“We have our talent, too,” Nico said. “At least we’re not panhandling.”
Right. Their talent.
“You do realize that it’s because of our talent that we live in this piece of shit, right?” she asked, blinking back the burn.
Life got so damn overwhelming sometimes. She tried to keep moving forward, hoping one day things would fall into place. Hoping they’d catch a break and things would get better.
It wasn’t today and it wouldn’t be tomorrow, either. But she could hope.
And once she got her future in order, she could go back and fix her past.
Maybe fixing it wasn’t the right word.
“After we eat, we need to move this bus so the church doesn’t bitch. We also need to get to a laundromat,” she murmured.
“We need a damn mechanic,” Rex said. “Or to go south.”
“We need to play this gig first. He’s going to pay us. Then maybe we can see how much it’ll be to fix the heater.”
“Too much,” Rex muttered.
Eddie had been working on trying to get the heater working. So far, he’d had no luck. He was a drummer, not a bus whisperer.
A loud pounding on the bus door had Syn jumping and her head spinning in that direction. Nico’s eyes were wide as he stared toward it, too. “Shit. I bet the church wants us to move.”
“No shit,” Eddie said.
“Churches are supposed to help people,” Nico whispered. “All they do is help themselves.”
“We don’t know what kind of church it is,” Syn hissed in a whisper, in case it was someone from the church. “Some do help people.”
The pounding came again. “Check to see who it is,” Syn instructed Eddie.
Eddie shot her a look, then pushed open the door. He quickly backed up the steps as another man followed him inside.
A man much broader than her drummer.
Now wearing that cut over a black leather jacket. He also had a black beanie pulled over his dark hair. A pair of shades covered his brown eyes.
One dark eyebrow lifted above the frame of his mirrored sunglasses. “Just makin’ sure Angel dropped off the food.”
“She did,” Rex said, drawing Dodge’s attention.
His eyes zeroed in on where Syn’s feet were on Rex’s lap. The other eyebrow joined the first one above the frames.
When he slipped the reflective glasses off, both eyebrows had dropped back into place but his gaze remained where Syn laid on the couch.
“Gotta move…” Dodge started.
Syn held her breath as their gazes locked.
“This thing.”
“Do you know where we can park it?” Rex asked, his fingers curling possessively around Syn’s ankle. “We don’t have a car to get us around, so we can’t park in some field out in the middle of nowhere.”
“Rex,” she warned under her breath.
Rex had zero reason to be possessive. None. Protective, yes. Possessive, no. They were like siblings. All of them were. It was why she felt so comfortable living in a damn bus with them. She did not want that to change.
That would fuck everything up.
She jiggled her foot just enough to make a point and he removed his hand, shooting her a frown. She bugged her eyes out at him.
Dodge took a step further into the bus, interrupting her and Rex’s silent conversation.
In an instant, he made the bus feel more crowded than her three bandmates did all together.
“There’s a strip mall down at the east end of town. Can park in the Walmart lot.”
“Do they have a laundromat there?” They weren’t going to get any gigs at all if they stunk like wet, week-old socks.
“Dunno.” He glanced around, his lips pursed as he stroked his bearded chin. She had noticed it last night but noticed again that he had a few strands of gray in that beard.
She didn’t think he was old enough to be going gray. Before she snuck out in the middle of the night, she noticed a few in his hair, too.
She never answered him when he asked her how old she was. Twice. He never answered her, either.
It didn’t matter. He wasn’t for her. Not for one night. Not even for an hour.
But she couldn’t pull her eyes from his broad shoulders encased in black leather as he took his time inspecting everything within his eyesight. What he couldn’t see wasn’t much different.
A flicker of something unfamiliar started in her gut when his dark eyes landed back on her and pinned her in place. “Why the fuck’s it so cold in here?”
She opened her mouth to answer him but Rex muttered, “The heater’s a fickle bitch,” first.
“You don’t got heat.” It wasn’t a question but more of a growl, his eyes still glued to her.
She was not taking even a second to explore what that grumble had done to her. Hell no. Not one damn second.
Whatever rabbit was trying to escape down that hole needed to be forced back out of it with a boot to the ass.