Page 23 of Strum Me

Chapter Ten

Brad

It’s a good thing the bus windows are tinted. Or else I’d probably be permanently stuck to the side of one, my nose breathing a foggy pattern on the glass, trying to get just a glimpse of Butter this entire trip.

How can she still have this effect on me after all these years? Hadn’t I put enough time, enough space, hell, enough women between us? I shouldn’t still be able to remember the way her skin smells, the way her lips taste, the way she moved against me. But I can; everything is still seared into my memory, endless of layers deep, never to be shed from my mind.

Even now, the past and the present keep weaving in and around each other. Standing over her in her bedroom on the bus, the way she looked up at me is no different to how she looked eight years ago. And my body can’t fucking help but respond the same. I want her. All of her. Her body, her mind.

Just sitting here thinking of her, I can’t help but sport a raging hard-on. Sitting next to her on the bed, it was all I could do not to straddle over her and take her. Remind her of what it was like the one night we had together. The sounds she made, the way she came in my arms, her body spent, her eyes begging me for more. Fuck. She’s every bit as sexy as she was when she was eighteen. Who am I kidding? As stunning as she was then—it can’t compare to the woman she is now.

I want her. I want her future and I mourn the loss of a past we should’ve had together. If only she’d talk about what happened. Is she really so embarrassed about how she acted that she won’t even let me get some closure? Or have I read it all wrong…that I’m the only one carrying a torch here, and this really is nothing but a job for her?

No.

There’s something more—I just don’t know what it is yet.

“Oi! Bradley! Get out here, the girls are here!” Jez yells from the living area on our bus.

I jump off the bed and practically fling myself out the door. Cadence greets me with a wave as she perches on Sebastian’s knee, and Hailey winks at me from her spot on the couch. Her legs are tucked under, settling in with a blanket.

“Um. Where’s um, where’s Bu- er, Emily?”

“Oh, she’s taking a nap on the other bus, so we thought we’d take the ride to Cambridge over here to give her some quiet and to get used to traveling. You guys can be kinda overwhelming,” Hailey tells me.

My heart plummets so fast I half expect to hear a thump at my feet. Really? Already? After all this time apart, now, just a day in, all it takes is for her to be out of sight for me to miss her this much?

“Good! It’ll give us a chance to give you all the gossip on that witch,” Jez snarls as he settles onto the couch with Hailey, rolling his eyes.

His comment draws a gasp from the girls, who look over to see Marius nodding. “Yeah, hell. Two fucking months with her. What a drag!”

“Oh, close your damn mouth, Brad. You know how we feel about your precious Emily.” Sebastian narrows his eyes, as if disgusted at just the mention of her name.

I’m stunned by their comments. She hadn’t come up in conversation for years now. I had no idea they felt this way about her.

“Still?” I ask them, turning to look each one in the face for a second.

“What do you mean, ‘still’? You think we can forget what she did? And what you were like for over a year after?”

“What? What happened?” Hailey and Cadey sit up, eyes wide, waiting for the story.

“It’s nothing. Don’t listen to them.” I wave my hand dismissively.

“She broke his fucking heart. Like, broke it into a million pieces or however the saying goes,” Jez growls, pulling on Hailey’s blanket.

“Aww, Bradley!” the girls coo at me.

I wander over to the bar, and pour myself a drink. “Ugh, shut up. That’s not what happened.”

“Oh yeah? So, you just moped around for a year sighing and writing bad poetry and drinking bourbon straight from the bottle ‘cause that was your emo phase?” Jez interrogates me, with a little too much accurate detail.

Hailey pinches Jez, who lets go of the blanket with a squeal. “Oooh, Bradley, did you really? I don’t remember that.”

“Yeah, he was a fucking mess,” Marius continues, settling on the floor in his yoga position. “You were only sixteen then and still at school. You weren’t around for everything.”

“So you guys dated? For how long?” Cadence continues the questioning even while I cover my ears, just wishing for it to end.

“No, they didn’t date,” her fiancé discloses, not without a hint of glee, the corners of his lips twitching. “They just slept together. Once.”

“Apparently it was enough,” Marius mumbles, tumbling over onto his head.

I down my glass and slam it onto the bar. “Argh, guys! Shut up!”

Jez ignores me and gets up from the couch to refill my drink, giving me a pointed look as he does. “Anyway, we hate her. And right now we’re not happy with Dennis either, for lugging her on us. No offense, Hailey.”

She shrugs. “Hey, what my dad decides is up to him. I’ve got my own job to do. And well, I like her. From what I know of her.”

“Me too,” Cadence chimes in, tugging on Sebastian’s ear when he scoffs. “I think you guys are just being jerks. If Brad’s okay with it, you should be too.”

I smile at them gratefully. “Thanks girls. Take care of her, okay?”

I wander back to my room, trying not to stare out the window and wonder if she still sleeps like she used to, on her back, with one leg bent up and the other stretched out straight, an arm flung over her eyes to block out the light.

Just the way she looked the last time I saw her.