Page 17 of Secret Hudson

Even though I want to kiss him more than I want air, I hold off on going for it. We have time, I tell myself.

Except seven days later, I'm still telling myself. It’s been a whole week now since I’ve seen him and holding off on that kiss has seemed like a bad idea for the last six.

But being apart hasn’t meant he was really gone. Hudson texted me less than thirty minutes after I left him that morning. And the messages and calls haven’t stopped since.

Of course, after today, I won’t have to lunge for my phone every time it jingles anymore because he’ll finally be joining us on tour.

“You’re up early.” Angel comes out from the back of the bus where the bunks are. Given his love for the gym and five a.m. work outs, he's the only morning person in the bunch. Excepttoday. Although, I'm not sure if it counts as being up early if I haven’t actually been to bed yet.

“Couldn’t sleep.” I glance out the window, along with a steady stream of passing headlights, a reddish glow is now creeping up on the horizon.

Angel slides into the bench across from me. He taps the empty mug in my hands. “You gonna blame it on the coffee?” His smirk is even more annoying this early in the morning.

“Can’t. Wasn’t drinking any.” I lean back, stretching my arms behind my head. I’ve been sitting here for over an hour already and various parts of my body have started to get stiff or fall asleep, only adding to my overall discomfort.

Angel crinkles his brow. “Then what was in the cup?”

I laugh. “Sleepy-time tea. The shit don’t work.”

He snorts. “Where did you even find this stuff?”

I point at the cupboard above the sink. “Derek’s stash. Dude, we’re the worst rock stars ever. When we get hung up on someone, do we go out and get shitfaced? Do ungodly amounts of drugs to help us forget? Fuck a ton of hot ass? No. We drink a cup of sleepy-time tea like a bunch of pathetic pussies.” I slam my hand on the table. “And then cry about how it doesn’t work. Holy shit.”

Meanwhile, Angel is laughing hysterically, trying hard to muffle the sound to keep from waking the others. I point at him. “You’re the last one. You’re all we have left. Without you out there, whoring your way through our loyal groupies, all we are is a bunch of boring guys in our mid-twenties who like to get together and play a little music.”

Once upon a time, we knew how to get down. We came crashing into the scene, every intention of living it up, beingthe hype. Then Derek got married. I got less stupid and even Blaise miraculously cleaned up his shit. Angel hasn’t ever partied hard, but when it comes to giving the fans that special one on one attention, he’s always more than happy to screw each and every one of them in the name of the band.

“Well, you’ve got nothing to worry about there. You know me. I like my freedom. Last thing I’m looking for is someone to turn me into you or Derek. Shit. You look at him closely lately? Boy’s dropping weight now left and right.”

I noticed it too. “Yeah, I know. Ava’s worried as well. She’s even tried reaching out to Sammy, but said she got shut down in two seconds flat. It’s weird. They used to be tight. Like, Ava was her ally when it came to Derek, keeping her in the loop whenever we were on tour, and now she wants nothing to do with her? I don’t get it.”

There's no longer any sign of laughter on Angel’s face or mine. None of this is funny anymore.

“They’re going to make it through this though, right? I mean, I’ll be the first one to say that relationships are bullshit, but Derek and Sammy, man, they’re like one person. They’ve been together so long I don’t even know how to think of him without her.”

I nod. “It would destroy him.” I sit up straight, rubbing my eyes. “Shit, this is depressing.”

My phone vibrates. It's on the table beside my mug, so it doesn’t go unnoticed by either of us.

“That Hudson?” His expression changes instantly, but I feel guilty being so easily swayed to my happy place when I know my friend is so ungodly miserable at the same time. Even guilt can't erase the grin on my face though.

I pick up the phone and check the message. “He’s at the airport getting ready to board the plane. Only six more hours and we’ll be meeting him in Michigan.” I’ve never been so excited to arrive in that fucking icicle in all my life. We're barely into October and already they’ve had several feet of snow there. Thankfully, it eased up enough to let flights in and out again, but there's no telling what the roads will be like the further North we travel.

“Nervous about going from one date to living together?” Angel chuckles.

“You think?! And I can’t decide which is worse. That we’re about to be stuck on a bus for the next ten days, or that we’re going to be stuck on a bus with all of you for the next ten days.” The tour’ll be far from over after that, but once we hit New York, we’ll be leaving the bus behind and taking off by plane to begin the international portion of our world tour. All in all, we have another two months to go before we're headed home again.

“Who’s going to be stuck with all of who?” Ava rubs her eye as she stumbles along the moving bus, still half asleep and bearing a striking resemblance to some of the Zombie extras we saw in a movie the night before.

“Hudson is going to be stuck with all of us and Royce is scared we’re going to ruin him.” Pretty sure Angel gets some sort of sick satisfaction out of egging her on. As expected, Ava’s eyes go from barely there, to popping out of her head.

“You say that like we have a history of corrupting people. Name one person who was in some way harmed by over exposure to us.”

“Well, there’s Francis.” Ava’s assistant. She was a really sweet girl once upon a time. Conservative. Wore clothes that actually covered her body. Never swore. These days she drops the f-bomb at least once in every sentence. Twice if she can make it fit. And the last time I saw her, she busted out her breast to show me a brand-new nipple ring. No need to express how I reacted to that one. Pretty sure there’s still a hole in her office door from where I ran through it.

“Francis doesn’t count. She was a beast waiting to be unleashed. All we did was set her free. And look how happy she is now!” She slides into the booth beside me, determined to see the argument through. “Name someone else. Someone whose life is worse now, not better.”

“I’m pretty sure Gary thinks his life sucks big balls with us in it.” I have a list. I can go on and on with this all the way to Michigan if I have to.

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