“Aww, I’m sorry for your loss.”
“No worries, my Marge is in a better place now. She suffered for a long time.”
He started to get teary eyed and I hoped he wouldn’t cry, if he did there’d be no way I wouldn’t start crying too.
“I understand, I lost my mother a few months ago. She had cancer.”
Before I realized what he was doing, he got up and pulled me into a huge bear hug. I was surprised but after a few seconds, I relaxed and hugged him back. It’d been ages since anyone hugged me like that; and it was nice, more than nice really. Maybe I’d just try to hang out with Joe when I wasn’t working with Chaos.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
“No don’t apologize, I enjoyed it. Really.” I gave him a big smile and blinked away the tears threatening to fall. I blamed it on a long day and a sweet man. I was notthe crying type and I wasn’t going to start now.
“Okay.” He gave me a big grin and grabbed my suitcase. “This is where we stow the small bags. The big ones are stashed outside under the bus. I don’t know where you’ll unpack anything, unless Chaos lets you use a couple of his drawers.” He showed me around the large bus, which was a lot like a long thin hotel room. There was even a huge fifty inch TV on the wall opposite the couch and eating area.
“There’re four bunks along the side after the living area and kitchen, that’s where the guys sleep, except for Chaos. He has the real bedroom at the back of the bus. There’s only one bathroom but it’s bigger than some of the buses I’ve driven.
“It’s a lot bigger than I expected. I’m guessing I’ll be sleeping on the couch. Do you know if there are extra blankets or anything? I didn’t think to bring stuff.”
“Yeah, pull up the cushions of the couch and everything you need is in the cabinet there.”
“Great. So where do you sleep?”
“I don’t. Well at least not when you are. I sleep during the day when they’re all out. Usually we’re driving at night.”
“I hadn’t thought about that. Is it hard to stay awake when everyone else is sleeping?”
“Nah, I’ve been driving buses for a while, I’m used to it.”
The mini-tour was over and I was getting out the bedding to make up the couch when Chaos came in looking really pissed off. I wondered what happened with Sweets, but maybe it was better I didn’t know. Of course I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah I’m fine, not happy with Sweets, but everything else is cool.”
Like that was a surprise. I wonder if she tried to get him to sleep with her. Damn it, stop thinking about it. You don’t want to go down that road.
“I’m sorry. She was pretty drunk.”
“Not your fault. It’s been building for a couple weeks now, it was inevitable. I’m justsorry she took it out on you. Are you sure she didn’t hurt you?”
“I’m positive. She barely touched me.”
“She touched you?”
“She just grabbed my shoulder. It was nothing, really. Relax, okay?”
Sighing, he grabbed a beer from the refrigerator. “What do you think of the bus? Pretty cool, right?”
“Yeah it was kind of a surprise. I expected it to be a lot smaller, older, I don’t know, more cramped.”
“Wait ‘til everyone’s on it.”
“True, I didn’t think of that. Hey, Joe said you might have some free drawer space in your room?”
“Yeah, I think there’s a couple empties. C’mon I’ll show you the space, unless he did already?”
“Nope we stayed away from your room, and I didn’t look in any of the guys’ cubbies either.”
“No one would have cared. We don’t have anything to hide.”
