We finally rolled into Atlanta at 6:30 Monday night. It was raining in sheets.

"Well, hello there, ATL Jawja," Nick said as he studied the wet, sparkling city through the window. "It's been a minute."

Brian turned to look out the window as well. "Yeah, Georgia. You look kinda rainy. Have you been hangin' around with Portland behind my back?"

All three of us were turned around on the couch, and I tried not to look too eager as I watched the city pass by. I wanted off this damn bus NOW. Ten hours of smelly men and empty fields had made me want to get out and run next to the bus.

Frank couldn't get us within 20 feet of the hotel door's overhang, and the tall buildings around us only served as a wind tunnel for the rain, which started blowing in as soon as the bus door was open. This was going to be a fun dash inside. The only consolation was that the venue, Phillips Arena, was within a block of the hotel in CNN Center - CNN Center! the nerdy journalist in me squealed at the thought - but that did us no good tonight.

"We'll get your suitcases down," Frank said. "You guys just get inside."

I shouldered my purse and messenger bag and waited for the guys to pass. Instead, I got a chorus of "ladies first."

I narrowed my eyes. "When did y'all decide to be polite again?"

"Again?" Brian stood up, took my free hand and pantomimed a deep, gallant bow. "Why, Miz Michaels, we were always polite. The very picture of Southern gentlemen."

"Oh yeah? Then explain to me why I'm carrying my own bags." I successfully managed to smother a smile into an unimpressed smirk, because even though it was cute, after today I felt confident in saying I was no longer impressed by any of them, not even handsome Brian. I wanted to go upstairs, take a long soak and send an email without my Internet signal flickering every five miles.

I pulled my hand free, turned around and strode toward the steps. Which were wet. And metal.

WHAM! My feet were out from under me. I grabbed vainly for the railing, but it slid out of my hand. Down the steps I went in a tangle of limbs, landing flat on my ass on the wet pavement.

"Oh, shit!" I heard from behind me.

I did a quick self-assessment, muttering a stream of profanity that would have made an over-the-road trucker blush. My bags hadn't taken half as hard a hit as I had. But for the grace of God, I might have hit my head on the bottom step, and then I'd be in real trouble. My left elbow and my right knee - the knee I'd hurt 10 years ago, keeping me from running for months - were on fire. What had I even hit my knee on? The railing? Nothing looked to be skinned, but I would be black and blue by morning.

Perhaps worst of all, I was sitting on the pavement in the rain like a doofus.

Bob pushed his way to the front, and he and the guys scrambled down the steps more carefully than I had, picking their way around me.

"If y'all had let me off the bus first like you were supposed to..." Bob grumbled in his bass voice as he hauled me to my feet. Water was already glistening in his carrot-colored buzz cut.

I didn't doubt it. He had picked me up like a toy. I winced as I put weight on my knee, which I knew would be twice its normal size by morning.

I turned around, carefully, to see the guys standing in the pouring rain, staring at me, all visibly concerned, but all fighting laughter too hard to speak. A.J. had a hand over his mouth, as if to stroke his beard, but it was obviously there only to keep his mouth shut. Nick's face was almost purple.

"I'm fine, by the way," I said, shifting my weight off my knee.

All four dissolved into screaming laughter.

"My dignity may have suffered a mortal blow, though," I added.

Brian, who was doubled over with laughter, straightened up, wiping tears from his eyes. "Girl, dignity has no place on this bus," he managed, still gasping for breath, as he picked up my messenger bag from the ground.

"True that," Howie added as we filed inside, Bob supporting me as I limped. "Rotten way to learn, but hey, now you know."

"Easy for you to say." I gingerly stood on both legs again, then flipped my head over to wring out my now-soaked ponytail on the hallway carpet, even though my clothes were so wet that a little wet hair hardly mattered. "Did you ever eat the stairs on the bus?"

Chortles. "Uhhh, I'm pretty sure every last one of us has," Howie said, holding out the hem of his T-shirt to wring it out on the carpet. "And plenty of more intentional torment."

Nick ticked off the incidents on his fingers. "Whoopee cushions, short-sheeted beds, we once Naired a dick into the back of A.J.'s head..."

A.J. nodded somberly. "True story. I had to Bic my head every day until all my hair grew back evenly. Our manager was pissed."

"Don't worry, Christine, those sophomoric pranks are behind us," Howie said lightly. I turned around, midway through wringing out my T-shirt, to see a dry and composed Christine striding up to us. She had a wet raincoat folded neatly over one arm. Of course she did.

Christine flashed a brittle smile at us drowned rats. "Did Frank park the bus in Macon?"

"Meg blew out her knee coming down the bus stairs," Brian said quickly. It wasn't a total lie. "We needed a minute for her to regroup."

"Weren't going to leave her out in the rain by herself, ya know," A.J. added.

The smile didn't waver. "And that's why you guys are so sweet. Hope your knee feels better," she added to me, airily. I thought about telling her I didn't need my knee to write in a national publication that she was an evil bitch with a heart of polished marble.

"We were just finishing up getting you guys checked in," Christine continued, doling out hotel keys as a bellhop breezed past her. "Jay did a sweep. The crew and dancers are all already up there." Still with the brittle smile. I wanted to reach up and slap it off her face. "We had a few minutes' head start."

The entire process of staying in a hotel with them never failed to amaze me: one, because the hotels were always so luxurious; two, because I hadn't carried my own suitcase since that first night in Miami; three, because it was such a production security-wise. We got an entire secured floor, and a high one at that.

As we all piled off the elevator, Christine broke away from us and headed down the hall. "I'll check in later, gentlemen," she said breezily. "Be good."

"Sure thing, Mom," Nick muttered as she disappeared. He turned to the others. "Dinner?"

"Eh. Let's get the suitcases up here, and then give it about 10 minutes." A.J. looked down at himself. "In case you hadn't noticed, we look like we just crawled out the sewer."

"You comin' to dinner?" Brian asked me as the others headed down the hall.

I smiled weakly. "Frankly, I cannot think of anything I'd rather do than ice my knee and order room service." I was annoyed with Christine's existence all over again, and I was confident Thomas would understand that when the travel person inevitably flagged the surprise charge on my room bill.

Brian winced. "That bad, huh?"

I nodded. "Kind of. I cracked the same kneecap in college." I decided against telling him it had happened when a friend intending to pull an innocent prank tripped me as I ran down my dorm's linoleum-floored hallway. That would have been another case of word vomit.

"You got anything to take for it?"

"Advil."

He looked around furtively, then took a step closer. Even after 10 hours on a bus with him, and even though my knee was throbbing, my face grew warm. I found myself wishing I didn't look like I'd been flushed down the toilet. In fairness, so did he, and I tried to focus on the fact that water was streaming into his eyes from his hair, not on the way his soaked shirt clung to his chest.

"Don't take anything yet. I'll let you know when we get back," he said quietly. His eyes twinkled merrily. "I have something a little bit better than Advil."

**

I tried not to wait up for the guys to come back. I took a hot bath, trying to remember what it felt like to be a girl after being one of the boys all day. I limped down to the ice machine and back in my hotel robe, hair wrapped in a towel, then filled an entire plastic trash bag with the contents of the ice bucket and plunked it down on my knee. It was already turning black and blue, I noted as I called room service. Hopefully I wouldn't have to wear a short skirt for the next week or two.

I ate my perfectly delicious spaghetti alla puttanesca from a plate on my lap, the leg with the offending knee sticking straight out in front of me, the other tucked up Indian-style. The hotel cable was impressive, and I soon found an Entourage rerun on HBO East. My laptop was open on the bed next to me, Twitter buzzing merrily.

This wasn't so very different from a night at home, and I found myself missing ol' 25-C Montgomery. I'd only been gone a couple of days, but I hoped the neighbor who was looking after the place hadn't forgotten. I hoped Thomas wasn't getting angry phone call upon angry phone call from Christine. He hadn't responded to my email check-ins, although, in fairness, I seemed to recall his saying he might take a three-day weekend.

But at home, I reminded myself, I didn't have to clean up after any of this, the bed I'd be sleeping in tonight was about five times fluffier than my own, and the view I'd see out my window in the morning was a lot more picturesque than the back of the beauty school across the street.

I leaned back and mentally ran through what I still needed to do, besides take notes on, tweet about and try to survive the next five days. I could stand to shoot a little bit more video, write my blogs a little earlier in the day. I needed to transcribe my interviews with A.J. and Howie. I needed to actually do my interview with Brian. I wondered idly if he wanted to do it tonight, while I was enjoying my better-than-Advil medication, which I was pretty sure was going to be alcoholic in nature.

Don't ambush him, stupid. It wasn't an ambush, though. It was journalism. He was going to have to buck up sooner or later.

My phone buzzed with a text from an unfamiliar number. "Im back. Others found a place 2 watch the marlins game but i didnt feel like it. You still hurtin?"

I stared at the phone for a full minute, my heart betraying me with its pounding. What the hell? He farted in your general direction at least three times today, and you're still fussing over him? Finally, I picked up the phone and texted back: "Yep."

A moment later: "K. Come 2 1202."

I fished dry jeans and a tee out of my suitcase, then pulled my hair down from the towel and scrunched in the usual anti-frizz stuff, grateful for the cloud of fruity scent it released. I looked at myself in the mirror. Did I really need makeup? Well, probably, but I hated to look like I was trying too hard. Better to just go with a touch of mascara and some Chapstick, maybe the strawberry kind, my secret weapon.

Embarrassed suddenly, I slapped myself across the face. "Snap out of it, Michaels," I ordered my reflection.

My knee had a heartbeat with every step as I headed for the hallway with the guys' rooms, with my phone and room key shoved in my pocket and my all-access pass around my neck, although I knew it hardly mattered as I approached Bob.

"How's the knee?" he rumbled.

I smiled politely. "It's been better. Still got work to do, though."

He let me past, and I continued on to 1202. Taking a deep breath, I knocked on the door. For good measure, I quoted Tommy Boy in a high-pitched voice, "Housekeeping, you want mint for pillow?"

The response came: "Please go away...let me sleep...for the love of God!"

Brian opened the door, looking much less like a drowned rat. He grinned mischievously, and his piercing blue eyes danced with laughter. I wanted to barf with nerves.

"Well, look who's up and around." He stepped out of the way, then made a face as he saw me still sort of limping. "Jeez, not any better?"

"No, and I iced it for more than an hour." I shifted the weight off it again as he closed the door.

"Well, then it's probably a good thing you came." He jerked a thumb at the small table wedged into the corner, where an unopened bottle of Knob Creek, a bucket of ice and the two glasses from the bathroom were sitting.

My eyebrows went up. "I would not have pegged you for a bourbon guy. Good choice."

He smirked. "Give me some credit. I'm an old Kentucky boy." The smirk turned sheepish. "Nobody else'll drink it, but it, uh, seemed like something you'd enjoy."

The sheepishness of his smile put me slightly more at ease. Before I could stop myself, I smiled, batting my eyelashes, channeling an old Kentucky girl. "Well, I do so appreciate being thought of," I drawled, dropping into a chair and admiring the view from the window. It was still raining, but the city shimmered, and the raindrops on the window refracted the light into interesting patterns.

"I have no idea why the others wanted to stay out in this crap," Brian was saying as he opened the bottle. "But I guess it could be worse, right? Could be snowing." He looked up at me, grinning. "You're probably the only one of us cut out for that."

"How's that?"

"Well..." He pulled his glass toward him and poured in a couple fingers of the whiskey. "I grew up the furthest north of any of us. And you might be surprised to hear we don't get a whole ton of snow in northern Kentucky." He turned his attention to my glass. "Neat or on the rocks?"

"Oh. On the rocks, I guess." It was my turn to smile sheepishly. "I'm a cheap date."

"Fair enough." He dropped a fistful of ice into my glass, followed by the whiskey, and pushed my glass toward me. "Whereas you're from, what, Illinois?"

I nodded. "The very belly button of Illinois."

He laughed as he sat down, a nice laugh, a laugh that made the most nervous part of me want to jump out the window. "Never thought of it that way."

We both took a sip of the whiskey. It raced down my throat like fire, but it tasted wonderful, like honey and wood. I felt better already.

"That's good stuff," I said to him. "Thank you."

He smiled. "Think nothing of it. So how'd you hurt it the first time?"

 "Dorm tomfoolery in college, many moons ago," I said lightly, proud of myself for stemming the flow of word vomit.

"Couldn't have been that many." He winced. "Sorry. I bet you get that a lot."

I nodded slowly, smiling self-deprecatingly into my whiskey. "I do. So I'm used to it."

"It works for you."

I looked up. He was studying me with a little smile on his face that stopped my heart cold. Caught in the act, he shrugged. "Well, it does."

Take it as a compliment, you ignoramus.

"Thanks." I smiled my most charming smile, certain I was blushing, proud of myself for not leaping over the table at him or ruining things with more word vomit. Just to make sure, I leaned back in the chair, tried to cross my legs, crossed the wrong leg and winced at the pressure on my knee.

"Here, you can have the ice. I didn't even think about it." He scrambled to pull out the plastic sack the ice was in, even though it was starting to melt. "I'll get you a towel."

"You really don't have to do that," I protested good-naturedly. "It'll probably do my knee some good." I rolled up my pantleg, took the sack and plunked it directly on my knee. The cold seared my skin, and I sucked in a breath through my teeth, but the shock passed quickly.

"You took that like a champ," he joked.

"Yeah, well." I leaned back again, crossing the other leg this time so I could give my knee some attention. I quickly took another sip of the whiskey, swallowing this one more slowly. My insides were getting warm and starting to uncoil.

"So, when am I gonna get to interview you one-on-one?" I ventured.

Brian looked out the window, an embarrassed smile crossing his face. His elegant, chiseled profile reminded me a bit of a Roman bust, and I caught my breath in spite of myself. He was so damned handsome, even when that smile wasn't a happy one.

"I was wondering when you'd get on me about that," he said.

"You're the last one left, believe it or not. I'll try not to make it too painful," I teased.

He looked back at me. He was smiling, yes, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. "I really didn't invite you over here to have you corner me about your story."

I felt terrible suddenly and looked away. "I know. I'm sorry. Forget I said anything."

"It's OK." He sipped his whiskey, visibly savoring it. He was quiet for so long that I almost wasn't sure if he'd speak again. When he did, his voice was pensive. "I really don't want to make your job difficult. I'm sure it doesn't do you any good, when you're working, to make a friend who's an uncooperative source."

"It does me a different kind of good, though." I propped an elbow on the table, glad it wasn't my bad elbow, which was also on its way to becoming a rainbow of broken blood vessels. "It's nice to make a friend. Believe it or not, it doesn't happen that often in my line of work."

"I don't believe that, actually." Brian set his glass down and studied me again. "You really are a cool lady, Meg," he said softly. "I think we all had fun with you on the bus today. Makes it harder for me to look at you as just another journalist."

My heart sped up. I somehow found my glass of whiskey again and took a sip, without breaking the connection between our eyes. The room seemed to shrink to his face, which seemed very far away and yet incredibly close.

"And that's why I don't want to talk to you on the record tonight." He looked away and picked up his glass again. "We've got a few more days together, and I promise I will do your interview before you leave. Right now, I'm just glad to make a friend, too. Can I focus on that for a minute?"

I didn't know what to say. By now, my heart was in my throat. It was true that I'd rarely made a genuine friend in a source, but I'd never had to work on a source quite like this before, either. It bothered me. But not as much as it should have.

I managed a smile. "I'll find my way to your heart sooner or later." I picked up my glass, jiggled the ice cubes, felt my smile grow stronger. "In the meantime, it's nice to know I can always bribe you with bourbon."

Brian glanced under the table. "How's the knee?"

"Better. You were right. Bourbon does beat Advil any day."

He gave me his most charming smile yet, which was a lot more effective than mine. "See, so who said I'm the one being bribed?"