“You’re not as unreadable as you think.”
He’s quiet for a long moment. Then a single, quiet reply. “I really wish that wasn’t true.”
He disappears into the hallway. The blanket on my lap is warm. His words are warmer. And for the first time since stepping on this bus, I realize something terrifying, I’m becoming part of the story.
Chapter Seven
Dean
Creep
Radiohead
Salt Lake City looks like a place people come to be good. Blue sky, clean air, mountains pretending they’re God’s personal bodyguards. The kind of place where families take holiday photos and no one screams at you for ruining their childhood by dropping an f-bomb in public.
In the middle of it all is a stadium that exists like some alien landed and decided to charge admission. Kids in band shirts and parents in sensible sneakers are already milling around the block when we pull in. Daylight makes everything look softer. Cleaner. Doesn’t fool me. I’ve been in this circus long enough to know better than to be fooled by the illusion.
I step off the bus and immediately hate how calm it all feels. Calm makes my skin itch. I prefer noise and chaos. Give me screaming fans and rattling rigging over the sound of my own thoughts any day.
“Welcome to another day in the life, sunshine,” Mikey sings, knocking my shoulder as he passes. He’s already dressed like he’s posing for a magazine: ripped jeans, vintage tee, hair perfect in that messy, I-totally-didn’t-spend-twenty-minutes-on-it way.
“Blow me,” I mutter, shoving him away from me with a playful push.
He snickers and heads toward load-in. I rake a hand through my hair, stretch until my spine pops, and start walking. Crew is already moving—case stacks, cables, Cherry barking orders like a stressed-out general. She’s a bad-ass and we’d be a mess without her.
And then I see her.
Sadie.
Camera strap tight across her chest, lens cap already off, hair in that messy knot she pretends isn’t intentional. Black tee. Denim shorts. Boots she could kick someone’s teeth in with. She’s talking to Cherry, nodding like she’s been on this tour longer than half the veteran techs.
I should walk the other way. Stay away from that which seems to be the catalyst of my lack of sleep and brooding mood. But, like the idiot I am, I heed my instincts and keep going.
“Busy?” I ask, because apparently my self-control died the moment she walked on our bus.
She lowers the camera and gives me a look that borders on flat, unimpressed, and beautiful, all at the same time, causing something in my rib cage to shift.
“Considering everything happening around us,” she arches a brow as she scans the area, “yes.”
I blink lazily at her, not letting her believe her response is going to change my course of action in any way. “I don’t have to tell you to stay out of the way.”
“Relax, Romeo. I’m not going to get run over by a crate.”
“Wouldn’t be the worst thing,” I muse out loud, not smiling.
“Awe.” She tilts her head. “Would you miss me?”
“No,” I lie between my teeth.
Her mouth twitches like she knows exactly how big that lie is too. Before I can say something smart, or possibly stupid, a white SUV pulls through the backstage gate and comes to a stop next to one of our big semi’s.
My chest loosens a little without permission. Lily, Luc’s girlfriend and baby momma, is back. Luc told me she’d be joining us again when we got to Salt Lake, and would probably stay with us for the rest of the tour.
The crowd near the back entrance erupts as Luc jogs over to the vehicle. The SUV door pops open, and Lily steps out with Larkin on her hip and a diaper bag dangling off her elbow like a weapon.
Sadie lights up the second she sees them. Not pretend light either. It’s genuine - warm and soft in a way that makes the air around her look different. She doesn’t wait to see what I’m going to do, already walking toward them.
“Lily!” she calls, waving to her.
