Chapter 13

Emily followed Owen up the stairs and when he paused beside the driver’s seat to take in the layout and chaos before him, she looked around him nervously. It was not a large bus, and it was very full of men, the sight was rather intimidating, although she suspected that Owen had paused in appreciation rather than intimidation. He was living his dream of touring with a rock band, after all.

“Isn’t a tour bus a bit… Eighties?” She murmured.

Aaron had arranged the tour bus and driver. She had not even known such a service existed, but, as she stepped up into the bus, she could see it was popular – the carpet and upholstery showed a lot of wear and there was a faint smell to it, beneath the shampoo the company had used to clean the fabrics, that was reminiscent of a teenage boy’s bedroom – old gym socks, body odour, and cheap aftershave spray.

Towards the front of the bus there was a mini kitchen, very similar to a caravan from the seventies, the veneer on the doors chipped and peeling, behind which was an arrangement of couches and tables facing each other in fabrics that reminded her of public transport, but most of the bus was taken up by six bunk beds, each with curtains across to afford the occupants some privacy. They did not look very private or comfortable, however, she observed.

“It is actually really practical,” Owen replied under his breath as they shuffled to the rear of the vehicle where the bunks were. “Air travel can be a bit dodgy – you lose luggage, run late, etc. And you need transportation from the airport to your destination anyway. A tour bus, you have the instruments and gear in the trailer, the band up front… You are all in one place.”

“In bunk beds.”

“Yeah, well,” he grinned. “It is like school camp.”

She raised an eyebrow. They had been on quite a few school camps together, she thought amused, and the type of camp had varied depending on their age. Year five had been fairly innocent, orienteering through the forest together, and a shy kiss with tongue in the bushes when they were safely away from the other teams. Year eleven, however, had been vastly different… “What grade?” She asked.

“What grade do you want it to be, Em?” His voice was husky and heavy with breath as he leaned over her, his lips grazing the pressure point below her ear. “Eleventh grade was particularly good vintage, don’t you think?”

“Mmm,” she closed her eyes as his hands skimmed up from her waist to her breasts, brushing over her nipples teasingly. “Yes, it was good year.” They had progressed from breathy kisses and above clothes groping to clumsy sex in awkward locations that year. It had been… wanton, wicked, daring and exciting.

“Come on,” Seb said with impatient good nature from behind. “Stop groping. Either get into a bunk and use it, or find a seat, others have to stash their gear too.”

“Sorry,” Emily flushed, embarrassed. For a moment she had forgotten where they were and how they had come to be there. For a moment, she had been twenty again, and Owen’s hands on her body had been all that she could think about.

“You are just jealous you don’t have someone to grope,” Owen replied on a light-hearted laugh, as he put their suit-bags and backpacks on the spare bunk bed, casually easy and open about the fact that he had been groping her.

The shifting tones of Owen confused her, she thought as she dropped her eyes to the carpet designed to hide stains and moved up the bus aisle. He had said that he wasn’t in love with her, but he obviously still wanted to f-k her, and occasionally he would act like the proprietary boyfriend - it was just so very conflicting.

“Truth,” Seb sighed dramatically. “Maybe there will be a hot groupie along the way.”

Emily had a quick peak into the bathroom at the rear – there was a toilet and a shower in a tight arrangement, neither she imagined would be easy to use – and then wriggled past James on her way back to the front of the bus. “Sorry,” she said as she brushed against him.

James laughed. “We are going to all be very up close and personal, Em. Not a lot of space or privacy on board. Might as well get used to being in each other’s personal space.”

Owen and Jeremy had taken a seat in the lounge arrangement. Jeremy bent over his guitar, his hair falling over his face as he tried to work through a passage of one of Owen’s more complicated songs. Owen leant over the body of his guitar, his notepad on the small table and his pick between his teeth as he made alterations to the score.

“F–k man,” Jeremy complained, flexing his fingers before trying again to master the passage. “What are you doing to me?”

“Everyone ready?” The bus driver called out. “Got everything you need from underneath?”

“You got everything you need, Em?” Owen asked around the pick, flicking his blue eyes up to hers.

Their suitcases had been stowed in the compartment underneath the bus, but each member of the band brought on board a couple of changes of clothes in a backpack, toiletries and a towel, their acoustic instruments so they could continue to work on songs during their travel time, and a suit-bag containing their on-stage clothing. She had brought her laptop case on board in addition to the other gear – the other band members had brought their acoustic instruments, so she considered it to be her version of the same.

“Yes,” she slid onto the seat next to him. “It is weird. No seatbelt.”

“Don’t have seatbelts on public buses, this is sort of the same.” He put a hand on his pen to stop it rolling off as the bus driver started the engine. He grinned at her as she braced against the seat and the bus began to move out. “It is exciting, isn’t it? No mortgage, no bills, no debts. Just us and the road, and the music.”

“Yes,” she admitted, caught up in his enthusiasm. “It is. I am scared to death, though.”

When he grinned at her like that, it was as if they were back in the past. It was the look he had worn when they had both graduated from high school, when they had bought their first cars, been accepted into the same university, and when they had bought their houses. It made her feel as if they were a couple again, although he had not defined their relationship in any more detail since their chat over pizza and subsequent argument over his sleeping with Cordelia.

Their conversations had revolved around the sale of their houses, the tour and the band, and neither of them had touched on the relationship again, both afraid to rock the waters, especially now that they were embarking on this journey together. As Megan had said, they had a lot of hot ex-sex, and had settled back into an easy-going friendship, but otherwise they continued to live apart, and she did not know if he was seeing anyone else. Though the condoms in the glove box of his car indicated that he was, and frequently, something that brought her pain.

“Yeah,” he said it under his breath. “Me too. If this doesn’t work, I have thrown everything in in pursuit of this dream and will have to start over from scratch. And,” he added flicking her a look from under his lashes. “Dragged you along for the ride.”

“You didn’t drag me,” she said, uncertain about the meaning behind the look that he had slid to her. There was undercurrent to his behaviour, and she felt ill-equipped to interpret it. “I guess you pursuing your dream pushed me into doing the same, and I can write on this bus as well as anywhere else, so why not?”

Seb wove his way back from the bunks, a small keyboard under his arm, and his motion awkward due to the sway of the moving bus. He sat across from them and put the keyboard on his lap.

“Ready,” he said. “James is just grabbing his practice pad.”

“Here,” Owen pushed the notepad over to her as James positioned himself.