The women who drift in with too much perfume and not enough sense, all glossy lips and hungry eyes, giggling when they catch sight of us. Old me sees them and relaxes. Recognizes the script. Knows this language by heart. No ambiguity there. They want. I provide. End scene.
I could walk past. I don’t. Because I’m an asshole who doesn’t want to see the truth, even when it’s staring me in the face. One of them plants herself in my path like she’s been waiting for this cue. Long dark hair, big brown eyes, Devil’s Halo tee cut off at the midriff. Lanyard swinging between her breasts.
“Hi, Dean.” It’s breathy, like my name tastes good on her lips.
I don’t know her name. I don’t ask. “Enjoy the show?” I ask, only because the autopilot lines are still in there somewhere, even under all the rust.
“It was the best,” she gushes. Her fingers touch my forearm, nails painted black. “You were insane up there. The way you play.” She trails off, letting the sentence drip with implications.
Old me would already be halfway to the bus with her. New me hesitates. Not because of her. Because of a flash of a different face in my head; braid, camera, stubborn jaw, ocean-colored eyes that see too much.
I shut it down. Lock it out. Slam it down so tight water couldn’t get through. I don’t want to think about Sadie right now. I don’t want to think about how she looked sidestepping me in the hallway. How her voice went cool and professional. How she used to say “Ross” with a bite that meant she saw me, and now she says nothing at all. I want quiet in my head. Bodies do that.
“Weren’t you with the label guy earlier?” I wonder out loud as some part of me remembers seeing her near the suits.
She laughs and steps closer. “I prefer the talent.”
There’s enough innuendo in that one sentence for me to drown in.
“Do you now?” I let my mouth curl in a way I haven’t in too long. Predatory. Detached. Safe. “You headed anywhere after this?”
“That depends.” She trails her nails lightly down my wrist. “You inviting me somewhere?”
There it is. The easy yes. Behind her, over her shoulder, movement catches my attention. Sadie. She’s down the hall, walking toward the greenroom with a hard drive in her hand, Cherry talking beside her. She looks up just in time to see the other woman pressing in closer, hand on my chest now, laughing too loud.
Our eyes meet. For half a second, the world narrows to just that line. Her expression doesn’t change much, but it does, and I see it. Just a tiny flicker. Something that looks suspiciously like hurt, buried under exhaustion and steel. It hits me like an actual punch.
Good, I tell myself viciously. Let her see. Let her be reminded who I am. Let her remember I’m not safe. “Yeah,” I say to the girl in front of me, tearing my gaze away from Sadie. “I’m inviting you.”
Her grin is instant. I throw an arm around her shoulders, casual and practiced, and steer her toward the bus. I don’t look back to see if Sadie’s still there. I don’t need to. I feel her anyway. The weight of her stare between my shoulder blades. The cold settling behind my ribs.
The thing about going through the motions is, it feels more hollow every time. There’s the same flirting. The same practiced touch. The same low laugh that used to come easy. The same way my hands know what to do even when my head’s not in it.
But the disconnect is louder now. Her lips are soft. Her hands are greedy. She says my name like it’s something she won. I feel… absolutely nothing. Actually, that’s not true. I feel like a fucking fraud.
At some point, I pull back, heart thudding too hard, stomach twisted. “I’ve got an early call,” I lie, voice rough. “Should probably crash.”
She pouts, but she’s not stupid. She knows the rules. No one stays. No one lingers. This was never meant to be more. “Maybe next time,” she coos, sliding off the couch and smoothing her shirt.
“There’s not gonna be a next time,” I answer bluntly, because cruelty is cleaner than leaving hope.
She flinches, then covers it with a hair flip. “Your loss.”
I scrub a hand over my face, trying to erase what an asshole I’m being and failing hard. “You know the way out.”
She rolls her eyes and finds it herself. The door to the bus shuts behind her with a final little clack. I drop my head back against the couch and stare at the ceiling. The shame from this morning is nothing compared to the tidal wave that crashes over me now.
Somewhere between the cigarettes and the bourbon and the girl whose name I didn’t care to learn, it hits me; I didn’t do this to feel good. I did it to hurt someone who never did anything but try to understand me. To make sure she keeps her distance. To punish myself for wanting her in the first place.
“Real mature, Ross,” I mutter. My knuckles ache from the punch I threw into that door after soundcheck. My chest aches from something I don’t have a name for anymore.
Through the thin wall of the bus, I hear muffled laughter outside. Footsteps on gravel. Voices talking about food runs and load-out ETA.
And somewhere out there, walking past these buses, is Sadie, probably heading to her bunk with her camera cards and her endless capacity to see truth and bend it into something beautiful.
I scrub both hands over my face and let out a bitter laugh that sounds way too close to a choke. “You wanted her to see who you are,” I tell myself. “Mission accomplished.”
The silence that answers back isn’t proud. It isn’t victorious. It just feels like losing. I close my eyes, but it doesn’t help. All I can see is the look on her face in the hallway before the encore, when she thought I had something real to say.
