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I reflected on what all he'd told me. A jagged scar on his knee came from a little league baseball game. He'd had his tonsils removed after several bouts of tonsillitis in one year when he was six. He'd only had two proper girlfriends in high school before Charlotte, and had only had hookups with women since, until me.
Sawyer's favorite bands growing up were Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails and Nirvana, and his celebrity crush was Natalie Portman—which unnerved me a little since he'd told me I resembled her with long hair.
I marveled at how interested Sawyer was to get to know me, and since he usually initiated our conversations, I guessed he knew me quite well.
Our conversations had also made me reflect on what I had learned about Logan during our ten years together. After I gave it some thought, I knew I could answer quite a few things about Logan, but I realized he'd always been pretty disinterested in knowing anything about me.
* * *
Stepping into the airport arrivals hall in Minnesota, I barely had time to recognize Sawyer before his arms enveloped my body and he curled me into his chest. Lifting me off the ground, he gave a toe-curling kiss full of passion and want. It left me unsteady and breathless when he finally dropped me back to my feet.
Every nerve cell I possessed was primed for action as my heated blood flowed up to my skin, staining it red in its effort to cool me down. Desire coursed through me when I saw the adoring look he gave me when he held both sides of my face.
"Hey, beautiful. You are a sight for sore eyes," he offered in an unhurried tone. For a few long seconds, we ignored everyone around us and stared intently at one another. The way Sawyer stared, his eyes full of desire, should have made me feel self-conscious, but I'd missed him and I knew him well enough to know he really didn't care who saw us.
Dipping his head, he kissed me again, this time slow and tender and only half as long as the first. Leaning away to look at my face, he shook his head and chuckled.
"Come on, got to get you back to the bus."
"The bus?"
"Yeah, we're leaving tonight for North Dakota. I didn't want to wait another day for you to meet me there." Sending a text from his cell to someone, he took my hand and led me toward the pickup zone. Anxiety rose, tightening my chest again. I'd expected to meet his band, but I hadn't expected to travel on a bus with them.
Once in the car, the journey to the bus took less than twenty minutes, but night had fallen by the time we reached the double-decker band coach.
As we pulled up, I took in the blacked-out windows and what looked like burnt orange, cream and brown band logo emblazoned on the side.
Leading me to the center door, he knocked on the window and the tour bus door opened with a smooth, hydraulic sound.
When he gestured to me to go inside, I shook my head and he chuckled because I felt shy. Cupping the back of my head, he kissed my forehead, grabbed my hand, and pulled me inside behind him.
Two young, good-looking guys in their late twenties sat around a large leather sectional couch. They were playing cards, a pile of hundred dollar bills crumbled carelessly in a heap at the center of the large coffee table in front of them. I noted the furniture was bolted to the floor.
Cans, cups, glasses and discarded take-out coffee containers had been shoved to one end of the table, and the stench of stale beer, hard alcohol and the sweet smell of weed made my stomach roll.
"Hammer, Strings, meet Billie. This is Hammer, our drummer," Sawyer informed me, pointing to the taller of the two. He had a blond buzz haircut and looked fit, ripped and toned. He had biceps as thick as my thighs.
"Pleasure to meet you," he offered, as he stood and edged his way out from the fixed furniture. "I feel like I know you already. This guy's been nonstop with his 'Billie this' and 'Billie that,'" he informed me, chuckling and ducking like a boxer when Sawyer took a swipe at him. "I rest my case," he offered, gesturing toward me and making me blush.
"This is Strings," he told me, pointing at the less well built but still muscular six-footer with dark brooding looks and a square set jaw. Strings never got up but offered a wave. "Keyboard player."
"Keyboard? Not guitar?" I asked, stating the obvious.
"Yeah, he eats those horrible cheese string snacks like they're gonna be rationed any day now, and leaves the empty wrappers all over the place." I noted there were two among the snack wrappers piled up on the table as well.
"High protein diet," Strings chipped in with a wink. "This body's a temple," he joked, smoothing his T-shirt down at the front. "It's good to meet you, Billie. Hammer's right, this guy has been a miserable fuck since he met you. No fun at all listening to him bleating about not having your number."
"I agree, I've not been fun to be around, but you guys know I've had a lot going on."
"True. Sorry, dude. How's Tammy doing?"
"Better. They're sending her home tomorrow. Where's Wiggy?"
"Where else?" Hammer replied, his eyes rolling up toward the ceiling.
"Fuck. I pity that poor kid. She must be raw by now," Strings muttered, sitting back down and picking up his playing cards again. "Anyway, speaking of stripping ... I was in the middle of taking the shirt off his back. Mind if we get back to finishing our game?"
Sawyer turned to face me and burst out laughing, intuitively suspecting I was flustered at Strings' comment regarding Wiggy, whom I assumed was their missing fourth bandmate.
Still holding my hand, Sawyer nodded at the back of the bus. "Billie's been traveling all day. We're going to rest until the food gets here."
"Is that what they're calling it these days? Enjoy your…" Strings paused and looked at Hammer and they laughed. "Rest," they both offered in unison.
"Respect," Sawyer snapped. Strings' face immediately lost his smug expression from cracking a joke at our expense, but it was too late for me.
I felt mortified they could have thought Sawyer was taking me into the room to have sex. My back immediately stiffened, and Sawyer pulled me into his chest.
"Ignore them. You'd never guess they were thirty-year-old men." His sarcasm may have put the men in their place, but it hadn't made me feel any better.
