Side Trip(50)

Two verses and a chorus in and the song his unexpected companion inspired was taking shape.

Pleased with his progress, he put the notebook away and went back to waiting, leaning against the car, arms folded on his chest, legs crossed at the ankles, thinking about his muse.

Holy skinny-dip, she’d surprised him today. Daring with a capital D, and he’d loved it in a way that he hated. Her impulsiveness had thrown him off-center, but he enjoyed chilling with her and doing absolutely nothing. Too bad she was off-limits to him. Too bad he wasn’t a schmuck who didn’t care. They could go from hanging out today to hooking up tonight.

He scratched his wrist. The leather bands, damp and brittle, itched. Billie gifted the bands at the outset of each season the Westfield Brothers toured. Every so often a band would snap. He always made sure that he replaced them. Thirteen bands. Thirteen reminders that he intended to remain single. Thirteen reminders to stay focused on his future as a music executive and producer.

The bands also reminded him of his mom, Billie, which of course reminded him of his parents and the last day he’d seen them together. Because his mind just had to go there. Dumbass.

He’d been thirteen when Billie woke him up in the cramped middle bunk of the tour bus. She was outside, railing on someone. Obvious guess would be his dad, Jack.

Dylan had looked out the small rectangular window. The light outside was weird so he peeked at his watch. Five thirty-five a.m., just past the butt crack of dawn. Yet Billie was fully dressed with a duffel bag slung over her shoulder, ripping his dad a new one.

What was her deal this time?

Better yet, what had Jack done now?

His dad stood there, barefoot and shirtless. He hadn’t bothered buttoning his fly. His jeans hung low on his hips and his hair stood on end. Dylan’s mom must have woken him and dragged his sorry ass out of bed. Last Dylan remembered, Jack hadn’t been in his bed. He’d been passed out on the couch on the same bus Dylan was on, the band’s bus, not his parents’ bus.

Crap. Dylan groaned and flopped back on the foam mattress. Billie was probably shredding Jack about Dylan and Chase. They were all doomed.

Memories from the previous night pounded his brain as if it were a drum set. The party on the bus had lasted until 4:00 a.m. That was less than two hours ago. But the rank smell of secondhand bong smoke, the taste of warm beer filling his gut, and the feel of some gal’s hand dick diving into his jeans seemed like eons ago.

His stomach revolted at the memory. The girls he and Chase had hooked up with looked seventeen but swore they were twenty-one. He and Chase convinced the girls that they were eighteen. Stupid idea in retrospect. The girls had been all over them, cornering them in the back lounge and plying them with cheap beer.

The kissing had been hot, and he about blew a load in his pants when—What was her name? Kylie. That was it—had taken off her flimsy top with the funky little straps and let him touch her boobs. He was so down with that. First set he’d ever laid his hands on, and they were real.

But she’d started grabbing at his jeans and almost got them off before Dylan freaked. He flashed out of there to the only place he could hide on a bus traveling at sixty-five miles per hour down a six-lane highway: the sleeping bunks.

Their drummer, Tommy, was passed out in a chair in the front lounge, so Dylan hijacked his bunk, the middle in a stack of three. He wondered if Tommy was still in the same chair. Where had he ended up? And Chase, where was he? The last he’d seen of him, his cousin had his hands way up the other girl’s shirt and his tongue down her throat.

Billie screamed Dylan’s name. Her voice punched into his ear and he buried his face into the pillow. She was going to murder him.

He wasn’t allowed to set foot on the band’s bus. But he and Chase had followed Jack there after the concert and the next thing he knew they were rolling down the highway. Once the buses got moving, nobody dared ask the driver to stop. The loser who did got assigned bathroom cleanup and trash duty for the next leg of the journey. The only time the bus stopped was when the driver had to get gas or take a piss.

Billie shouted his name again. She’d wake up the entire entourage if he didn’t get moving. He inchwormed his jeans on and his stomach rolled. He almost puked. He drank too much last night and ate too little.

“Dylan!”

“Coming,” he grumbled. He sat up quickly and smacked his forehead on the bunk’s flip TV.

“Fuck.” Now his head hurt, and not just from the dent left by the TV.

He scooted off the bunk and landed in a heap of duffel bags, loose clothing articles, and a random pile of shoes, items from the junk bunk. Dylan peeked behind the bunk’s privacy curtain and found Chase passed out, snoring, and thankfully, alone.

Dylan dropped the curtain and looked around. The bus smelled like urine and stale alcohol. It felt like a sauna. Someone had cranked up the heat and no one had bothered to open any windows. They’d been too drunk to care.

He walked to the front of the bus, stepping over empty bottles. Half-naked bodies sprawled on couches. Food and half-filled red Solo Cups cluttered every surface. Billie was still yelling.

Man, his ass was grass.

He exited the bus and his parents turned in unison. Billie gaped and Jack scowled.

“You see?” she shrieked. “This is why I’m taking Dylan with me. I can’t trust you to keep an eye on him. There’s lipstick all over his face. What happened to him last night?”