Page 64 of Broken Melody
“All you have is two big suitcases and one small one?” I ask Sailor as I move to take her bags from Britt’s car and place them in front of our tour bus. There are three. One for Nixon, Henley, Jace, Rocco, Sailor and I, another for the crew, and a third that holds all of our equipment. It takes a lot of people to orchestrate a successful tour, even a small one like ours.
“Yeah, two for clothes and shoes and one for everything else,” she tells me as she watches me hungrily.
I wish I could kiss her right now. I almost do too, to hell with everyone else. Instead, I flex my biceps unnecessarily just for her viewing pleasure as I heave her bags. “You have less than Henley,” I tell her.
“Shut the fuck up,” Henley grumbles. “This look takes effort, asshole.”
“Seriously, dude,” Nixon says, “She’s a chick and she has less shit than you. That should tell you something. Three huge suitcases for a guy is seriously bordering on narcissistic.”
“I don’t know, Sailor. I’m really worried about you being trapped on a bus with them for six weeks.” Britt says to Sailor as she watches Henley and Rocco continue to argue.
“I’ll be fine,” Sailor smiles. “Besides, Jace and Rick said that I get the bedroom in the back to myself since I’m the only girl, so I have a place to escape.”
“Jace is just afraid after a couple days of listening to them burp, fart, chew with their mouths open and argue constantly, that you’ll want to bail early. Having a space of your own should eliminate that,” I tell her pointing at the other guys.
“Oh please, Mad,” Rocco says. “You can rival all of us in all of the above so don’t act like you’re exempt.”
“No shit. How easily he forgets that we had contests that he often won doing all of those things and more. And, I believe it was not too long ago he was a handful and major pain in the ass as he acquainted us with an ever growing array of, shall we say, activities,” Nixon adds backing up Rocco.
“I don’t know what they’re talking about,” I mumble to Sailor.
“I’m going to miss you,” Britt says pulling Sailor’s attention back to her. I watch as they hug each other for a long time. When they pull away, Sailor’s eyes are full of tears and I don’t like the sight one bit.
“I’m going to miss you too,” Sailor says. “But I’ll FaceTime you or text you every day. It will be like I never left.”
“You better,” she says with a sniffle, then looks at me and I nod. “And then I’ll see you at your last concert before you come home,” Britt says with a smile.
“You will?” Sailor asks excitedly looking from me to Britt.
“Yep. Maddox said he’ll send me tickets so I can come and see you,” she grins. “He offered to send others, but I really can’t get away from the shop until then.”
“Seriously?” Sailor asks.
“Yep!”
“You did that?” She asks me, but before I can either confirm or deny she launches herself at me and hugs me. But it’s not just any hug, she jumps into my arms and wraps her legs around my waist, a position I’ve found I quite like. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” she says. “I know it may seem silly, but it means a lot to me.”
“If this is the reaction I get, you tell me who else you want to give tickets to, and I’ll make it happen,” I laugh. Placing her back down a little distance from me, she looks confused for a moment and then realizes where we are and who we’re with.
“Uh, sorry about that,” she says and hides a smile. I can’t really blame her. We’ve spent every possible minute of the last week together. Keeping our hands and other body parts to ourselves is not going to be easy.
“Uh, excuse me,” Nixon interrupts. “If I told you that I helped get Maddox the tickets will you finally tell me about the time you experimented with a woman?”
Sailor laughs, “Did you? Help him get them I mean?”
“No, he didn’t,” I tell him and Nixon curses. “Sorry, I’m not sharing my thoughtfulness with you. Did you not see the reward I just received?”
“What do I have to give you in order to get a hug like that?” Henley asks and I barely keep myself from telling him to fuck off. I know he’s joking, but there’s some truth to his question too, I can see it in the way he checks Sailor out. Yet another reason keeping this to ourselves for now blows, but it’s the right thing to do. They will implode.
“Sorry, Nixon. Not telling you a thing,” Sailor says and then turns back to Britt. “I love you,” she tells her and I find myself feeling slightly jealous. “The time will fly by. And don’t forget I left you money for my half of the rent and utilities while I’m gone. You remember where it is?” Britt nods. “And I’m only a phone call away.”
“I know,” Britt says sadly, “But it’s not the same.”
“Oh my god, we will never leave. I can see it now, the sun is setting, we should have left hours ago, but we are still waiting for these two to quit hugging,” Henley harasses them.
“Hey,” Britt snaps and points at him, “Shut up. This is the first time we’ve been separated. I’m not at all ashamed to admit that our friendship is a co-dependent one, and I’m going to miss the shit out of her. So shut the fuck up,” she says and then bursts into tears.
Henley looks horrified and Nixon shakes his head and mutters, “Women.”
