I woke up the next morning to the feeling of the bus rumbling beneath me. I groggily rubbed at my eyes, slowly becoming aware of my surroundings, and blinked several times. I could hear hushed voices coming from the outside of my bunk. Apparently, everyone else had woken up before me.

I raised an arm to peel back the curtain slowly, light from the bus interior and the outside world hitting my face, and squinted. It was already bright outside, and I figured I must’ve slept through a good bit of the morning. I could see trees and fields rolling by through the window; it looked like we weren’t anywhere close to a major city.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty!” someone called much too peppily. I turned my face towards the voice to see Johnny sitting in the den, grinning at me. His usual mohawk was flat against his head this morning, devoid of its usual suite of styling products, and the jeans and t-shirt he was wearing made him look much more casual than he did when performing on stage. I craned my neck further to see that he was sitting with Val, Brian, and Brooks, and the four of them appeared to be drinking coffee.

I grumbled something incoherent in response to his cheery mood, before I shifted my legs over the edge of my bunk and hopped down to the floor. After making sure I had steady footing on the moving bus, I looked at the other three bunks and noticed the curtains were all pulled back. The bunks were empty. I frowned slightly, and Val, seeming to notice my confusion, provided an explanation.

“We did a kid swap this morning, Christa,” she said. “Matt and Zack are on parent duty on the band’s bus, and the rest of us decided to come over here for some peace and quiet.”

I nodded in understanding, the fog of sleep slowly fading from my mind, and walked over to the kitchen. I poured myself a mug of coffee from the pot that had been left out, and carefully carried it over to sit down next to Johnny.

“Good morning to you, too, Johnny,” I said, nudging his shoulder playfully as I finally answered his greeting. He chuckled slightly at my delayed response. “You’re almost always up before us,” he observed. “Long day yesterday?”

I nodded, taking a sip of my slightly-cooled coffee. “Yeah, lots of phone calls yesterday. And those kids can tire you out!” I exclaimed, looking over at Val, who nodded knowingly. “How was the show last night?”

“Show was good, though this one fucked up his Afterlife solo again,” Johnny said casually, placing a hand on Brian’s shoulder. The taller man sighed in a kind of bored frustration at Johnny, rubbing his temple for added effect, and I laughed. “That’s okay. The kids know it’s a tough one, and I bet most of them don’t even notice the little mistakes. They’re just excited out of their minds to see you guys. At least, I know that’s how I felt the first time.”

Brian’s expression went from tired to vindicated as he nodded his head firmly in my direction. “Thank you! It’s nice to have someone around who doesn’t focus solely on my mistakes all the time. These guys are dicks.” He shoved Johnny, who shoved him back. “We don’t focus solely on your mistakes, Brian, we just focus on mistakes you make in your solos.”

I laughed at them as their shoves grew smaller and smaller until they were just poking one another repeatedly, both wanting to have the last jab. I turned my attention to Val and Brooks sitting across from us to address them. “Say, what time is it, anyways?”

“It’s almost eleven,” Brooks answered. My eyes grew big, and he continued. “But, you’ve been working early during the day when we’re usually asleep, and staying up late to see the shows, too, so it was probably good you caught up on some rest.”

I nodded, grateful for his excuse. Hopefully no one thought I was too much of a bum. If it was already eleven, though, I had work to do. I drank the rest of my coffee quickly, and stood up from the couch. “Okay, guys, I’m going to go do some work for a while. I need to see if I can find any precedent for our case.”

“Okay, good luck! We’re gonna be stopping for lunch at a diner in a few hours, so we’ll come grab you then.” Val said. I thanked her, put my mug in the kitchen sink, and headed towards the back of the bus.

Beyond the bunks and through a sliding door was the back lounge area. It was a small room, lined with dark, faux leather couches on the back and left walls. It was mostly used for extra storage—there was a small pile of what appeared to be dirty clothes on one sofa—but it was also a great place to find some privacy. I reached underneath a couch to pick up my laptop from where I’d left it, and settled down into the cushions. It was time to get to work.

When the computer powered up, I couldn’t help but laugh quietly at my desktop background. It was a photo of all of us on tour, taken backstage a few weeks ago, and we looked kind of ridiculous. Matt was carrying Val piggyback-style, which had been really cute, until Johnny—not wanting to be left out—had hopped on Brian’s back, too. In the center of the image, Zack and Brooks were carrying me across their arms. It made for a good picture, but I hadn’t gotten warned about it beforehand, so my arms were clinging to Zack’s shoulders for dear life. I shook my head slightly at the image, still smiling, then finally put on some headphones to block out the sounds from the front of the bus and got to work.

~~~

After what felt like only a few minutes, I noticed the door separating me from the rest of the bus slide open, and I looked up to meet deep brown eyes. It was Brian. He motioned for me to take my earbuds out, and I did. “Hey, Christa, we’re gonna stop for lunch in about ten minutes here. Just wanted to let you know in case you wanted to get dressed,” he said, smirking slightly.

I glanced down at myself, realized I was still in my pajamas, and laughed. I swear I’d tried to keep it professional when we’d first started the tour last month, but being in such close proximity with these people made it next to impossible. Now here I was, waking up at eleven and sitting around all day in my pajamas. I shook my head at myself. “Sounds good, Brian. Thanks for the heads up.” I closed out of the internet tabs and documents I was working on as he turned and headed back towards the front of the bus. Once I’d stashed my computer back under the couch, I went over to my bunk to look for some more appropriate daytime clothes.

After getting dressed and pulling my hair into a messy ponytail in the bathroom, I emerged to join the group in the main section of the bus. “So, where did you guys say we were eating again?” I asked.

“It’s called Sue’s Diner,” Johnny responded. “Not a fancy name, but the breakfast food is some of the best I’ve ever had. We found it almost ten years ago by accident, and now we always stop there on our way out of Illinois.” I nodded. Diner food sounded great right now. But, then again, considering that I’d missed breakfast that morning, almost anything would’ve sounded good to me.

I could feel that the bus was traveling more slowly than it had been this morning, as we’d moved off of the main highway and onto smaller roads. Looking out the windows again, I could see more buildings passing by: a gas station, a supermarket, a few fast food restaurants, and a bank. It looked like we were going through a small town, and I couldn’t help but smile at the thought. It didn’t look so different from the place where I’d grown up. I had gone to law school in California, and thoroughly enjoyed living in Huntington Beach now. But, there’s no place like home, and something about being on the road made me miss it more than usual.

We pulled up to the restaurant a few minutes later, and all filed out to see that the other bus had already arrived. The door opened to reveal Matt first, who carefully stepped his two boys off the bus and onto the ground. “We beat you guys here!” he called jokingly, grinning. “What took you so long?”

Val simply sighed and shook her head at him, walking over to pick up their younger son in her arms. “None of us are in charge of driving the buses. You get no credit.” Despite her emotionless words, she did step up on her toes to kiss him briefly. They were perfect for each other, I thought. I simultaneously felt warm, fuzzy feelings and a small pang of jealousy.

Zack followed Matt down the stairs, holding Tennessee’s hand as he walked behind the young boy. “Nah, we totally made it go faster. It’s because all the cool people were on our bus,” he announced with a smirk, ruffling his son’s hair. After a few more eye rolls and protests from our side, our entire crowd managed to head into the restaurant.

Seeing as it was the middle of the week in the middle of nowhere and breakfast had passed a long time ago, I’d thought this place would be next to empty, but there were actually quite a few people inside. Luckily, though, there was no group as big as ours, and we were seated immediately at a large, rounded booth in the corner of the restaurant. I ended up between Brian and Zack, and everyone splintered off into a myriad of small conversations.

“So, Christa. How’s all the legal stuff going?” Zack asked me, eyes moving up from the pancake section of the menu to look at me. He closed it a second later, apparently having made his selection already. If this place was as good as Johnny said, it wouldn’t surprise me if all the guys remembered their favorite orders without even needing the menu.

“Not so bad,” I responded thoughtfully, tilting my head to one side and then the other. “Yesterday was rough, but I made a little bit of progress doing research this morning, I think.”

Zack nodded, a piece of shaggy black hair falling into his face before he pushed it aside. He usually had it slicked back, but much like the rest of us, couldn’t be bothered today. Ah well. It looked good, regardless. “Yeah, Matt told me what you said yesterday. But I’m not worried. I know you’ll do your best, and we’ll pull through one way or another. We always do.”

I smiled at him. “Thanks, Zack.” Though I had confidence in my abilities as a lawyer, I couldn’t help but think that these people were all much too nice to me. Not sure what else to say, I returned my gaze to the open menu in front of me. “So, what’re you planning to get? Everything here sounds really good, and I can’t pick,” I admitted.

He chuckled slightly, leaning in a bit to get a better look at my menu. “I always go for the chicken and waffles, personally.” He pointed to the item in question, and my eyes got distracted examining the tattoos on his hand. “Or, if you’re feeling something sweet, chocolate chip pancakes are a good choice.” He moved his hand over to the adjacent page.

I made a contemplative sound, weighing my options. I did have a pretty serious sweet tooth. “I’ll go for the pancakes, then,” I said with a nod, decisively closing my menu. “Thanks, Zack!”

He smiled at me. “No problem.”

We had all ordered our food a few minutes later, and continued chatting amongst ourselves as we waited for it to arrive. “Oh, I almost forgot,” Zack said suddenly, turning his focus from Tennessee, who was seated on the other side of him, to look back at me. “Kiddo here told me that you read him his favorite story last night. Thanks a load for doing that. I wish I was able to read to him more often, but with our shows going so late…” he trailed off, a slightly pained expression coming over his face.

“Oh, of course! It’s no trouble at all, I’m happy to do it,” I said. The last thing I wanted was for Zack to feel like he wasn’t doing enough for his son. I leaned forward in my seat to look around the guitarist and talk to Tennessee directly. “We had a good time last night, didn’t we?” The little boy nodded his head rapidly. “Yeah, we did!”

Zack chuckled at his son’s enthusiasm, putting an arm around his shoulders affectionately. “Well, even so, I wanted to say thank you.” Zack’s stunning green eyes met mine, and he held my gaze. Neither of us said anything for several moments. I could tell from his serious expression that he meant what he said; he wanted to spend more time with his son, but if he couldn’t be there, he was glad that someone else was. I nodded at him, a bit slowly, a gentle smile forming on my lips. “Anytime,” I said softly.

The trance was broken a moment later when our server arrived back at the table, carrying a large tray laden with giant plates of breakfast food. “Alright, who had the blueberry waffles?” she asked.

I moved my gaze away from Zack as Val claimed the plate, feeling a slight blush creep onto my face. It was silly, but sometimes I still had to pull myself back from getting too attached to these guys, especially to Zack. Everyone else was happily married, and no way in hell would I get in the way of that. But Zacky Vengeance was the one I’d had a crush on since I was twenty, anyways, and getting close enough to the band to learn everyone’s quirks and true personalities had done pitifully little to make it go away.

I snapped back to reality when our server called out chocolate chip pancakes, raising my hand and taking the plate from her. They were stacked high on the plate and smelled amazing; I couldn’t wait to dig in. I reached for the bottle of syrup in the middle of the table to get the rest of my sugar fix, as our server passed out the last few plates.

The pancakes were every bit as delicious as I had hoped, and I had to admit that the guys made a good call on lunch. Everyone else’s meals must have been good, too, because for the most part, we were all too busy shoveling food into our faces to make any conversation.

We sat around for a few minutes after we’d eaten, relaxing and talking about the next tour date, which would be in Michigan the following night. We were all full at this point, and were reluctant to move, but it was soon time to get back on the road. Matt called for the check and paid it, and we all slowly got up from our booth to head towards the door. I’d tried to pay for my own food during the first few weeks of the tour, but Matt had adamantly refused to let it happen. According to him, me agreeing to do my work while on the road with them more than balanced it out. I wasn’t entirely sure that was true, considering that I was enjoying myself, but I hadn’t argued with him further. Now, I was just a happy beneficiary of the guys’ generosity.

I returned to the back lounge and to lawyer-work once we were on the bus again, sending off emails and meticulously going over the band’s contract with their previous record company. I was looking for any language that might imply our claims were more legitimate than the opposition’s, but didn’t find anything I hadn’t already been aware of before.

At around 7 o’clock, we arrived at our hotel in Mount Pleasant. Although being on the buses with everyone was generally not bad, it came as a relief to get to stay in hotels when we had the opportunity. Everyone had their own room, aside from the kids and couple, and it was so refreshing to have all that space! We checked in at the front desk in an elegant lobby, went up the elevator to the top floor of the building, and then dispersed for the evening. As I rolled my suitcase down the hall towards my room, a long, hot shower was the only thing on my mind.

After my shower, in which I took full advantage of the hotel’s hot water supply, I dried my hair and changed into my pajamas. It was only 8:30, so I had some time to myself for a few hours before I’d need to go to bed. I passed most of it wasting time on the internet, watching animal videos and catching up on a few episodes of shows that I’d fallen behind on. When I started to yawn more frequently, though, I decided it was time for a solid night’s sleep.

I snuggled under the plush duvet of the queen-sized bed, thankful again that the guys had included me in their arrangements for the tour. I thought back to lunch earlier in the day, and to Zack and Tennessee. Seeing as I was alone, I let myself heave a wistful sigh. Zack was a colleague. A friend. Hell, considering that I was working for the band, he was technically my client. No good would come of thinking of him in any other capacity, and yet, I couldn’t seem to get those green eyes out of my mind.

I rolled onto my side and snapped my own eyes shut, trying to block out my thoughts and distract myself with sleep. Being on tour with the band was fun, for sure, but I was here to do an important job. At the end of the day, I was their lawyer, nothing more. Now was no time to be crossing personal boundaries.

With my own resolve reaffirmed, I was able to relax before too long. Being in a comfy bed for the first time in a week certainly helped. I realized faintly that there was no chance of being woken up in the morning by the feeling of the bus moving beneath me, and with a small smile on my face, I soon fell asleep.

Notes