Page 8 of Give Me What I Want

“Oh, hell no!” Jord muttered under his breath, shaking his head as he attempted to sidestep and throw me to the beast. She was a kinda hot beast, even as she stood there, arms folded, stern glare, in the sweats and torn, oversized tee that she had worn to bed the night before.

We were on our way to Amsterdam, travelling throughout the day, and hopefully arriving at the venue we’d be playing at tomorrow night in the next couple of hours. When Bea had finally crawled out of her pit this morning, she had chosen violence and had started a war with Ro. One hour they had spent arguing, another one passed with them giving each other the silent treatment, and then they threw down again before she had locked herself in her room. We had all been up for a while by the time she had emerged, we had even pulled over so that the athletic fuckers—Ro and Mav—could go for a quick morning run. I wanted to turn back time to the moment she had awoken so I could have intervened before things got nasty, instead of listening to Mav, who had told me to stay out of it and just let their argument play out.

My upbeat ass didn’t like how they fought though, and I was determined to not let them do it again today. Starting now. I did what I should have done hours ago. I threw myself at her, tossed her tiny ass over my shoulder, and carried her to the long, grey sofa that could easily seat three. Tossing her down onto her back, her head landing on Ro’s lap, I straddled her and tickled her until her angry protests turned into giggled shrieks.

My hair had fallen free from its bun, curtaining my face as I fell forwards and pressed my nose against hers, making us both go cross-eyed as she panted and continued to laugh.

Everything felt a million times better now. Until we were suddenly flying. Nope. Not flying. Falling. Rolling onto the hard, laminate floor as Ro grunted loudly then muttered something I didn’t quite catch under his breath.

I climbed off of Bea, and held my breath as she pushed up on her elbows, still laying on the floor, staring up at Ro. They both stared each other down for far too long, then she spoke.

“Do you remember the other week when I bit your arm?” she asked him, moving to sit up and cross her legs.

Ro nodded, one eye twitching slightly at the memory.

“Could you imagine how much it would have hurt if I had done the same to you just now before you so kindly shoved us onto the floor… because, it wouldn’t have been your arm that I’d have gone for?” She grinned, still looking ridiculous with the mess of her makeup.

I waited a long moment to breathe. Waited until Ro pursed his lips and shook his head, his eyes glittering as he licked his lips then tossed a dark purple scatter cushion at Bea’s head. “Bitch.”

She yelped, then burst out laughing, her mood turned so nicely around, thanks to my handiwork. “We over our shit?” she asked him.

“Nope,” he said flatly, lacing his fingers casually behind his head. “But I’m done shouting at you for today. Wouldn’t want to strain my voice.”

Bea rolled her eyes, then flopped back onto her back, stretching and sprawling in the small floor space, forcing Jord to climb over her with his safely retrieved bar of chocolate to get to the sofa. Scraping my hair back into another smooth bun, I made my way to the fridge myself, desperately in need of a nice cold drink, something fizzy.

Cheering people up was thirsty business.

“What are we doing for lunch then?” Maverick piped up from his armchair. He’d had his head buried in a book since the middle of Ro and Bea’s earlier argument, deciding to ignore them from the point where it was clear that neither were going to see the others side of things.

Mav usually picked his battles, especially with those two.

“I’m not fussy,” Bea said, still laying on the floor.

“Yes, you are.”

She lifted her head to glare at Ronan, then dropped it back as the bus jostled slightly. “I’m not,” she muttered, and I peered around the open fridge door to see Ronan open his mouth, ready to say something back.

Quickly closing the fridge, I threw in my suggestion. “How about we check out whatever’s at the next service stop?”

“I’m good with that,” Jord said, usually the most easily pleased when it came to food, and the others all nodded their agreement.

I was on a roll today, putting out fires like my name was Sam. I really was the hero next door, except I wasn’t next door, in fact, I was no one’s neighbour. Our house was too far separated from the next one along to really call us neighbours, not like the typical ones I had as a kid, mums chatting over the fence and knocking on each other’s doors to borrow a cup of flour. When I was a kid and mum and I had moved from Bradford to London, Mav had been my neighbour. Now, as adults, I supposed he was still the closest thing I had to one since our bedrooms back home were beside each other. I much preferred him as a neighbour now than I had back then.

“Awesome, I’ll let Paul know that we want to stop soon,” I said, then went to tell our driver our plan.

“I guess I’ll tell Garth,” I heard Mav mutter as I passed him, and paused to squeeze his shoulder briefly before continuing on, hoping that someone else would offer to do it. The last thing Mav needed right now was Garth being a dick about more unscheduled stops, but no one did, and when I came back, it was to Mav looking like he’d strangle anyone who even glanced his way.

The bus stopped no more than fifteen minutes later, just long enough for Bea to disappear to get changed and sort out her face. She came strolling down the bus dressed in one of Mav’s massive basketball shirts and a pair of tiny, black denim shorts that just peaked out from under the long hem of her stolen shirt. She had her sunglasses on already and began to slip her feet into a pair of battered Vans by the door.

“You’re going out inthat?” Ro snarled, not even attempting to hide his distaste.

“Yeah. Why?” Bea said with a gleaming smile splitting her deep-red lips.

“You’re wearing Maverick’s top, and it’s soobviouslyMaverick’s too,” Ro said as though she was asking the dumbest question in the world.

“Yes, good eye. The shorts are mine, Levi, the shoes are Vans, and the sunglasses are Gucci. Does that conclude my outfit rundown? Are you satisfied? Or would you also like to know where I got my socks and panties from?” she sassed, fluffing up her hair.

Jordan spoke up before Ronan could. “What about your bra?” Of course, our little slut-boy would wonder why that had been left off of her list.

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