I missed your stupid face, too. Be on time for the flight and we can look stupid together.
It was dumb, but very much Dmitri, and Andre grinned at the screen.
Will do. Good night, Dmitri.
Good night!
The short exchange raised his spirits. He finished off his beer, checked the new time of the flight — a headache-inducing 7:10AM out of LAX — then headed off to his bedroom to pack. Tomorrow he’d see Dmitri again, and that, at least, was something to look forward to.
He didn’t even glance again at the mail he’d tossed on the table, and so he never saw the envelope with the return address that matched the letter that had caused him so much doubt before.
CHAPTER 6
“Come on, wake up, Andre! We’re leaving in thirty minutes!”
Andre came awake with a start as Dmitri, grinning maniacally, shook his shoulder. He sat up too fast and slammed his head into the low ceiling of his bunk, then flopped back down in surprise. He’d forgotten they weren’t in a hotel any longer.
“Shit!” he gasped, then put his hand to his head, rubbing the point of impact. He was lucky the area above him was padded. He’d learned the last time they’d been on tour in the band bus and had installed dense foam on the top of his space. It still hurt, but it didn’t ring his bell and give him an instant headache the way it had the first couple of times he’d done it before the modification.
Dmitri had the good grace to wince in sympathy, but his eyes betrayed his amusement. They’d only been on the bus for a couple of days, as the tour made its way from the three shows they’d done in Miami to their performances in Tampa the previous two evenings. After last night’s show, they’d mounted up again and headed on towards Jacksonville, where they had another pair of concerts. But at the moment, they had a day and a half off, and Kris and Jo had talked everyone into going to OneWorld, which was the biggest animal-themed park and nature preserve in the United States.
“You okay?” Dmitri asked cheerfully. “Need an aspirin?”
Andre sat up more carefully, then turned his head to scowl at Dmitri. “Asshole,” he muttered, then slid to his feet. He wasn’t terribly tall, only 5’10, but he often felt he towered over Dmitri, who was five inches shorter. And who didn’t seem to ever smack his head on the ceiling of his own bunk, which was right below Andre’s.
“Aspirin and coffee,” Dmitri decided. He moved his left hand from behind his back, offering a paper cup that Andre could see held coffee. Then Dmitri reached into the back pocket of his jeans and produced a bottle of aspirin, holding it out with a grin.
“You’re still an asshole,” Andre groused, but his voice held no heat. He was far too used to Dmitri’s antics on tour, though he did make a note to find something to do in retaliation, like maybe pushing Dmitri in front of a charging lion or tipping him into a river of hippos. In retrospect, it had even been kind of funny, given that Dmitri had known perfectly well what would happen when Andre decided to get him back.
“Guilty as charged.” Dmitri agreed, unfazed.
Andre shook his head carefully and sipped at the coffee, which was prepared just the way he liked it. He revised his payback down to forcing Dmitri to step into elephant dung if the opportunity presented itself.
After finishing his coffee and changing into jeans and a t-shirt, Andre joined the rest of the group. Greg had apparently gotten them a van to take to the nature preserve, which was almost an hour away. Luka and Kit took turns reading aloud the reviews of their Tampa concerts. Fortunately, they were positive, and the band was uniformly praised for their musical development and embracing of a more sophisticated style while losing nothing of their metal edge.
“That’s great,” Andre said, after one review particularly mentioned his skill. He was pleased, since drummers were often ignored by critics in favor of the flashier and more visible performances of strings and vocals. It was gratifying to be singled out, since he felt he worked just as hard as everyone else to make their performances a success.
Dmitri, seated next to him, jostled his shoulder. “You’ve always been gifted. Luka was right to wait for you to come along before finalizing our first album.”
Okay, so maybe he’d reduce Dmitri’s sentence from elephant dung to a muddy puddle.
They made it to the location just as the gates were opening. It was already hot and humid at ten o’clock in the morning, so Andre was more than happy to accept one of the chilled bottles of water that Kris, ever the prepared one of them, handed out.
The park’s attractions included educational displays interspersed with rides, shops, games, and restaurants, and as they wandered around, Andre wished that Miguel were with him. His son had a passion for animals of all types, and Andre had a membership to the San Diego Zoo, where he and Miguel spent an afternoon at least once per month. As special as the zoo was, One World was on a completely different level, and he knew Miguel would be enchanted with everything. He just wasn’t certain if Sibila would agree to Andre taking his son out of California for a week to visit.
There was so much to see that they spent the entire day exploring, Kris rolling Jo’s wheelchair at a sedate pace through the grounds. As a special treat, Greg had arranged dinner reservations at the park’s most exclusive restaurant, which was built into a treehouse. The literature about the place explained that the restaurant itself was held up by cleverly disguised artificial trunks, but it was surrounded by a grove of living trees that were carefully monitored and preserved. The food wasMichelin quality, prepared in a discreet building hidden in the base, then transported via elevator to the waiting diners. They dined as the sun set in the west. The heat of the day finally faded with the light into a balmy tropical evening.
“We have a couple of hours before we have to head back,” Luka told them as the meal concluded. “Unless you guys are done for the day?”
“Actually, I’d like a little time with my husband to wander around, just the two of us,” Kit said. Luka smirked as Kris and Jo seconded the idea.
The group split up, and Andre and Dmitri headed off, deciding to ride some of the rollercoasters again.
It was while they were wandering through one of the gift shops at the end of a ride that Andre spotted a familiar, garishly colored stuffed parrot. He picked one up, smiling as he looked at it. It was the same parrot Miguel had, which Andre had bought him at the Zoo when he was a toddler, a toy representing the bird from Miguel’s favorite bedtime story. The bright colors had enchanted his son, though they were faded now from years of play and cuddles.
“That is one colorful bird,” Dmitri commented, looking closely at the toy. “I need a bathing suit in those colors to wear next time I go surfing. No one would be able to miss me.”
Andre could actually picture Dmitri in such a get-up, though he didn’t want to think of Dmitri in board shorts and nothing else. That way lay madness.
