“Thanks,” Brian said sarcastically and stuffed the pillow under his head. He spread the blanket over his body and clutched it to his chest.
Trey turned the lights in the cabin down and winked at Reagan, who was sitting with her guitar still on her lap and watching him a bit too closely. Trey sat beside her on the sofa and took the guitar from her. He set it carefully on the floor and drew her into his arms. “We never got to cuddle after our initiation into the mile high club,” he murmured near her ear.
She shifted onto his lap and wrapped both arms around his neck. He mostly just held her for the next hour and stroked her skin tenderly. They exchanged a few sweet kisses, but Trey was far too preoccupied with Brian’s situation to intensify the passion between himself and Reagan. Brian wasn’t happy and if Brian wasn’t happy, none of the band was happy. Even though Sed led the band and they all looked to him to fix any logistical problems, Brian was their keystone, and without his talent, they had nothing to center themselves around. They all depended on him to be their creative focus. Trey was pretty sure Brian could stick it out for the next two weeks, but what of the next year? They’d just put out a new album they needed to promote. They were co-headlining with Exodus End all across North America, then Europe and Australia. Asia. South America. Brian might be able to fly back to see Myrna and Malcolm when he was within a few hours flight time, but from the other side of the globe? There was no way.
“What are you thinking about?” Reagan asked, her hand moving to stroke the tension from his forehead.
“The end of Sinners.”
She glanced at Brian who was out cold and drooling all over his pillow. “Maybe the band just needs to take a year off.”
“Maybe.” But then Sed and Jess would probably have a kid or twelve and they’d be in the same place. “I’m never having kids,” he muttered under his breath.
“Me neither,” she said.
Trey glanced down at her. He hadn’t meant to say that aloud and was surprised that Reagan wouldn’t want kids. Didn’t all women want them?
“You don’t want kids?”
She shook her head. “Do you have any idea what they do to your vagina?” she said. “No thank you.”
Trey laughed and squeezed her against him. “My perfect woman.”
Chapter 11
Reagan carried two of her guitars onto Sinners’ tour bus. Behind her, Brian and Trey had divvied up her remaining luggage and followed her onboard. Her stomach fluttered when she noticed the Eric Sticks sitting at the dining table, poring over musical scores. His untamed black hair, with a streak of canary yellow that started at his left temple and continued down a finger-thick strand that fell to his collarbone, caught her attention first. Then his ruggedly handsome features. Then his long, sinewy body and masculine hands. He glanced up, barely gave Reagan a second glance with a pair of piercing blue eyes, before his gaze settled on Brian. “Pictures,” he demanded and flicked a beckoning hand at him.
Brian dropped Reagan’s luggage and brushed past her to sit next to Eric in the booth. He began flipping through pictures on his cell phone. He’d been so excited when he had been allowed to turn on his cell phone after landing and found he had six new pictures and a video of Malcolm sleeping in his bassinet for the first time. While Eric ooo-ed and aww-ed over baby pictures, Trey struggled with Reagan’s abundance of luggage.
“I brought too much, didn’t I?” she asked.
“You think?” Trey laughed and stacked her four guitar cases on the only sofa on the bus.
“Maybe we should store them underneath the bus,” she said.
“Good idea.”
“You’re not going to introduce her?” Eric asked. He lifted his gaze from Brian’s three-minute-long, baby-sleeping video to look at Reagan.
Brian elbowed him in the ribs. “This is Malcolm’s first meal.”
Eric looked at the picture and grinned. “Niiiice.”
Trey stared at her as if he had no idea how to introduce her to Eric. Eventually he said, “This is Reagan. She’ll be on tour with us for the next two weeks. Dare’s idea.”
Eric scratched behind his ear. “Dare’s idea?”
“I’m Exodus End’s new rhythm guitarist. Taking over for Max,” Reagan explained.
“Oh. Max’s carpal tunnel syndrome. Pussiest reason for giving up guitar that I’ve ever heard. So why are you touring with us instead of rehearsing with them?”
“I think they’re afraid that I’m not man enough to go on tour with a rock band.”
Eric’s gaze traveled down Reagan’s entire length. “I’d hazard to guess you aren’t man at all.”
“She’s also Trey’s girlfriend,” Brian said.
Eric’s head snapped around in Brian’s direction, his bright blue eyes wide with astonishment.
“I know, right?” Brian said.
Trey cringed. Reagan wondered why it made him uncomfortable.
“Let’s go put some of your stuff under the bus,” he said.
A loud mechanical sound came from near the front of the bus. Before Reagan could figure out its source, Trey took Reagan’s arm and directed her to stand with him between the captain’s chairs along one wall while a good-looking young man maneuvered his wheelchair down the aisle.
“You ready to head out, Brian?” the man asked. “We’ll be on the road for hours. The other bus and equipment trucks are already in Topeka. They’ve started setting up.”
“Yeah, let’s go,” Brian said. “Where are the rest of the guys?”
“Jace and Sed went to get some necessities,” Eric said. “Jon left with the other bus. Jake’s napping.”
“Rebekah?”
Eric smiled and glanced at the back bedroom’s closed door. “She’s getting dressed.”
“We need to store some stuff under the bus,” Trey said to the man in the wheelchair.
The man started when he noticed Reagan crammed between Trey and the wall. “Sorry, I didn’t see you there.” He extended a hand in Reagan’s direction. “I’m Dave. I run the soundboard when Rebekah lets me.”
Reagan reached around Trey to shake Dave’s hand. She had heard about Sinners’ bus accident and that their soundboard operator had been paralyzed in the crash. She hadn’t known that he was still part of the crew.
“You better be glad Reb didn’t hear that,” Eric said.
Dave grinned and ran a hand through his sandy blond hair. “Rebekah is my younger sister. Also one of Sinners’ soundboard operators.”
“And my wife,” Eric said. “She’s a little kinky. Just to warn you.”
Trey laughed. He’d never heard Eric apologize for his wife’s kinkiness before. Of course, she’d been the only woman on the bus for the past seven months and the guys were used to her emerging from the bedroom dressed as a vampire or an umpire. She would then corral her husband into the back bedroom and a whole lot of happy emanated from that area of the bus for the next couple of hours.
“So Dave is your brother-in-law?” Reagan asked Eric as she worked out the dynamics of the bus occupants.
“Yep.”
“What are you working on?” Brian asked Eric, finally taking his attention off his collection of photos to look over the scores of music. “New Sinners’ songs? We just released the last album. Don’t you ever take a break?”
Eric collected his music and stuffed it into a folder. “It’s not Sinners. It’s for Hot Dog Junkie.”
Brian laughed. “I still can’t believe you named your new band that. Why not call it Wiener Eater? Maybe Trey—”
“Let’s go put this stuff under the bus,” Trey interrupted loudly. He reached for two guitar cases and handed them to Reagan. He grabbed the larger of her two suitcases and another guitar case and encouraged her to head toward the exit.