Where I could accidentally brush my leg against hers if I turned to face her or brush her arm as I reached to flag down the bartender.
“You’re quiet,” she observes, bringing a guacamole-loaded tortilla chip to her mouth, getting a little on the corner of her lip. Her tongue darts out to lick it off and my dick is suddenly paying full attention, remembering what that tongue felt like against it.
I shift in my seat.
On second thought, the booth was definitely the right call.
“Sorry,” I say, taking a long sip of my Coke. “Just a little distracted.”
“Tour stuff?” she asks. She’s so completely oblivious. It’s adorable, really.
“Yeah,” I say. Not a complete lie, since she’s technically now included in said “tour stuff”. I reach for a chip, breaking it in half before dipping it into the salsa and bringing it to my mouth, the bold flavors and hint of spice hitting my tongue and bringing me back to the moment.
“I guess we should do the thing we said we’d do and figure out our schedule,” she says, wiping her hands on a napkin and pulling out her phone. “Now that I know when we’ll be on the road, that takes care of the days we’ll have time to sit down for interviews. But what’s your sleep schedule like? How early would you be ready to start?”
“I usually don’t sleep past ten,” I say.
“Alright, and so I know ahead of time, are there any topics you absolutely do not want me to ask you about? Anything you don’t want made public?”
I sigh and shake my head.
“No, I know if I’m going to do this, I’m going to need to talk about some uncomfortable shit, so…I’m ready.”
“Alright,” she says, reaching across the table and placing her hand on mine. My eyes move to hers and she smiles. “Please let me know if you change your mind. This is supposed to be fun, or at least I hope to make it feel that way. The last thing I want to do is make you miserable by forcing you to talk about things you’ve purposely kept private.”
“Deal.”
“Good.” She squeezes my hand and sits back into the booth, my body already missing her touch. “It’ll be easier for me if I record our conversations and then type everything up while I listen back through, as long as you don’t have any objections. If you’d rather I not record, that’s fine. I swear everything will remain private, and I’ll delete it all after we’re done.”
“I’m good with whatever makes this easier for you,” I say, and she smiles before looking away. She scans the Mexican restaurant I chose for dinner, taking in the bright colors and intricate carvings decorating the walls.
We spend the rest of the evening talking about nothing and everything. I take the lead asking most of the questions because, while she’s going to spend the next six months getting to know me, I want to take every opportunity I have to get to know her.
I learn about her family; she has two older brothers, and her parents have been happily married for thirty-seven years. She graduated from the University of Pittsburgh majoring in English writing before going to cosmetology school to make ends meet while she writes. And that when she’s not working or writing, she’s reading.
“Alright my turn,” she says, folding her arms on the table and leaning closer. “What’s it like being on the road? What did I sign up for?”
I laugh.
“It’s honestly the best,” I say. “I get to hang out with my best friends every day, traveling the world, and doing what I love. It was a lot more fun in the early days when we all shared an RV, but now that Kevin and Max are married, they like to have their own so their wives and kids can pop in and out during the tour and they have the chance to just be together as a family. And now that Josh is single again, he wanted his own RV. For obvious reasons.”
“We can still turn yours into a bachelor pad,” she says. “We can’t let Josh have all the sex.”
Apparently, we can,I say to myself.
“That won’t be necessary.”
“I already told you,” she says. “We can come up with some sort of signal any time you want to bring a woman back to—”
“I’m going to stop you right there, Tyler,” I say leaning as far across the table as I can. I can’t explain why this opinion she has of me upsets me so much, and I try to control my anger as I look her directly in the eyes and say, “I won’t be bringinganyone back to the RV. Or to my hotel rooms. Despite my reputation and what you think of me, I don’t sleep with random women.”
“You slept with me,” she says, tilting her head to the side as she considers me.
“Still thinking about it?” I tease, trying to ease the tension that I introduced, and she rolls her eyes before leaning back into the booth and crossing her arms in front of her chest.
“What’s the worst part about being on the road?” she asks, changing the subject.
“Different people will give you different answers. For guys like Kevin and Max, it’s being away from their families. For me, it’s missing birthdays, weddings, funerals…stuff like that. Bums me out when I’m touring and those things happen, but in end, I still love this too much to quit.”
