“I thought we were done with the whole ‘Let’s fuck random girls on the bus’ shit. I thought we made a rule to do it in dressing rooms or hotels.”
Finn finally pulled himself up and swiped Brooklyn’s purple polka-dot blanket over his lap. The woman he’d fucked shifted beside him, and both of our gazes went right to her ass. It was a nice ass, but that was beside the point.
“I didn’t mean to,” he groaned, rubbing a hand over his face.
“How do you not mean to?” I stood back, slightly amused.
“Well, I just brought her back here to play some songs on my guitar, because there were too many people around, and then I saw that Brooklyn wasn’t sleeping here like usual, so I guess one thing led to another and…” He shrugged.
I scoffed. “That’s because Brooklyn was with me, you idiot.”
“I figured she was asleep in a bunk.” Finn ran his hand over his cropped hair but then paused and flicked his gaze up to mine. “Wait. She was with you? What does that mean? Like… with you with you?”
My whole body tensed. “You know better than that.”
“So you two were working on songs?”
I couldn’t deny hearing the excitement in his voice, which only flicked on that fucking guilt-ridden feeling that I continued to get when I couldn’t write a damn song. I was letting all my band members down—everyone, essentially—and I had Angelina to thank for that. Or maybe I just had myself to thank.
“Don’t make a big fucking deal out of it, or he’ll stop writing,” Jackson yelled from the bunks, obviously listening to the conversation.
Finn pulled his hands up in surrender, and I stared down at him. “Deal with this.” I pointed at the naked woman. “And then you’re on Clorox duty. Brooklyn is pissed that she had to sleep on the floor because you two were spreading chlamydia all over the place.”
Finn growled. “You catch chlamydia one fucking time and no one lets you live it down.”
Jackson started to howl with laughter from the bunk. Then, the woman who we thought was sleeping peeked her head up and said, “I’ve had it three times. It’s not that big of a deal. They’re just being jerks.”
I almost laughed when Finn’s face turned to disgust. “That’s disgusting.”
I tuned the two of them out as I walked to the front of the bus and knocked on the closed space that Rod and Kent usually hid out in. Rod opened it up and nodded with his five-o-clock shadow. “Mornin’, King.”
“Are we staying in a hotel tonight?” I bluntly asked, crossing my arms as I nodded at Kent who was driving.
“Yeah, we’ll be there in a few and then rehearsal and sound check tomorrow. Why?”
“Because Asshat One needs to clean up that couch before Brooklyn will sleep on it, because he just spread chlamydia around on it. She doesn’t need to be sleeping on that shit.”
A crease formed in between Rod’s eyes.
“What?” I snapped.
The crease disappeared and smile lines appeared. “Nothing.” Then, he peeked around my body and smirked at Finn and Naked Chick who were arguing over the fact that having chlamydia once wasn’t nearly as bad as having it three times.
Just then, Brooklyn, with her sleepy face and loose hair, walked out of the bedroom, and all eyes went to her and then to me. I knew what they were all thinking, and if they knew me at all, they’d know that nothing happened between us.
I was ready to lash out, to say something so everyone would fuck off and stop assuming that Brooklyn was actually getting to me or that she’d somehow swooped in and fixed everything after spending one night together talking.
Her fiery gaze landed right on Finn, and her small hands went directly to her hips. “First off, it’s gross if you don’t use protection during sex with random partners, so regardless if you’ve had chlamydia once or ten times, it’s equally disgusting and downright stupid. Second, if I have to sleep on the floor again tonight while Mr. Selfish over there takes all the damn covers and leaves me the crappiest pillow of them all, I’ll never pop a Pop-Tart for you ever again. Or play rummy.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling. My teeth clenched in an attempt to keep my face emotionless.
I found Brooklyn humorous as hell, and watching the fire in her eyes blaze, as if she were totally unbothered by being thrown on a tour bus with the world’s most popular singer/songwriter and his band, was amazing. I’d admit, at first, I thought Brooklyn was worthless and a complete waste of time. But now? I could see that she was something entirely different. Fuck, maybe she can get me back on track.
I had to turn around when I saw Jackson climb out of his bunk and stand behind Brooklyn, bowing down to her and clapping for her speech.
A small grin was creeping along my stone-cold face. It was unfamiliar and almost made me feel as guilty as before. A true smile wasn’t something I’d done since before I found Angelina on that hotel floor. I almost didn’t feel like I deserved to smile, like I wasn’t worthy of it. But goddamnit, that was two times in ten minutes that I had to tell myself to stop raising my cheeks, all because of a timid, yet spitfire woman who I’d learned taught children music for a living.
Before I turned around to walk back into my room, I saw Rod eyeing me. His mouth turned up just slightly before he turned around and acted as if nothing was different.