Sadie’s gaze clicks to me, sharp and focused. “What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“It wasn’t nothing,” she counters, leaning forward again.
“Didn’t know you were a musician,” I mock.
“I’m not. I’m a listener.” She taps the side of her head. “Occupational hazard.”
“Congratulations.” My tone dry, hard.
She huffs a laugh. Not girly. Not soft. “Look, Ross. I’m not here to worship you. I’m here to work. You stay in your lane, I’ll stay in mine. I won’t make you my story if you don’t make me your problem.”
“You already are my problem,” I blurt before I think better of it.
Her smile is small and mean, yet somehow not mean at all. “Then I guess we’re starting ahead of schedule.”
The driver takes us onto the highway and the bus steadies into that long road hum that puts most people to sleep. Hayden slumps deeper, his eyes drooping closed. Mikey grins at me like he’s got memes to make and blackmail to gather. I give him a look that promises death. He thumbs his volume up and pretends not to see.
Sadie digs into her bag and pulls out a dented metal water bottle, a protein bar, and a paperback with its spine cracked in three places. She tucks her legs up under her and eats half the bar without looking at it. It’s practical and infuriatingly intimate, the way soldiers cleaning their weapons is intimate, the way ritual is.
She’s not starstruck. She’s not trying to be cute. She’s not here to be anything but here.
I play two notes. Just two, to shut my brain up. She doesn’t look. Of course she doesn’t.
“Anything else I should know?” She suddenly asks, disturbing the peace that finally seemed to settle in the room. “Laundry schedule? Land mines?”
“Don’t talk to me before coffee,” Mikey says. “Don’t talk to Dean before… noon.”
“Don’t talk to me at all,” I correct.
She flips a page. “Deal.”
It should feel like a win. It doesn’t. It lands in the middle of my chest and sits there, heavy as an unplayed chord.
“Seattle by morning,” Hayden mumbles sleepily. “Four, five hours.”
“Three and change,” I state, because we’ve done this drive ten times and because prediction is one of the few things control looks like on the road.
Sadie’s eyes flick up again, quick. “Is that a bet?”
“Why would I play any kind of game with you?” A sneer comes to life on my face as I toss out the question.
“Shame.” She shrugs. “I’m good at those.”
“Losers are ugly,” I counter.
“So’s your attitude.” Her reply without bite as she goes back to the page.
I lean my head against the window and let the cold glass pull some of the heat out of my skull. Outside is black trees and the suggestion of a moon and the blur of highway lights. Inside is recycled air and tired men and one woman who refuses to bend around the shape of me.
Good. The world bends too easy. The world pretends. People pretend. I do not.
I survived love once. I won’t lose to it again. Especially not to a girl who steps over my foot like I’m furniture and looks at me like I’m noise.
My fingers find the neck of the guitar again. The riff I refused a minute ago waits where I left it, patient as a sin. I don’t play it. I file it under No. I file her there too.
Seattle will come fast. We’ll rehearse, we’ll burn down another venue, we’ll sleep a little and call it enough. She’ll point her lens at the parts of us we want printed and I’ll ignore her until she stops existing.
