Sam always was the nice guy, and Seth the bad boy. Like almost every other girl, I fell for the bad boy. My ego wanted what seemed like the biggest prize, but in the end, I got burned.
Except for the light near the door, the room is dark when I emerge from the bathroom. Sam is lying motionless on the end of his bed, his hands splayed over his pretty face. I’m assuming he must have dozed off until I slip under the covers of the rollaway and he gets up.
“Hey,” he says, leaning over me. “You feel better?”
“I’m good.”
He stands.
“Thanks for everything,” I say, then blurt out, “and I’m sorry.”
He rears back a bit. “For what?”
I swallow. “You were right to get mad at me after the first concert of the tour. Everything you said was true. I used you. I didn’t mean to, but I did.”
It feels good to finally be honest after being in such denial about that night for so long. Sam offered me comfort and I took it without a thought. All while I was enamored with Seth.
“Oh, that . . .” He runs a hand over his curls. With the light at his back, I can’t see his expression, yet from the dipped slope of his shoulders, I’m imagining a frown. “I was fucked up that night. I thought you were flirting with that douche bag. It brought back memories—but I was being an asshole.” He steps farther back and opens his suitcase lying open on the dresser I catch the shape of flannels and a T-shirt in the shadows. “I’m going to hit the shower, so get some sleep.” Moving toward the bathroom, he runs a hand over his curls again. “You need it.”
Though I still can’t see his expression, the tone of his voice and the tight angle of his body tell me I’ve hit a soft spot. Sam must have had feelings for me back then, I finally realize. It was probably nothing close to my obsession with Seth. However, my total indifference, my obsession with Seth that had me ignoring Sam right after having sex, must have been a bitch-slap to his ego. Truly delivered by a thoughtless bitch.
I push up on an elbow. “Sam—”
“Thanks for the apology, but it wasn’t needed. Like you said, it’s been over three years.” Light spills across my bed as he opens the bathroom door. “Just go to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”
He shuts the door and I fall back on the bed.
I’m such an idiot, and completely self-absorbed. How was it possible that I had never contemplated anyone’s feelings except mine about that night?
I roll on my side carefully, so I don’t fall out of the tiny bed, yanking the covers over my head. I’m not delusional enough to think Sam still carries a torch for me—he practically has women up his ass 24/7—but I’m starting to understand why he didn’t give me the time of day after what I did. I deserved to be ignored by him.
Chapter 14
The next day, on our way to North Carolina, Romeo looks through the pictures on my camera. “Don’t post any with Riley or Allie,” he says curtly. “Besides infringing their privacy, it feels a little too personal.”
“Okay.” I start deleting some pictures in the current post I’m working on.
“The ones of the concerts in New Orleans are great. Put up as many of those as you want.”
I’m about to say “okay” again but loud shouting comes from the front of the bus. The rest of the guys are watching a Tigers baseball game while Romeo and I are going over media-related items.
He scowls at their yelling, then asks, “Are we up on Twitter followers and Facebook likes?”
I nod. “More than double what we had two weeks ago.”
“Good. I hope the sales numbers on downloads reflect that.” He crosses his legs, stretching them onto the table, and keeps looking at pictures. “I like your idea of putting up a biography for each of us, and these pictures from the photo shoot are perfect. Just keep it simple.”
Even though I’ll remember his request, I jot down a note in my small notepad. He worships note taking, so I’ve learned to appease him.
We go over a few more things before he’s off to watch the game too.
The bus rolling along is strangely comforting. Though yesterday was quite calm—Allie, Riley, and I went shopping and sightseeing during the afternoon sound checks, then I went back to the hotel right after the concert—it wasn’t quite enough to overcome the clusterfuck of emotion and weirdness I’d experienced in the two days prior. The boredom of being on the bus feels like a return to normalcy.
Both Sam and I have been polite, but he has seemed aloof since he helped me back to the hotel. I’m thinking he’s uncomfortable that the past still bothers him, and he’s not the only one.
Talking to Bryce yesterday was a good distraction. While the itch of guilt at the back of my throat didn’t go away, hearing his voice drew me back to the present. Bryce and I fit. There’s no drama. No issues. And though I can admit I’m not head over heels in love with him, I really, really like him. We have fun going out, and neither of us is in any rush to dive into a deeper relationship. We’re both serious about college and our future careers. We’re both stable.
I like stable. A lot.
The day passes as we make the ten-hour drive to Charlotte. I work on loading pictures onto Facebook and writing a couple of new blog posts. One I’m hoping to post today; the other will be for tomorrow. I try to catch the excitement of the show in descriptive words, wanting to convey how incredible Luminescent Juliet sounded. I pull Romeo away from the TV to get approval on the first one, and once he nods, I load the day’s post.
At around seven, I make what passes for dinner on the tour bus—microwaved hot dogs, a bag of chips, and a veggie tray. While he works on business figures at the small table, Romeo tries to get one of the guys to help me. I wave away his bitching. It’s not a big deal to heat hot dogs, but I do almost laugh when I imagine the disapproving comments Riley would make if she saw me taking care of the guys. The game is over but ESPN stays on while the guys eat sprawled out on couches. After dinner, I watch TV in the back room, call both Jill and Bryce, and then decide to get ready for bed, so I can quickly crawl into my rollaway when we get to the hotel later tonight.
I’m brushing my teeth in the minuscule bathroom as the bus slows and then comes to a complete stop. I pause, recalling that we’d entered Georgia just over an hour ago. There’s no way we could be in North Carolina yet.
Someone pounds on the bathroom door.
Confused why we’ve stopped, I slowly open it.
Sam rushes in, whips the door closed, locks it, and opens the toilet. Because the bathroom is tiny, I’m behind him, pressed in shock to the outer shower wall. He furiously begins digging through the backpack in his hands, throwing a myriad of novels onto the floor. Lastly, he hauls out several baggies and begins dumping the contents into the toilet. First, it’s dry, green leafy stems, then a lot of fine white powder.
My eyes bug out at the sight of the drugs floating in the toilet.
“Turn on the pump,” he says over his shoulder.
Shocked, I stand there immobile.
“Turn on the pump!” he hisses.
“It’s already on,” I say in a rush of air, gesturing to the switch on the wall. To get water, the pump has to be on in the bus, and I had it on to brush my teeth.
Sam begins filling the bowl with water and flushing, then re-peating.
“What the hell is going on?” I ask loudly.
“Be quiet!” he whispers. “We got pulled over.”
“Why?” I whisper back.
He shrugs and flushes one last time, then begins throwing the books back into his backpack.
Watching him, I cross my arms and say in a low tone, “Your stash is still going to be in the tank.”