Murphy darted into the store, handed over her credit card to the cashier, said something to him, pointed to me, and then darted back out of the door. The cashier scanned and bagged the items on the counter. When he’d made it through their pile, Retro and Licks gathered bags and walked out of the store. Lars set his stuff on the counter, and I added mine. When it was bagged, Lars scooped it off the counter, thanked the cashier, and walked out, leaving me behind.
“The lady said to give you these.” The cashier handed me the receipt and the credit card.
Lars had my drink and, as thirsty as I was, I wanted to give Murphy back her credit card first. It also gave me a reason to talk to her and find out what the deal was with another missing driver.
I thanked the cashier and went in search of Murphy. I found her in the same spot as before, although this time, the phone was on her ear and she was practically shouting at whoever was on the other end.
“…no, and the driver hasn’t shown up yet!”
She was practically vibrating in place. I stayed back a little to give her the pretense of privacy.
“You what? Tell me you didn’t. That was my truck… You had no right! You’ve done a lot of schisty bullshit, Woody, but this one…” She paused with a scowl on her face, “Uh, no. You don’t have that right. You… oh, you bet your ass we’ll discuss this later… and you better…” Murphy pulled the phone away form her ear and looked at it with disgust. “He hung up on me. That rat bastard just hung up on me.” Her fingers clenched the phone as if she could strangle Woody just by sheer will alone.
“Is there a problem?” I asked, taking a few steps closer to her.
She spun around, facing me. I could tell she was having a hard time keeping the anger from showing.
I took another step towards her, holding out the credit card and receipt for her to take. “I already heard your conversation. It’s okay to be angry. You don’t have to pretend around me.”
“Do you make it a point to eavesdrop, Jared?”
“You have to be whispering in order to be eavesdropped on, Murphy.”
Her face pulled into a frown. “That would require me to be the jack-ass whisperer, and that’s way above my pay grade.”
I laughed and watched some of the tension go from her body. “Well, it’s always something to aspire to. So, what’s up? Where’s the driver?”
“I’d love to know myself.” She slipped her phone in her pocket and looked over her shoulder at the road again. In the distance, I could see a car coming. Hopefully, it was the missing bus driver.
“Maybe that’s him,” I said as we both watched the car approaching.
“That would be great right about now.” She sighed and ran a hand down her face.
“I’m gonna grab my duffel bag while we wait.” I motioned for her to follow me. “You might as well come with me. Standing here, staring down the road, isn’t going to make him show up any faster.”
She chewed on her lip as her eyes darted between the road and me. Before she could refuse, I wrapped my hand around her elbow, tugging her forward.
“You’re awfully pushy, Jared.”
“Not true.”
“Oh? And what would you call this?” Her hand came up and pointed to my fingers, which were pressing against her skin.
“Pulling?”
“Semantics!”
“Truth!”
She laughed at me.
I liked the sound of her laugh.
I liked that she thought I was funny.
I liked her.
That scared the shit out of me. I couldn’t release her arm fast enough, but I at least waited until I got to the bus doors before I did it. Just touching her made my mind wander on all the things I wanted to do to her. Dangerous territory. Very dangerous.
Four keys later, I unlocked the side storage compartment and retrieved my bag just as a car pulled to a stop beside the bus. The driver had made it after all.
Murphy had slipped off without a word sometime between me trying to figure out which of the smaller keys would work and hauling out my bag.
“Sorry I’m late,” the man climbing out of the passenger side said to me. He leaned in, said goodbye to the driver, and pulled an overnight bag out. When he closed the door, the driver took off, leaving our newest driver staring at me, waiting for me to say something.
“Let me find Murphy for you,” I said as I shook his hand.
“Thanks. My name’s Jeff, by the way,” he said over his shoulder as he walked to the door of the bus, and then tossed his bag up the stairs.
Before I could search for her, Murphy came around the backside of the bus holding her hand out for the keys. I dropped them in her open palm and settled my over-packed bag onto my shoulder.
Murphy stopped beside the new driver, held out the keys, and followed Jeff up the stairs. When I stepped onto the bus, the GPS was in Murphy’s hand and her fingers punched in our next stop. I tried to squeeze by her, but I ended up brushing against the backside of her when she turned. The faint hint of diesel fuel lingered on her clothes. Electricity zipped through my entire body, forcing me to swallow a groan. Our eyes clashed. I watched her cheeks turn pink before she jerked her gaze from mine and turned back to talk to the driver.
Making my escape down the hall, I tossed my bag on the floor as the bus rumbled to life and rolled forward. I braced myself until the ride smoothed out and unpacked my clothes.
When I was done, I grabbed a pair of basketball shorts and a new T-shirt to change into. I was ready to kick back and relax for a little bit. Maybe even take a nap.
Murphy came down the hallway just as I stood up. She looked down at the shorts in my hands, and a frown stretched its way across her mouth.
“So, are we all set for the next four-hundred miles?” I didn’t even know why I asked that. It was like my brain just had to come up with something to say to keep things from getting awkward with Murphy.
She tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear and nodded. “Yeah, we’re good until the next stop. Fingers crossed, I can talk Woody into hiring this guy on, full time. I’m tired of trying to find drivers every couple of hundred miles.”
“You really do this every time?” I asked.
“Yep. For some reason, Woody thinks this way is cheaper.” She rolled her eyes, “Goes to show what he knows.”
Her earlier argument came to mind. “What happened with your truck?”
Anger flashed in her eyes. “The mechanic tried to run the credit card we use for our bigger expenses. It was denied. Well, the card wasn’t denied, but the credit card company is set up to call Woody on all the bigger charges. He denied the charge, called the repair shop, and sold it to them.”
“He didn’t.” I couldn’t keep the shock from my voice.
“Yep. But what he didn’t realize was that everything I own is in that truck. When we left it there, I’d been so pissed off that I completely forgot about my bag in the back.”
“Wait, you have no clothes?”
Her attempt at a laugh fell flat. “Yeah, I’m stuck with these,” her hand fluttered up, and then down, “until we get stopped in Shreveport.”
Manners, ingrained in me since I was old enough to communicate, had my hand stretched out in front of me. “Here, take these.”
“Thanks, but I’ll be okay ‘till then.”
“I insist.” I caught her hand and draped the clothes over her arm.
She blushed. “I… thanks. I’m ready to be out of these jeans.” Her cheeks burned a deeper shade of red, and her eyes went wide. “I mean… I can’t wait to change.” She spun on her heel, disappearing into the bathroom Retro had warned me not to mess up.
Murphy was not all she presented herself to be. It was as if she chose to put up a shell of armor to deflect everything, just to protect herself. But from what?
I left the hallway and headed to the living room where Retro, Licks, and Lars were stretched out on the couch watching another movie. It looked like they were alre
ady fighting off boredom. I dug my phone out, along with the charger, and plugged it in. On the TV, two guys were kicking the shit out of each other. I tried to focus on it, but it wasn’t holding my interest. My scattered thoughts were making me restless. I got up and went to the back of the bus, grabbed Stella out of her case, and made my way to the front.
Murphy sat at the dinette with the contents of her book bag scattered out along the bench and tabletop. Her head was bent, bottom lip between her teeth. Purple earbuds hung from her ears, the wire stretched out to the iPod on the table. Scribbling into a notebook in front of her, she shook her head and pushed aside a pile of clutter, uncovering a calculator. Her eyes shifted between her left hand running over the notebook page, and her right hand tapping numbers on the keypad. A scowl wedged its way between her brows, seeming to grow deeper and deeper with each set of numbers she entered on the calculator.
I sat on the small, lumpy couch, watching her for a minute. She was so lost in her number crunching that she either hadn’t seen me or was ignoring me. She probably had her music loud enough that I wouldn’t bother her if I sat here and played. I shifted on the couch to get comfortable, bent over my guitar, and ran a few cords, tuning Stella by ear since I’d forgotten to grab my tuner.
Stella’s strings hummed back at me with minimal tuning. I settled into my comfort zone and played. Two songs later, I felt better… more grounded. I sat up a little and stretched my arms, and then my neck, to get the kinks out. I never felt it when I played, only when I stopped. Murphy walked past me to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water.
“I’ll take one of those,” I said, setting Stella in her case.
She handed me a water as her lips pulled into a pout. “You’re done already?”
My T-shirt hung down past her hips, the shorts past her knees. Seeing her in my clothes made my heart bang against my chest harder than it should.
“Yeah, I just needed to lose myself for a little while. I didn’t interrupt you, did I?”
“No, actually, it sorta helped me too,” she said, unscrewing the lid on her water and taking a sip.
“So is that your way of asking me to play another one?” I downed half the bottle, hoping the cool water would ease the burn rolling under my skin.
Before Murphy could answer me, Licks stepped out of the hallway. “Oh, good, I was just gonna come ask you if you wanted to practice a few songs.”
“I’ll leave you guys to it,” Murphy said as she walked over to the table and shoved everything into her book bag.
Licks caught Murphy as she walked past him and spun her in a circle. “Aw, Murphy, where ya goin’? Don’t you wanna stick around and listen?”
She laughed and swatted at him to let her go. “I’ll be able to hear you just fine from the back of the bus.”
LICKS HANDED ME A CORD, and I plugged the jacks into the panel under the seat. As the speakers hummed to life, we settled in to go over a few of the songs that we’d play at the music fest in Shreveport. What confused me was the fact that we’d be doing only two of the band’s songs, but a handful of covers. Usually bands did their own music—that was what music fests were supposed to be about. Destroying Doubt was a well-known band, not some starter that needed to do covers to showcase their talents, while lulling the crowd with songs they already knew.
I couldn’t contain my curiosity. “Why the covers?”
Lars drummed his fingertips against the table, while Retro and Licks kept their eyes on him. None of them spoke.
“Because that’s what Woody wants.” Murphy had wandered in on my question, or maybe she’d been standing there for a while. I wasn’t sure since I’d sat down with my back partially to the hallway.
“Murphy…” Lars said her name like a warning.
“Murphy, what? Don’t you think you should at least start out being honest with Jared? It’s his life now too,” she countered.
“He’s also the newest one here. Do you really want to start airing out all of Woody’s dirty little secrets?”
She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. “He’s not Kit James, in case you didn’t realize it.”
Lars slammed his hand down on the table. “Don’t you fuckin’ think I know that, Murph…? I mean, Jesus, Jared has more decency in his little finger than Kit had in his whole body.”
Murphy strode over. Gripping the back of the bench seat, she leaned in and jabbed a finger at Lars. “Then you owe Jared that much. Who else do you know who would volunteer to drive us to our next stop? You?” She cocked her head to the side, pursing her lips. “Or maybe them?” Her thumb jerked over her shoulder in Retro and Lick’s direction.
Lars leaned his elbows on the table, putting himself closer to Murphy. “And what if he cuts and runs? Did you think about that, Murphy? What if he decides all of the bullshit is too much? What would Woody try to make you do then?”
Murphy’s hand shot out and cracked against Lars’ cheek. “You don’t know shit about me, and you damn sure don’t respect me if you think bringing that up will prove your point.”
Lars came out of the dinette and grabbed Murphy by the shoulders. His large hands clasped on either side of her as he towered over her.
I came out of my seat and grabbed his arm. “I don’t know what this is about, but I do know that if you don’t release her right now, you will be dealing with me.”
Lars turned his head as if it were on a swivel. A smirk crossed his face. “You think you can take me on, Jared?”
“I don’t think anything, Lars… I know.” I let go of his arm, sizing him up. He probably hit like Aiden, like a freight train, so I had better get a shot into his gut and make it count. Otherwise, he’d lay my ass out. I wasn’t backing down, either way. He’d release Murphy or it was on.
His hands dropped. “First of all, I would never hurt Murphy. You can take that to the bank. Second of all, while I admire your willingness to protect her…”
Murphy’s hand shot out, caught Lars in the solar plexus, and he folded over.
Licks hooted with laughter behind me. “Dang, Murphy! I think that’s the fasted punch I’ve seen you throw to date!”
My hand found my face and my fingers dug into my cheeks. What in the hell? Lars gulped at the air and shuffled backwards to lean against the back of the bench seat.
Murphy cocked her eyebrow and crossed her arms. “You were saying, Lars?”
Lars wasn’t saying anything. Hell, he was having a hard enough time breathing. He waved her off.
“The point is, boys, I can take care of myself. Woody’s tried a lot of sneaky, underhanded shit, but I’m damn sure not one of his pawns.”
Licks and Retro each shot her a look of appreciation. I looked at her in wonder. Not because she decked Lars, but because she reminded me so much of Riley. Would there ever be a situation that didn’t remind me of my friends? I backed up until my legs bumped into the couch and sat.
“I’m sorry to say, Jared, but you’ve walked into a mess. I think it’s only fair to fill you in on some of it so that later on down the road, you aren’t blindsided. The only reason I’m going tell you is because you’ve earned the right to know.” Murphy waited for me to look up at her. When I did, she gave me the lowdown about Woody.
“Long story short, he spends money faster than the band can make it. We, the five of us, scrape by on what’s leftover. Speaking of which… no more convenience store binges, you two.” She pointedly looked at both Retro and Licks. They scowled back at her, but she gave them her back and kept talking to me. “Woody is not above screwing someone over to get out of paying for something himself.”
My plane tickets. That was the reason they weren’t at the counter. I might as well kiss that money goodbye.
“When Kit James caught on, he threatened Woody with a lawsuit. One big enough that Woody let him out of his contract early, but not without first trying to get me to pursue Kit to stay. I refused. End of story. Everything else that he’s done would take too long to expla
in, and really, I don’t want to talk about him anymore. The only thing that matters is getting to the next gig. Woody picks the music, you play it, and I get you where you need to be next. Okay?”
There wasn’t anything left to say. It didn’t stop me from thinking about it though. This was not how I’d imagined the start to my music career would go, but I was in no position to change it. Yet. I’d be damned if someone like Woody would rule over my life and screw me out of my dream.
I’D TAKEN LICKS ADVICE ABOUT not sleeping on Kit James’ old mattress, instead tossing a pillow and blanket on the couch. The others disappeared to their bunks, except for Murphy. She was somewhere up front, probably talking to the bus driver.
My jaw cracked on a yawn. The day had caught up with me, but before I could go to sleep, I wanted to check and see if I’d missed any calls or messages. Bleary eyed, I leaned over and fished my cell phone out of my book bag as it alerted me of an incoming message. A grin broke out across my face when I read Mark’s text.
Something to remember us all by while you’re becoming all famous and shit.
My phone chimed again, and there on my screen was the picture Mark had taken of us the night we opened the time capsule. The heaviness that had plagued me lifted. All the bullshit with Woody slipped to the back of my mind as I replayed that night over in my head. My phone chimed again.
Don’t forget about us, asshole.
I quickly replied:
Thanks for the picture, dickhead.
I save the picture to my phone and lay down, linking my fingers behind my head, waiting to see if Mark would reply. Above me, muted moonlight pressed against the yellowed, plastic dome in the ceiling. The bob and sway of the bus made it hard to stay awake.
Just as I closed my eyes, the bus hit a pothole the size of the Grand Canyon. I flew up in the air and then slammed down, bouncing against the couch cushions as Murphy sailed through the air and landed hard on the table. The bus swayed, pitching me forward enough to reach her. Grabbing Murphy’s arm, I hauled her on top of me. Her head pressed against my chest as she fisted my shirt and held on. I locked my arms around her and braced my foot on the floor, hoping like hell we weren’t about to crash, as the bus shuddered as if we were driving along an old, washout road.
End Note Page 5
