While We Waited

“Not too tired to show you how much I want to spend time with you,” I admit. “Never too tired for that.” I lift her hand from my face and press my lips to her palm. The hair on her arms stands up.

“How about if we go get pizza and take it back to the bus?” Her voice quivers.

“Okay.” I lean down close to her ear. “We’re supposed to give Sam and Peck twenty minutes, anyway. I promised.”

She snorts. “It won’t take Sam twenty minutes.”

I pull my head back so I can look down at her. “How would you know that?”

She shrugs. “Girls talk.” Her cheeks get rosy.

“Did you talk with them about me?”

“I told them exactly how big your dick is and that it hooks a little to the left.”

My heart stops. “It does not.”

She shoves my shoulder. “I’m kidding. The only one who knows about us is Lark. And that’s because she caught you coming out of my room. I didn’t tell her anything. Well, not about how your dick made me sore or anything.”

I grin. “I made you sore?”

“And you left your handprint on my ass.”

“It was gone before I even left that night.”

She stares into my eyes. “It’ll be there forever in my mind.”

I lean down and kiss her quickly. “Mine too.”

“So, pizza?”

I nod, and she slips her hand into mine. “I think there’s a place about two blocks from here. We’ll walk.” She reaches over, takes the ball cap from my head, and puts it on hers. “Don’t want to be recognized,” she explains.

She looks so damn cute in my ball cap that I don’t think I’ll ever take it back. She grins at me so I grab the brim and wiggle it on her head. Her grin turns into a smile with teeth.

“I really like you,” I blurt out.

Her smile tips up even bigger. “I like you too.”

“Will you do me a favor?”

“Depends on what it is,” she says, her gaze skeptical.

“Don’t make me fall in love with you unless you’re capable of loving me back, okay?”

She inhales quickly, and I panic for a moment. But then she steps onto her tiptoes and kisses me, and I know she feels it too. I can tell. The vice around my heart eases a little.

“Pizza,” she murmurs against my lips.

“Yes,” I mumble against her skin.

Suddenly, someone kicks the back of my knee and I stumble. “What the…” I turn around and find Logan staring at me.

“Emily and I are getting a room tonight,” he says. “Her mom and dad are in town and they have Kit.”

I nod. “Okay. Thanks for the heads up.”

He smiles. “Have fun.”

I try not to grin too much. “We’re not quite there yet.”

“That’s why I said have fun instead of have lots of sex.” He shoves my shoulder and walks by us.

“So, it’s just me and you, and Sam and Peck in the bus tonight?” Finny says. There’s a second bus for the others.

“Looks like it.”

“Why don’t you all get hotel room?” I ask her.

She shrugs. “We like the bus. It becomes like home after you’ve been traveling for a while.” She waits a beat.

“So we won’t be alone tonight,” she says.

“Nope.” I stare into her eyes long enough to make her cheeks flush.

She smiles shyly at me but she doesn’t say anything more.

We go and get pizzas and she fights with me so I’ll let her pay for them. “Everyone is going to eat them!” she tells me. “Not just us. I’m not letting you buy for all of us. The band has a budget for this stuff.”

“Then let me at least buy mine.”

“You’re part of the band, doofus.”

Laughter bubbles from my throat. “Did you just call me a doofus?”

“Maybe.” Then she starts to laugh too. I give her time to calm down while I take her card and pay for the pizzas. Then we start back to the bus. “I’m really glad you’re here,” she says. She puts her hand in my back pocket.

“You keep that up and I’m going to give up on being a gentleman,” I warn playfully.

She squeezes my ass and I jump, almost upending the pizzas.

“You’re going to get me in so much trouble,” I tell her. But I welcome it. I’ve never felt quite so alive. Not until I started spending time with her.

We go back to the bus and she opens the door. We climb quickly up the steps because, honestly, I want to put the pizzas down so I can grab her and pull her against me.

But when we get in the bus, she screams and turns to face me really quickly. “Oh, my God, Sam!” she cries. “Are you serious? Put that thing away. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God,” she chants to herself, her hands over her eyes as she buries her face in my chest.

“Sorry,” Sam says. “We didn’t think you’d be back for a few more minutes.”

Sam and Peck rush to put their clothes back on. I see way too much of Sam’s ass as he turns to cover Peck up with his own width. “You said you needed twenty. We gave you thirty,” I tell him. I look out the front window of the bus. Everywhere but at them, because I just saw way too much of Sam. Peck we could only see from the backside—and a really pretty backside it was—but Sam…Sam was balls deep.