Page 20 of Hero on the Road
And dance they did. They spun across the grass in front of us, cheering and dancing and telling us exactly how good we were together. And by the time the last note fell away and we left the stage, I felt like $5 million bucks.
And I couldn’t wait for our next show.
CHAPTER12
Olivia
“That. Was. Awesome,” I said, leaning up against Connor for support as we walked back toward the parking lot where we’d left the bus. We’d spent an hour cleaning up after the show, shuffling the sound equipment back to the shed where the park kept it and making sure the crowd hadn’t left any trash in the park itself.
We’d even signed some autographs, putting our names to the handouts the park had pinned up advertising the show that night.
It had been a terrific night. The show was perfect and the venue was the right size for us, and I’d had to admit to myself halfway through the night that Atomic might actually be good at their jobs. I hadn’t wanted to come out without my band or crew, but now that we were here, it felt right. The show had been so intimate, like we were at a party with our friends rather than on tour, and it fit our music. It fitus.
I was going to be really mad if I had to go back and admit to those Suits that they’d done a good job, after everything they’d put us through. They hadn’t even given us a bus, I reminded myself bitterly.
And speaking of which...
The bus in question should be parked right there, up against the building that housed the bathroom.
And it wasn’t.
I stopped and stared, trying to make sense of that, then looked quickly to the right and left. Did Barry just move the bus? Maybe he’d gotten in trouble for parking it where he’d parked it and moved it so it was out of the way.
A quick glance around the parking lot told me that it wasn’t anywhere else, though, and I started to feel nervous.
“Is it me or should our bus be right there?” Connor asked, having stopped right next to me.
“It should,” I agreed. I started walking again, my steps faster than they had been before. “Unless he moved it to get it out of the way.”
Connor’s strides matched mine and then took him right past me and into the parking lot, his head on a swivel. “That bus is too big to be out of the way,” he said. “And it’s too big to hide.”
His tone, increasingly nervous, told me that he didn’t see it either, and that told me a whole lot. Connor was taller than me by about a foot and ifhecouldn’t see it...
We both took off at a run toward the parking lot, our guitars bouncing against our backs and my backpack banging against my leg as we raced through the parking lot, looking for the tour bus we hadn’t even thought we were going to have until Avery and Parker surprised us. We looked through the main parking lot and then raced over to the secondary lot on the other side of the bathrooms, but we found no bus. When we hit the street we looked back and forth, hoping to see it out there.
Nothing.
“Maybe he said something to the people at guest services,” Connor said.
Right. I didn’t know if those people would even still be there, but if they were, they were probably our best bet. We turned and raced back toward that booth, neither of us saying anything.
I thought we probably both knew that this wasn’t going to end well.
That didn’t make it any easier when the girl at the booth looked up at us with big eyes, shook her head, and told us Barry had left in the middle of the show.
“I thought you two must know about it,” she said. “After all, your pictures are all over that bus. I figured he was moving it somewhere for you to meet him after the show.”
“Yeah. Would have been nice if he’d told us where that might be,” Connor said, running his hands through his hair.
I stared at the girl, too shocked to answer, and then turned my eyes to Connor. This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be happening. Two hours ago we’d had a bus and a roadie.
And now they were just... gone?
“Do you have his number?” I asked, belatedly realizing that I hadn’t bothered to get it.
Connor snapped his fingers. “Actually, I do. I got it earlier. Hold on.” He took his phone out of his pocket, scrolled through his contacts, and hit a button. He put the phone on speaker and held it out between us as it rang.
And rang.
