She watched Dylan as he sat in the corner, pensive and frustrated. The day's growth of stubble on his jaw and the sharpness of his cheekbones added to the tortured artist look he was currently rocking. He was beautiful. A fucked-up, selfish, self-destructive man-child, but so damned beautiful. Her thoughts were betraying her more and more every day.
Dylan didn't come out of his corner until it was time for dinner. They got off the bus, and ended up eating at a food truck called The Hot Potato, which was Tank's favorite place to stop whenever they came through this part of Idaho. Melody was thrilled by the cuisine selection, and ordered five different kinds of potato, smirking at Dylan, who only got a single baked potato with sour cream and chives. Once they had packed their bellies full of spuds, they piled back into the bus to enjoy the movie as they continued down the road.
Except that it was impossible for anyone to enjoy that particular movie. Even Rip seemed sorry he'd chosen it.
"You just had to dis Sean Connery," Dylan muttered, bumping her shoulder with his.
"Daniel Craig has revolutionized the tired, misogynistic franchise your precious Connery helped build," she whispered back.
"Enough of this," Jesper said. He shut the movie off, garnering sighs of relief. "Honesty circle time," he announced, as if that was a perfectly normal thing.
"Not without alcohol, bro," Dylan muttered.
"Good," Jesper said. "You get honest when you're drunk."
The two men shared a hard stare that lasted a little longer than was comfortable, but they exchanged no further words. Instead, they all quietly moved to sit in a circle on the floor. Jesper grabbed a bottle of tequila for the event.
"What's an honesty circle?" Melody whispered to Tank as they all settled down.
"Some bullshit New Age conflict resolution thing that Jesper picked up on a Tibetan retreat," Tank whispered back. "Just play along, it'll be over soon."
"Newbie goes first," Dylan said, looking at Melody.
"Okay," she agreed warily.
"I'll go first. What's it like to have Hop as a father?" Dylan asked.
Melody chuckled. "Having Hop as a father is actually pretty great."
"You call him Hop, too?" said Dylan, raising a bemused brow.
"And you live to tell the tale?" Tank joked.
"I'm allowed because I'm his daughter," she said with a smile. "When I was growing up, he let me get away with a lot of stuff because I was really all he had, and vice versa. He's not as scary as you'd think...although you'd probably get a different answer from every boy I've ever brought home."
"I'm surprised they had the balls to take you out at all," Rip said.
"Well, the guys I've dated have not been the brightest tools in the shed," she said.
"Bad form," Dylan chided.
"I don't mean that in a bad way," Melody hastened to explain. "I just mean they were either meatheads-the jock type, you know-or danger junkies." Although she had really thought Ian was different. He had been smart, charming, and could be oh-so-sweet when he wanted to be. In retrospect, it was obvious that he'd been playing her the entire time. She cleared her throat and looked at Tank. "Um, what's your favorite Britney Spears song?"
"You're assuming I know one."
"Everyone knows one," Melody said.
"Womanizer," he mumbled. He gestured to Rip, clearly wanting to move on. "How's Snake really doing?" Tank asked.
Rip let out a breath. "I don't know. He hasn't been taking my calls." He glanced at Melody.
His gaze made her feel awkward, like she was somewhere she shouldn't be. And in a way, she was. This wasn't her band, her family. These were Snake's brothers, and she had no claim on them. Her time here was temporary-she'd known that from the start. Eventually the tour would end, and Snake would resume his rightful place with them. Melody would just be the girl who'd saved the tour, a one-line mention on the band's Wikipedia page. She needed to remember that.
Rip was sizing up Jesper now. "What the hell do you talk about all the damn time to that woman of yours?" he asked. "I assumed you two were having phone sex, but you're such a pain in the ass that there's no way you're getting phone-laid."
The guys all laughed, but Jesper just smiled that small, unruffled little smile of his. "I call her because that's what you do when you're someone's partner," he explained. "We talk about everything and nothing."
"Ugh, sorry I asked," Rip muttered, but Melody noticed he was the only guy in the room to be so casually dismissive of Jesper's words.
Jesper looked at Dylan. "Your turn. Now, let me see … oh, I've got a good one. What's your biggest regret?" he asked.
Dylan let out a breath. "You're really not pulling any punches here, are you, Swensen?"
"Answer the question, Bennett."
"Well, sometimes I wish … I regret that my mom and I weren't closer when she was alive," Dylan said in a low voice, staring at the floor, not looking at anyone. Then he raised his head and fixed his eye on Melody. "Same question."
Melody laughed. "You should know if you read that article. Ian, hands down." She picked at a stray piece of lint on her jeans. "I hate feeling stupid, and no one has ever made me feel stupider than he did."
"We're all stupid when it comes to love," Jesper said. "At least, those of us who've ever been in love." He gave his band mates a glare of mock reprimand.
Melody laughed. "That's the thing. I wasn't in love with him, not really. I was just infatuated. Plus my dad didn't like him, which-though I hate to admit it-made the relationship more exciting."
"You know, Hop hates me," Dylan said, scooting a little closer to her side. "If you really wanted to piss him off … "
"Sorry," she laughed, trying to hide just how tempting that idea was to her, "but Ian cured me of the need to commit sexual acts of rebellion." She patted Dylan's cheek affectionately. "You should have gotten here sooner."
"Believe me, if I'd known you were out there..." he muttered.
"So wait," Tank said, making a time out motion with his hands. "You two have really never been in love?"
Dylan and Melody exchanged a look. "No," Melody said slowly, as Dylan shook his head.
"Sad," Tank said.
"That's not sad," Dylan said. "Sad is a little girl stuck in a hospital bed."
Jesper's expression softened to one of compassion. "Have you heard more news?"
Dylan shook his head. "They're just running some more tests, which is all they ever do. Grace sent some pictures earlier."
"Whip ‘em out," Melody said.
"I didn't know if you guys … " Dylan trailed off.
"Do it," Rip said. "You know how we feel about that little girl."
Smiling, Dylan pulled his phone out and started thumbing through pictures. The honesty circle was forgotten, but Melody caught Jesper's eye; she had a feeling that he'd gotten exactly what he'd wanted out of it. Diabolical Zen Master.
"Wait, wait," Dylan said, his voice filled with the innocent excitement of a kid on Christmas, "let me show you this one. It's my favorite." On his screen was Emma with her limp blonde hair and bright smile, looking like a little angel with a halo of light surrounding her head as it rested on a hospital pillow. She was also flipping her middle finger at the camera. They all let out a bark of stunned laughter.
"I wonder where she learned that," Melody said, smiling fondly at Dylan.
"It's true. I'm a terrible influence," he agreed, the pride in his voice belying his words.
They looked through a few more pictures, chuckling at the decorations Emma had made and hung around her bed. The guys put their heads together and decided to write a song for her. After a few more swigs of tequila, it was decided they would call it Emma vs. Luke, because Tank insisted they should give the disease a name. Basically, the song was all about Emma beating up some evil kid named Luke. Even Melody thought it was genius after her fifth big gulp right from the bottle.
After a few more drunken choruses, everyone stumbled back to their bunks. Melody had never been so happy to see her little bed before. She was almost unconscious, the bumpy road threatening to make her sick, when someone pulled back her curtain. Dylan's face stared down at her.
"Hey," he whispered. "Are you awake?"
"No," she whispered back.
He responded by crawling into her bunk and closing the curtain behind him.
"Hey," she said, a little more loudly. "These are single occupant, buddy."
"I just need to tell you something," he whispered, with the honest intensity that only the truly inebriated could manage. His face was close to hers now, his breath warm-and surprisingly pleasant, despite all the tequila he had imbibed. "I'll leave as soon as I'm done, promise."