Page 67 of Only One Tour Bus

“I know.”

She nods and we stand there, in front of her door. I make no move to retrieve my hand, and she makes none to let me go. But it’s beginning to border on awkward at this point.

“It’s an early morning tomorrow,” I say.

“Yeah. And it’ll be a lot of travel, too.”

She leans forward just as I say, “We should get to bed, then.”

She jerks back like she’s attached to a string and someone yanked it hard. That finally breaks the connection of our hands, and I get a lot colder on my own what with the sunshine taken away from me. My hand reaches out a few centimeters toward hers, but then I snap it back when I realize what it’s doing.

Did she want me to kiss her again? We’ve done this before, but now we’re in competition. Or at least, now we know that we’re in competition. That wouldn’t be prudent, in the long run.

Too many hurt feelings. And then I’d be the one responsible for making the sunshine dim. I can’t do that. Even if the shine is a little less bright right now because I pulled away, it’ll only be worse later, when I either take the job she loves, or she kicks me out of a job I need for rent and food and other frivolities, and that I somewhat enjoy. Then it’ll be awkwardness filling those pretty brown eyes.

Best to walk myself to my room right now. Alone.

“Good night. Sleep well.”

Asha looks bewildered as she wishes me the same.

Yeah, I’m a wee bit bewildered myself as I watch her disappear into her room, and then go to my own.

I’m half sure I’ve made a mistake, but there’s nothing to do about it now, except carry on with this damn tour.

CHAPTER 29

ASHA

I don’t think I was imagining it. We’ve kissed, and I’m 85 percent sure that wasn’t a fever dream. So why doesn’t he want to take it further? I’m willing. I’ve done everything I could short of physically tossing myself at him and yelling, “Take me, you grumpy Irish rain cloud.” Is that it, am I being too subtle?

The thoughts run through my head after I close the door, staring at it in confusion and more than a little frustration. I’m still thinking about it when I get ready for bed and when I’m in bed, staring at the bit of door I can still see. Trying to figure out what the hell happened.

Sleep is elusive, so I’m tired when my alarm rings. And also, still confused about the lack of kiss situation. Which doesn’t help my brain function at all.

But I have a job to do, and this tour is more important than any other besides my first one where I was being evaluated and could have been fired if it had gone too badly. So I pull on my big girl backpack, the one with the English bulldog visiting a pub on it, and march down the stairs with as much dedication as any child marching the streets on Halloween. Or any parking enforcement person on the streets of LA. Seriously, I once got a ticket when I got to my meter ten minutes late.

If only I had a glitter cannon I could shoot at Callum for all this frustration. Nothing that would seriously hurt him, but something that would irritate him immensely in the moment and later when he kept finding glitter everywhere. For a month. For six months. Seems like enough revenge.

Revenge for the way he irritates me by being weirdly sweet when he forgets he’s supposed to be angry at the world.

The righteous indignation helps me get through greeting him in the morning, and then the group starts coming down to help buffer us. I can distract myself with getting everyone checked out and loaded onto the bus when all they want to do is crawl back into bed. Or a couch. I think they’d take a small, hard, uncomfortable plastic chair at this point and they would happily sleep on it.

With nightlife in Europe being what it is, I doubt some of them even got back to the hotel until minutes before they walked down here.

I’m just happy they’re all accounted for. Uninjured and un-arrested, if not entirely happy right now.

“Is everyone ready for today?” I say it quietly and less enthusiastically than normal, knowing no one wants to see a happy person right now.

The fact is confirmed when the only responses to my question are grunts. Unhappy grunts, not like Callum, whose grunts range the gamut from acknowledgment to joy to displeasure, depending on context.

“I get it. I know this seems like a punishment and I’m not a morning person either, but we’ve got a long day of travel, and we want to start early so we get a nice break at Strasbourg to get some food and stretch your legs while you see some sites. Then we’ll end the day in the Swiss Alps!”

No one is mollified by that, but that’s okay. That means they’ll probably sleep on the bus and we (the tour guides) will get some peace…to also sleep on the bus.

I wasn’t kidding about not being a morning person.

Once everyone is on the bus, I get the microphone. “All right, we’ve got four and a half hours to Strasbourg, and I invite everyone to take a nice nap. We’ll be there by eleven thirty, with a quick stop somewhere along way for restrooms and gas station snacks.”