the spikes are jutting in every possible direction.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, wondering what the hell happened during his phone call to make him look as lost as he does.
“I miss Dee.”
Mike and I both start laughing. “You win,” I tell Joel, and his sandy blond eyebrows tug together. “You didn’t even last a day.”
He groans and collapses next to me, and I hand him what’s left of Mike’s beer. He sighs and finishes it off. “Where is everyone?”
A giggling from the back of the bus answers the question about Shawn, so the only name I bother saying out loud is Adam’s. “Adam is outside trying to crack his head open.”
“On the roof,” Mike agrees at the same time we all hear heavy footsteps above us. Three pairs of eyes turn to the ceiling as we listen to Adam’s footfall walk the length of the bus and then stop. There’s cheering from outside, and Joel stands up to leave.
“Let us know if he’s dead,” I call as he walks toward the door to the bus. His fading laughter is cut off by the door that closes behind him.
With it just being Mike and me again, I’m afraid he’s going to pick our conversation back up. It’s late, I’m tired, my high from the concert has worn off, and Shawn is doing God knows what with three ridiculously willing girls just two curtains away. The last thing I need to be doing is talking about it.
What I need is for Mike to go back there and get me another beer.
Instead, the closest curtain opens, and my head jerks in that direction. Groupie One and Groupie Two emerge, unsteady in their heels as they make their way down the aisle.
“Are you two leaving?” I ask with unrestrained surprise in my voice.
Groupie One presses her bare knees up against Mike’s leg. “Unless you want us to stay,” she suggests with her eyelashes batting down at him.
He holds up the empty beer bottle that somehow got passed back to him. “Can you toss this in the trash on your way out?”
She rolls her eyes but doesn’t stop smiling, and when she and her friend begin leaving the bus without taking the beer bottle, I call after her, “What about your friend?” Three gold diggers came on this bus, but only two are leaving. It’s been a long night, but simple math says they’re forgetting someone.
Groupie One tosses her blonde hair over her shoulder and stops only long enough to giggle and answer, “We’re going to the other bus. Shawn said he was a one-girl kind of guy.”
I STAY PARKED on the benches long after the first two girls leave and the last one’s giggling behind the curtain dies down. Long after Mike ventures through it with his eyes covered to get to the TV in the back. Long after my eyelids start to droop and my head starts to roll forward.
I stand up, take a deep breath, and move to the heavy curtain separating me from the bunks, imagining what I’m going to see on the other side. Clothes on or off? Shawn on the top or bottom? Ugh, I should just sleep on the fucking bench.
Instead, I grit my teeth and yank the curtain back—to find Shawn lying fully clothed on top of his bedcovers, his long legs crossed at the ankles and a book on his lap. His reading glasses are low on his nose, his pillows are piled behind his head, and he definitely does not look like someone who just spent the past hour playing rock god with queen of the groupies.
My confused gaze travels from him to the bunk across from him—my bunk—which now holds said queen, also fully clothed. She’s passed out under my covers, drooling on my pillow, and when my gaze slowly swings back to Shawn, he’s smirking at me over the top of his book.
“What the hell is she doing in my bed?” I snap.
“You’re the one who invited her on here. What was I supposed to do, let her sleep in mine?”
I hear Mike laugh from back in the kitchen, but I ignore it and bark at Shawn. “You sleep with her and then put her nasty ass in my bed?”
The girl under my covers stirs and mumbles something in her sleep. Then she goes back to smearing lipstick all over her drool-coated cheeks.
“Who the hell said anything about sleeping with her?” Shawn asks, closing his book and uncrossing his ankles to sit up.
“Then what the hell have you been doing for the past hour?”
“Cleaning up the mess you made.”
“What about her?” I snap, pointing to the body attached to the widening puddle of drool on my pillow.
Shawn has the nerve to smirk at me. “Figured I’d leave some of the mess for you.”
He leans back, recrosses his ankles, reopens his book . . . and I stomp over to him and slam it closed. “No fucking way. Get her out of my bed.”
“Do it yourself.”
“SHAWN.”
“Yes?” he says sweetly, and my fingers itch to strangle him. Instead, I growl so loudly, Mike laughs from the kitchen again.
I turn to the girl and yank my covers off of her. She’s curled up with her glittery silver heels still on, and I poke her shoulder with the tip of my finger and then wipe it on my jeans. “Hey.”
She groans in her sleep and turns her pink-stained mouth all the way into my pillow.
“Dude,” I say, “get up.” I poke her again, harder this time.
She starts snoring, and Shawn chokes back a laugh from where he’s lying comfortably behind me.
“She drank like half the bottle,” he says. “She’s not waking up anytime soon.”
I turn around and glower at him. “Then get up.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m taking your bed.”
He casually flips the page of the book he’s reading. “Don’t think so.”
Adam and Joel appear in the doorway, Adam rubbing his elbow like he nearly cracked that instead of his head open when he climbed down from the roof of the bus. “What are you two fighting about?” he asks.
“Her.” I point an accusing finger at the skanky lump in my bed, and Joel raises his eyebrow.
“Why is she in your bed?”
“Because Shawn’s an asshole!”
Shawn chuckles, doing nothing to erase the confused expressions from Adam’s and Joel’s faces.
“Where are you going to sleep?” Joel asks me, and I turn on Shawn again.
“Get up.”
“Nope.”
“Shawn, I’m not playing.”
“Then you shouldn’t have started this game in the first place.”
I’m not sure what possesses me, but I grab his book and he grabs it back, and then I grab his hands and pull. Mike catches me around the waist before I can yank Shawn’s arms off, manhandling me into the middle bunk on the other side. “Take mine, for God’s sake.”
He yanks the blankets off of the passed-out chick on my bed and drags them toward the benches at the front. “Now everyone shut up. I’m going to bed.” I move to hop out of the bed and stop him, but he yells at me without stopping or turning around. “Go the hell to sleep, Kit!”
I freeze with one leg hanging off the mattress and watch him close the curtain behind him, flinching backward when Joel nearly knees me in the face to climb into the bunk above me. Adam crawls into a top bunk too, and I glare at the smirk still planted on Shawn’s stupid face as I settle back into my cubby.
“You realize this means war.”
“Your face means war,” Shawn counters, stealing my insult from this morning.
“Oooh,” Joel and Adam mock in unison.
“Them’s fightin’ words,” Adam adds in a deep southern twang.
Shawn holds his middle finger out high enough for them to see, and both of the idiots up top start laughing.
“What part about SHUT UP did you fuckers not understand?” Mike shouts from the front of the bus, making the other three giggle so immaturely that I almost laugh too.
Almost. Instead, too bone-tired and too irritated to climb back out of bed, I crawl under the covers and slip out of my jeans, stuffing them into the corner of my bunk and rolling away from Shawn. If he wants war, I’ll give him war. Tomorrow morning, I’m going to replace the sugar for his coffee with salt, or burn every pair of boxers he owns, or . . .
I fall asleep thinking of a thousand forms of payback, and later, I wake up to the demons of hell trying to escape from Joel’s mouth. Or at least that’s what it sounds like. It sounds like his soul is being dragged into the ninth circle of hell and his body is barely clinging to life. From Mike’s middle bunk, I roll over and glance down at Shawn. He’s still awake, still reading, and in the dark, I doubt he can tell I’m awake. I keep it that way as I reach for my jeans and root a pair of stolen earplugs from the pocket.
In complete silence, I fall asleep quickly, but I haven’t slept nearly long enough when someone nudges me into the wall. It’s still dark outside, and uncompromising fingers are pushing and prodding and begging to be broken.
I’m scowling before I even turn around, my eyes dry from not taking off my eye makeup before bed.
“Where are my earplugs?” Shawn growls in a voice that barely makes it to my eardrums.
I pull one of his earplugs out of my ear just to get him riled, keeping the confused and irritated expression on my face even though it’s taking everything I have to not smile or start laughing. I stole his earplugs from his bag this afternoon, long before groupies or tequila or snoring, and now I’m only glad he did something to deserve it. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Where did you get those?” He pulls my fingers closer to his face and then glares at me.
“What is your problem?”
“Did you steal my earplugs?”
“Why would I steal your earplugs when I have my own?” I yank my fingers from his grasp and stick his earplug back in my ear, shaking my head pityingly. “Are you getting paranoid already? Because I haven’t even started messing with you, Shawn. If you’re losing your mind already, that’s really not a good sign.”
I roll away from him before he can glare at me some more, hiding my troublemaker smile in Mike’s pillow and making a mental note to switch my dirty sheets with Shawn’s clean ones as soon as I get a chance.