Sam looks at me like I’ve lost my mind as he scoots closer. “I’ve been playing stupid video games for weeks, imagining you back here in various stages of seminakedness.” He grips the bottom of my shirt. “I’m not going anywhere.”
My hands cover his. “They’ll be no stages of nakedness.” I push his hand away. “Not with three other guys roaming free on the bus.”
Sam stares at me for a long moment, then looks around the small room. “All right, how about some TV?”
“Sure,” I say, leaning back into the couch cushions. But once he turns on the TV, he unfolds the blankets, throws the pillows on the far end of the couch, yanks me to his chest, and wraps us up—then we lie down together.
“Sam,” I say, trying to disentangle myself, fearful of Gabe popping in again.
He holds me tight. “Forget it, Peyton. If we can’t do the sucking stuff—” He pauses at the elbow jab I give his ribs. He catches my earlobe and sucks on it. “Unless you want to do the sucking stuff?” he asks, his teeth lightly scraping my skin.
“Stop it,” I say, trying to elbow him again as he pulls me closer.
His lips release my earlobe. “Then let me hold you.”
“Gabe’s going to come back here again.”
“Who gives a shit about Gabe?”
Blinking up at him, I realize he has a point. Though it’s a bit weird cuddling with him while the guys are up front playing video games, I let him tuck me against his chest. He just holds me and within seconds, I relax.
He flicks through channels and nuzzles my neck intermittently, which is quite nice. The bus starts rolling, and my eyelids grow heavy.
Warm and content, I realize I could happily fall asleep like this every night.
Chapter 31
The next afternoon, Sam’s head lies on a pillow next to my thighs. I’m hunched over the computer on the couch, typing in a post. If I weren’t working, my lap would be Sam’s pillow. My elbow knocks into the book he’s reading. Instead of bitching, he adjusts the book from above his face to over his chest.
“Sorry,” I say, clicking open a picture file from the previous night.
He shrugs and keeps reading.
I’ve noticed Sam can block out the world when he reads. Like totally. The guys could be next to him shouting and playing video games, or Gabe and Justin could be in a heated argument, or a volcano could erupt. Sam would keep reading.
I look him over as he reads with his curly head on the pillow. He’s in one of his plain white T-shirts, baggy worn shorts, and a flip-flop teeters from his foot at the end of the couch. His chest rises with a slight shake. He does this often. Obviously, he’s reading another “funny” book.
An obnoxious thought enters my head as I watch him read. Don’t do it, Peyton! my conscience yells. If he ignores me, my ego might read too much into his dismissal, but my wayward fingers have already dug into his curls. My thumb brushes at his temple. My other hand moves to his jaw and caresses his scruff.
For several seconds, he continues to read, until he finally glances up, his lips forming a soft smile. “You bored?”
I shake my head.
“You done?”
I shake my head.
“You need a little attention?”
I smile slightly.
He carefully sets the book on the couch and lifts up on an elbow, reaching up behind my neck. He pulls me down gently. The kiss is soft, sweet, and filled with longing.
“Damn,” he whispers against my lips, “I’m starting to hate this bus.”
I nod, brushing my nose against his, then he lets go of my neck, settles back onto the pillow, and picks up his book.
I start clicking through pictures. Low music and snippets of conversation vibrate from the front of the bus but not loud enough to drown out the occasional turn of a page. I get back to typing again.
My little cave has become a place of contentment.
I wake up in the middle of the night to the rhythm of the bus moving and a tightly muscled body holding me. Gazing into the darkness, I recall falling asleep on the bus while the guys were stuck in interview after interview in Kansas City. Apparently, Sam skipped his bunk and came right to me.
For a nanosecond, I wonder what the guys thought of that.
Then Sam’s warm breath rushes over my cheek, and I realize I don’t give a shit.
I wrap my arms around the ones holding me and fall back asleep.
“So what magazine is your dream job?” Sam asks, bumping his elbow into mine as we stare out the window, gawking at the mountains on our way to Salt Lake City. After that, it’s back to California, where the tour had started before Luminescent Juliet even joined up, for the last concert in Fresno. “Vibe? Alternative Press? Or Rolling Stone?
I break my gaze from the view of endless mountains—the part of Michigan where we grew up is pretty much flat—to look at him kneeling next to me on the couch. “Any of those would be awesome. I mean, maybe if I land a job and build a big enough reputation to be picky, I’d probably go for something like Alternative Press, but with the way the Internet is screwing journalists at the moment, I’m not sure being picky will ever be an option.”
“Ah, the joys of technology,” he says, then grins. “I knew you’d give the Press special treatment, punk fan that you are.”
I roll my eyes. “What about you?”
He raises an eyebrow.
“What do you plan on doing with that English degree?”
“Maybe add a teaching certificate? Maybe write?” He gives me a pointed look. “Maybe edit you?”
Edit me? Please! I return his pointed look.
“Maybe I won’t need my degree.” He glances out the window. “Maybe I’m going to ‘Beverly Hills,’ ” he sings, his pitch perfectly matching the song by Weezer.
“Is that what you want?”
“To play music? Write songs? And party until I’m fifty? Stop cutting lawns from April to October? Hell yeah.”
“Party until you’re fifty? Okay. I didn’t know Keith Richards Jr. was the type to run to the back of the bus to snuggle instead of hanging in the green room to party.” He laughs but my expression turns hard. “Unless you haven’t given that shit up.”
The lines of his expression smooth out as he becomes serious. “I didn’t lie to you, Peyton. I would never lie to you about that. I’ve been clean since that night.” He shakes his head as my features soften. “And you’re right, it’s not about the partying. But just like you, I love music, and I dream of being able to make it my real career. To be able to write songs and play onstage for years . . .”
I gesture behind us to the bus. At this point, it’s starting to feel like a well-furnished prison on wheels. If it weren’t for him, I’d be pulling my hair out by now. “What about living like this?”
“Sometimes,” he says, shrugging, “you have to take the good with the bad. If the good is that freaking good.”
It’s obvious he loves to perform and play. It was obvious when I watched him in the Bottle Rockets. But songwriting? It’s kind of established that Romeo is the band’s songbird. I stare at Sam’s stunning profile against the almost equally stunning backdrop of mountains. “Exactly how many songs have you written?”
He turns slowly to look at me. “Well . . . um, I’ve helped Romeo a bit with the melodies, so maybe about twenty percent there, but more than half of the album’s lyrics are mine.”
“Why?” I ask, knowing he’ll understand that I’m asking why he’d hide his contribution.
He turns back to the scenery. “Like ‘Trace,’ most of them are personal. I don’t like the idea of people getting a peek into my soul.”