Mason, who was still leaning forward, rested his forearm on my knee. “You’re already trying to choose teams, asshole?”
“I’m not playing, so he can’t be trying to choose teams.” I made sure to look both of them in the eye so that they would know I wasn’t playing around. I wasn’t going to play ever again.
“You have to play,” the man whose real name was Luis Alberto claimed. “It’s our tradition.”
What it really was, was a yearly tradition of humiliation and physical pain. I shook my head at Gordo. “It’s not happening, Gordis.”
“You’re playing,” Mason reiterated, eyeing my boobs again in a gesture that was intentionally meant to annoy the shit out of me. Really, I didn’t think he liked my breaststhatmuch, it wasn’t like I had a D cup size, much less the Double-D size he usually salivated over, but irritating me was definitely at the top of his list of things he enjoyed. “I need those puppies on my team.”
I smiled at him sweetly.
There was a time, immediately after my surgery, that I had really tried to get him to quit making comments about my chest. For about six months straight he’d revolved between calling me Hooters and Twin Peaks. In typical Mason fashion, me complaining only made him do it more often. So I stopped telling him anything because I knew he really he did it to get a rise out of me. Instead I just began handling it differently.
I reached under his arm to twist his nipple, an easy thing to do because he was shirtless. “I’m not playing and if I was, I definitely wouldn’t be playing on your team, jackass,” I said, turning the beady pink nip sharply as he leaned away with a grimace and an ugly “Nooooo!”
The words had barely left my mouth when the bus pulled into a brightly lit travel center with a gas station, twenty-four-hour restaurant and restroom facilities. Eli tossed me a towel before everyone except Mason, who had his arms crossed over his bare chest like that would protect him from me, piled out of the bus with our belongings and headed inside. It was then that I realized I’d forgotten to bring shampoo and soap with me from home. I groaned and peeked inside, realizing that if I went into the showers after I paid, I couldn’t come back out for free.
I waited outside the men’s bathroom for a few minutes, hoping Eliza or Gordo would hurry up and come out so I could borrow their soap and shampoo. Less than ten minutes later, the smacking of flip-flops on the floor got louder and louder.
But it wasn’t Eli or Gordo coming out.
It was Mason 2.0 in basketball shorts, a T-shirt and flip-flops, making his way out with a backpack over his shoulder and black dress shoes hanging off his fingers. He smiled genuinely the instant he saw me standing there looking like a hobo asking for a handout.
“Everything okay?” he asked, making me feel like a total mess.
I nodded, my face immediately flushing at the memory that I’d kicked this poor guy in the ass just minutes ago. I cleared my throat when my ears got hot too. “Yeah, I’m just waiting for Eli.”
Sacha raised a dark eyebrow, giving me a chance to take in the smoky, nearly transparent gray of his eyes. He glanced at the clothes in my hands before pursing his lips. “Did you forget your soap?”
I was a little hesitant to admit it, but I did, fighting the urge to rub at my ears. “Yeah.”
He smiled.
“I want to borrow his,” I explained.
Sacha didn’t hesitate a second. “Here,” he said as soon as I’d finished talking. Thrusting a bottle of some 3-in-1 shampoo, conditioner and body wash at me, he shrugged. “It isn’t for girls—”
This man had another thing coming to him if he thought I cared what I used for toiletries. I’d even be willing to share with Mason—the disgusting ass of the year—if I knew he didn’t borrow someone else’s on the rare occasion he decided to shower. I took the bottle from him and smiled, the embarrassment that had been swimming along my spine earlier from what I’d done disappearing at his kindness. “I have invisible balls, it’s cool,” I told him like I would have told Eli… and immediately regretted it. It wasn’t like I thought we were flirting or anything, and the fact I definitely wasn’t looking my best didn’t escape me, but that didn’t mean I wanted him to think of me as… well, I didn’t know what. Unattractive, I guess? Manly? It didn’t help that I was still mortified over the kicking incident.
Sacha laughed that cute, bright laugh that made me smile despite everything. “All right, invisi-balls. Have at it.”
“Thanks. I owe you,” I said a little more shyly than I normally would have. Walking backward toward the entrance to the bathroom at his command, I gave him another awkward wave I immediately regretted. Good God, I was on a roll and needed to quit while I was ahead.
He simply nodded at me before I ran into the area where the showers were. I rushed through mine as quickly as I could, not caring in the least that I smelled like a clean guy. As soon as I finished drying off and dressing, I hustled out feeling way better than before. Luckily, my brother was waiting for me right outside the restrooms.
“I was gonna give you five more minutes before I went in there,” he warned. “I thought somebody kidnapped you.” Those green eyes so much like mine, peered at my feet, earning me a frown. “Where are your flip-flops, and why are you holding men’s shampoo?” A smirk covered his mouth a second later. “You finally decided to go through with that surgery, huh?”
I snorted and socked him right in the stomach as I walked by him. “That Sacha guy let me borrow his shampoo because I didn’t bring any and you were taking forever douching in there.” I hiked my thumb toward the restroom as Eli rubbed where I’d nailed him. “And I didn’t bring flip-flops with me. Why?”
He grimaced, eyeing my feet again. “You stepped on that floor without shoes on?” When I nodded in response, he shuddered. I glanced at his feet to see he was wearing a pair of rubber thong flip-flops. “You better pray tonight.”
When Eli gives you a reason to pray, you better pray. I just didn’t know what I was supposed to be praying for. Back when we toured in Old Pepe, we always showered in hotel rooms. This travel-center-showering was a new experience for me.
We made our way into the bus, where I handed Sacha his shampoo back with a “thank you” while my brother made us three packets of ramen noodles to share, sixty-forty style with pieces of grilled deli chicken thrown in. He promised to take me to buy groceries, cheap sandals and shampoo the next day. As soon as we finished eating, I walked by another member of The Cloud Collision, who had some Middle Eastern ancestry in him. He was on the phone, so I raised my hand in a wave and he did the same back before I followed Eli into the bunk area.
“Mine is that one,” my brother said, pointing at a top bunk with its curtain pulled all the way back. There were twelve total bunks with crimson curtains, three stacked on top of each other, six on one side of the hallway, six on the other. He then pointed at the bottom bunk, below where Gordo was sleeping at the top. “Zeke slept on that one. It’s yours now. I put my backup sheets on there for you earlier.”
I immediately thought of Zeke drooling over the bed—or worse. Yuck.
