Page 4 of If This Gets Out

“Hmm?” He blinks. “Oh, no, I’m good. No questions. Theaters and drinking and, um… Jesus… all sound good.”

“Bedtime, huh?” I ask, and he nods, his eyes heavy-lidded.

Erin takes the hint. “Okay. The minibus’s out front. Emailme or text if you have any questions, otherwise I’ll see you bright and early on Sunday.”

We all scramble to get out of there before Erin remembers any more items on the agenda. “I know all of you follow the law and don’t drink underage!” she calls to our backs. “But just remember hangovers and transatlantic flights don’t mix, all right?”

Zach and I take the back seat in the minibus, while Angel and Jon sit in front of us, in separate seats. Usually we’re chatty on the way back to our hotel, but today I’m a special kind of tired. Like I’ve just finished running a marathon: the final reserve of energy used to propel me over the finish line finally exhausted. We haven’t had four whole days off in… a really fucking long time.

Even though our hotel’s barely five minutes away in night traffic, Angel curls up and naps on his seat, and Jon puts his headphones on to wind down with some music.

Essentially alone, I glance at Zach. “I can’t believe it’s over,” I say.

Zach raises an eyebrow. “We’ve still got all of Europe left.”

When Zach whispers, his voice barely changes. That’s how soft-spoken he is. His voice is a fawn’s pelt. A soft bed of moss. You could fall asleep to its lull.

“True. It feels different, though.”

“It’ll be the new normal in no time.”

“I guess. Like how all this”—I wave a hand around vaguely—“feels normal now.”

“Right.”

“That’s kind of a depressing thought.”

He tips his head back, exposing his neck. “What?”

“That it doesn’t matter how big or exciting something is, it just becomes average after a while.”

The minibus goes over a bump, and Angel snuffles as he’s jolted. How is it possible he’s already asleep?

Zach considers this, pensive, then gives a surprised “hmm” of agreement. It’s never failed to amuse me that Chorus Managementinsistson branding Zach as the dark, brooding type with a bit of an edge to him, when his real personality couldn’t be further from it. Zach isn’t quiet because he’s brooding or tortured. He’s just thoughtful, and careful—the type to evaluate what you say for a beat too long while he decides what answer you most want to hear. He might not be the type to dominate a conversation or enthusiastically work the room, but he’s dark in approximately the same way a puppy is dark. Whatever the media may claim to the contrary at our publicity manager David’s behest.

He puts his feet up on the back of Jon’s seat, his knees against his face. Somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice tells me that if the minibus crashed, his legs would drive right through his head. The concern is going to keep niggling at me if I try to ignore it, so I place my hand on his shins and gently press his legs back down. He gives me a crooked half-smile, and grudgingly obeys. “The canals in Amsterdam,” he says out of nowhere.

“The Alps in Switzerland. I love Mad Libs!”

“No.” He elbows me in the side. “That’s what I want to see. You guys all have your things, and I didn’t want to say it in front of everyone, but if I get to do anything over there, I hope it’s that. Just… sit by the canals for a while.”

“Why didn’t you want to say it in front of everyone? It’s not exactly scandalous. If you’d said the red-light district, maybe…”

“Oh, I wanna do that, too,” he jokes.

“Naturally.”

His grin fades, and he presses the toe of his shoe againstthe seat in front of him again. “It’s stupid. Just, that’s where my dad proposed to my mom. I want to see what it was like. I know it won’t magically bring them back together or anything, I just… I dunno.”

“It’s not stupid,” I say. “We’ll make sure we do it.”

The smile returns. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean, we’re letting Angel loose in Europe, so I’m sure Erin’s scheduled in some blocks to go to the police station at least twice. If we’re making time for that, we can make time for the canals.”

“I canhear you,” Angel grumbles in a muffled voice.

I kick his seat in response, and he yelps in protest.

---