I coughed all over him. Literally. Crumbs went all over his shirt and sweats but I couldn’t find it in me to give a single shit when I recognized what he held.
My little bullet, which looked like a lip balm tube made of metal, was sitting in his palm. I'd bought it while we were still in Darwin the day after we left Perth, on an outing with Carter when we had nothing to do at the venue for hours. I'd ditched him at the music store while I ran to the shop next door and bought my new friend.
"I'm sorry!" I gasped, trying to wipe at his chest. There were tiny pieces of cookie all over his heather-gray shirt. I snatched the small vibrator out of his hand, slipped it under my thigh and then started brushing his clothes off.
He laughed and shrugged, picking pieces off too, popping the larger ones into his mouth. "Was that what I think it is?" he asked in a low, amused voice.
"Lipstick? Yes," I lied, keeping my eyes on his T-shirt while I finished picking off the remaining pieces.
Sacha nudged my knee. "Liar."
"You're a liar," I muttered.
"I am?" he asked me in that same voice he'd used with his last question.
I slowly dragged my eyes up to his gray irises.
"Yeah." My skin got itchy all of a sudden. "Your passport says that you're a male but you're really a female."
"Gaby," he groaned, trying to disguise his laugh. "You're giving my manhood a complex."
Thank the lord I didn't have any more cookies in my mouth at his use of the word manhood.
Looking up at him, I saw that his eyes were trained on the leg that I'd shoved the bullet under. Then he looked at me and I swear his lids looked heavy.
Three hours later, when I started swaying with sleep, he pulled back my bed sheets. "I'm leaving. Lock the door after me before you fall asleep," he whispered, and then he kissed me on the tip of my nose.
Yeah, I suddenly wasn’t so sleepy after that.
"What's the password?"
"Gaby's birthday should be a national holiday."
I grinned like an idiot, and fortunately, I was in my room alone so he couldn't see my facial expression. It had to be bordering on ugly from how hard my cheeks strained in such a short amount of time. "Andddd?" I asked, in what had become our game.
He laughed from the other side of the door. "I bought you a book."
My grin widened exponentially while I unlocked the door to let him in. He'd barely made it in before he was kicking the door closed and putting a hand on each of my cheeks. I hadn't seen him all day.
When Eliza woke me up that morning for breakfast by drumming his fists on the door in beat to a Ghost Orchid song, my first thought had been:I feel like hell. My body hurt, I had a raging fever and I just felt like overall crap. Eli took me to the doctor, where I was told there was a virus going around that I could have caught from anyone. I ended up staying in my room with my brother for the majority of the day until he caught a cab to the venue in the evening.
“I don’t think you should be in here. I don’t want to get you sick,” I warned.
He rolled his eyes, not moving his palms off my face. “I don’t get sick. I’ll be fine. Are you still feeling like shit?" he asked me softly.
I nodded, staring straight into his bright eyes. "Yeah."
He leaned forward and examined my face. "I've been worried about you all day. Mason didn't tell us you were sick until we were halfway to the venue. I just thought you and Eli went to go do something on your own."
"You missed out on a doctor's visit and the strangest-tasting soup I've ever eaten," I smiled at little at him.
Sacha gave me that lopsided grin I liked. "Party animal." His hands brushed down my neck to rest on my shoulders. "Want me to go get you something?"
I shook my head and gestured toward the bags on the nightstand. "Rosemary’s Babybrought me a sandwich and juice when you guys got here, but thank you."
I don't know why every time I thanked him, he smiled. Always. He reached behind him for a second, his elbow wobbled in the air, before handing me a book. "The lady at the bookstore said that since you’re a history nerd, you’d probably enjoy it,” he said, setting the paperback into my outstretched hand.
Memoirs of a Geishawas the title.
