23
Emma laughed as she listened to AJ and Nick telling her stories about when they were teenagers and used to get in trouble while on tour. Something about the way they’d grown up intrigued her. Most likely because it was so incredibly different from the way she’d grown up, and yet they’d all turned out pretty similar in the long run.Every so often she noticed AJ giving her a look that she was finally used to after several weeks of their new friendship. He’d be in the middle of talking or doing something and would look at her searching her eyes to make sure that she was “okay.” He seemed to be on guard most times worrying about going too far and asking too many questions. What he didn’t understand though, was that for some reason Emma had allotted him with much more leeway than she’d given to anyone else. His “too far” was so much farther than anyone else’s. She liked how he looked out for her though, it was weird to her, but she admitted to herself that she liked it.
She took a cigarette from AJ’s pack and lit it while listening to them going on with their reminiscing. Nick was interesting, to say the least. She hadn’t been real sure about letting him in on their little tradition of hanging out in the hotel, but he’d fit in pretty quickly and she felt almost as comfortable with him around as she did with most people she’d met on the tour. Not quite as much as AJ, of course, but comfortable nevertheless.
He was cute too. Very cute. She may have shut most of her feelings away after The Accident, but she wasn’t an idiot and knew when a gorgeous man was in her company. AJ was one too, but with him she didn’t seem to notice it as much as she did with Nick. Probably because Nick was an obvious flirt, whereas AJ had his moments but typically kept his cool.
Nick on the other hand didn’t care how obvious his flirting was and wasn’t about to tone it down just because AJ told him that Emma was somewhat shy.
“Alright Emma,” Nick said as he twirled a bottle cap from his soda on his fingertip as he lay on the floor of the room on his back. “Where’s that adorable accent of yours from?”
Emma smiled at him, “Guess…”
He rolled his eyes but smiled, “Well it’s certainly southern because you’ve got a twang. But it’s not a Florida sort of thing. More like, southwest or something cause you tend to leave the g’s off of words that end with ing.”
Emma chuckled and looked at AJ, “He’s been paying attention.”
“Of course I have…” Nick said and dropped the bottle cap on his chest accidentally then picked it up and twirled it again. “It’s not that often though… just occasionally, like you either try to hide the accent, or maybe it wasn’t your original accent.”
Emma looked at Nick as he twirled the bottle cap. He was smarter than he looked. Not that he looked stupid, but she didn’t think he would have ever picked up on her slight accent like that. “You’re warm… keep guessing.”
“Are you going to tell me if I get it right?”
She laughed and put out the last of her cigarette, “Probably not…”
“I didn’t think so…” Nick laughed. “You’ll tell me eventually, though.”
“You’re that sure?” Emma asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Yup…” he said and looked at her long enough to drop his bottle cap again.
“I’ve got a question for you two…” she said looking between the two men, one sprawled out on the floor and the other at the end of the couch holding her feet in his lap. “When you were younger, y’all shared a bus right?”
Nick looked at AJ and smiled, “Twang…”
Emma rolled her eyes at him. AJ nodded, “Yeah we did…”
“But as you got older, you started drivin’ in your own busses?”
“Twang…” Nick laughed from the floor. “Drivin’…”
“Yeah…” AJ chuckled looking at Emma. “Why?”
“Well, the band all still shares a bus. And I can’t help but think that y.. you…” she said catching herself from saying y’all again. “Must get damn bored on the busses. Cause, like… as much as sometimes I want to strangle most of the band when we’re on bus trips… I can’t imagine bein’ stuck alone on the bus with no one else to talk to except the driver.” She looked at Nick, “Yes, I know… I said bein’…” He laughed and blew her a kiss with a wink.
“It gets a little dull sometimes…” Nick answered. “But I think we earned it after the billions of miles we logged squeezed onto one bus for years.”
“Yeah, and Nick’s a fucking slob…” AJ laughed.
“He is too…” Nick said with a laugh.
“I know he is…” Emma smiled. “But don’t you get bored?”
“Well it’s not always just us and the drivers…” AJ said. “Sometimes we have friends or family visiting…”
“And other times we’ll have a magazine doing an article so they’ll come on the bus with us and talk to us and take pictures…” Nick added.
Emma nodded but shrugged, “Still seems like a whole lotta lonely on those huge busses without anyone to hang out with.” No one objected and they all sort of sat in silence for a minute before anyone spoke again.
“How about the next road trip we all ride together?” Nick asked from the floor.
Emma chuckled, “That would be the true test… Hanging out here is one thing, but being locked in a bus for hours on end is something different.”
“I can handle it…” Nick smiled.
“Me too…”
“Cool… then when we hit the road again, we’ll go together. I think we’ve got quite a few road trips in a row once we leave here…”
“Where the hell are we?” Nick laughed.
“Texas…” AJ said.
“New Mexico…” Emma said correcting him.
“We are not in New Mexico…” AJ laughed.
“Yeah we are. We drove through Okalahoma to get here. We don’t hit Texas until after we do Arizona, Nevada and California.”
“We are not in New Mexico…” AJ said shaking his head.
“I think she’s right, man…” Nick said.
“Shut up… Why would we skip Texas like that?”
“Hell if I know…” Emma said and shrugged. “But we did. Texas is right before Christmas.”
“Dude, I don’t even know what month it is most of the time. But I believe you…” Nick said with a laugh.
AJ shook his head again and sighed looking utterly confused as he looked down the couch at Emma. She chuckled at him, “Trust me, if I know anything, it’s when we’ll be in Texas.”
Nick, who’d been throwing the bottle cap up in the air and catching it, completely missed the cap and it hit him in the forehead before he looked at Emma, “Texas…”
She laughed, “Yes?”
“You’re from Texas… I once knew this chick that was from Texas and she used to drop the g’s off of words too… It was damn sexy too.”
Emma smiled and raised her soda to him in a salute, “Very good, Blondie.”
“You’re from Texas?” AJ asked.
“Yeah…” she nodded and smiled at him.
“Where in Texas?” Nick asked.
“Nick… stop being so fucking nosy…” AJ sighed.
Emma gave AJ a wink and then looked at Nick, “Houston…”
“We’re going to Houston aren’t we?” he asked her.
“Yup…”
“That’s why you know what date we’re going to be there… cause you’ll be home.”
She nodded, “Something like that…”
“Cool…” he said and found his cap and began tossing it again. “You gunna visit family and shit?”
“Nick…” AJ said in a warning tone that nearly made Emma chuckle.
“Whaat?” Nick groaned. “I’m just getting to know the girl…”
“You’re being annoying…”
“No you’re not…” Emma laughed. “But no, I’m not going to be visiting anyone.”
“Why not?”
Emma could tell AJ was about ready to blow his top but she nudged him with her foot that was still in his lap. She shot him a look telling him that it was okay, and he didn’t say anything to Nick. She looked toward Nick, “No one to visit.”
“Isn’t it your home though?”
“It was.”
He stopped playing with the cap and rolled onto his side propping his head on his hand, “Go on…”
“I left Houston and haven’t been back since.”
“How long ago?”
“Little over a year.”
“Why’d you leave?”
“I needed something different.”
“But what about your friends and family and stuff?”
She could feel AJ’s hands resting on her feet and somehow that calmed her knowing that he was right there, even though what she was telling Nick she knew AJ had never heard either. Had Nick drilled her like this without AJ around though, she would have been long gone. “There isn’t any family left, and any friends that I might have had, I alienated when I left, I’m sure.”
“Why?”
“They didn’t know I was leaving.”
“So you just left. No one knew and you just disappeared?”
“Pretty much.”
“Don’t you think someone is worried about you? Wondering where you went?”
“No…” she said softly and looked at the ceiling as she laid her head back against the arm of the couch.
“I’d look for you…”
She smiled, “Thanks…”
“Seriously though… what happened? Why did you leave?”
She paused for a moment and then began speaking again after a deep breath, “Houston wasn’t home anymore for me. It was just a blaring reminder of how shitty life can be. I couldn’t take it anymore, so I left. I packed up what I needed, went to the airport and got on the first plane I could get a ticket for.”
“Where’d you end up?”
“Atlanta. I stayed there for a while, and then kept going south from there. Jacksonville, some little town that I can’t remember the name of… then I ended up in Orlando where I figured it couldn’t be hard to get a job with all of the tourist shit around. I was going to head off to Tampa or somewhere on the coast, but then I met Skinner and before I knew it, I was on this tour.”
“Wow…” Nick said quietly as he looked at Emma.
“Yeah…” she said softly and looked at AJ. She saw the concern in his eyes mixed with the relief that came with learning a little more about her. She smiled at him, “So I know we’re not in Texas…”
