Running Game(153)

She held up to her end of things. She was like a ghost to the rest of the band, but I knew she was getting bored. Restless.

That’s how I noticed her penchant for drumming her fingers. I didn’t think much of it at first, but the more that she did it, I realized that she was pretty good at keeping rhythm.

“Do that again,” I asked her one day.

“Hmm?”

“With your fingers.”

“You mean, this?”

She rattled out a slight beat.

“Yeah. Do that again. Faster.”

She did so.

“Do it four times in a row.”

Angel looked at me oddly, but complied.

“You can hold rhythm,” I observed. “And you’re pretty talented at it, from what I can tell…”

“Is that good?”

“It means you might make a decent drummer someday,” I chuckled. “If Dylan ever drops dead on us, that could be useful.”

We were interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Yo, we’re refueling for the road,” Terence called out. “You need anything?”

“Come on in,” I called out.

Terence quietly let himself into the room, smiling politely to my girl. “Hiya, Angel. You enjoying yourself?”

“When someone’s here, yeah,” she smiled.

Of course, out of everyone around us who would be even remotely civil about Angel being around, it’s my bassist. I didn’t overlook that fact as I motioned him over.

“Hey man, take a look at this…”

After introducing Terence to her surprisingly rhythmic skills, we took turns giving her instructions for drumming her fingers. I thought better and drug up a pair of pens, and had her rattle out some cadences against a few surfaces.

“Yeah…” Terence nodded thoughtfully. “Your girl’s good. She’ll need training to take it any further than pens on your countertop, but this is actually pretty rad.”

“Yeah,” I thought aloud. “I definitely agree.”

Since we needed to get going, we left her to her devices for the time being. Taking advantage of the pit stop for refueling and supplies before getting back on the road, I took the opportunity to refill the mini-fridge in my room.

I also decided to treat her to a tablet.

She almost didn’t accept it, until I reminded her how much time she’d be alone while I was working with the band on and off the stage. It was a bit of an impulse buy, but I had the cash to blow, and I wanted her happy while I was gone.

Besides. Chances were, she would stop putting out if I didn’t try to make an effort, anyway.

“Well… okay,” She whispered to me after unboxing the device. “But seriously, you didn’t have to do this. I’ve got books and everything, I could probably keep myself fulfilled anyway…”

Angel thanked me later that night with a ton of fantastic sex; it culminated in the most incredible blowjob I’d ever felt.

After that gesture, I felt better about dragging her along and leaving her trapped in my small bus suite. Most of our stops had decent wifi, and with some movies and books on the tablet, she’d have something to occupy herself.

We were on the tail end of our tour. RipFest was just a last-minute addition that sold tickets – lining our earnings during what would have been a brief lull, while taking an already great lineup and making it better.

But that meant that we were tired.

Tired and volatile.

I know that I should have spent a little more time with them, instead of cooped up in the back of the bus with my little Angel, but I hadn’t anticipated that the rest of the band was growing resentful.

“Look who’s here!” Waylon sneered at me when I walked into the practice session one afternoon.

“Sorry I’m late,” I replied. “Lost track of time.”

“I’ll bet. Guess you’re finally done fucking your little honey for a few minutes, eh?”

I ignored his remark, knowing that he was just trying to goad me on. I would find a way to stick it to him later, maybe after the tour…but there was no point in fueling him before another big show.

“Let’s just get to it,” I grunted.

Terence the bassist glanced up at me with a slight nod of his head. No matter what, he was always the agreeable, reasonable one.

We practiced for a while, but I wasn’t really feeling it. The rest of the musicians seemed to pick up on it, but I forced myself to go through the motions.

Angel was a distraction.

But not the kind they probably thought.

It had taken her presence for me to realize how grueling and miserable the tour had been. Part of me felt bad that the others didn’t have this – that they had to watch me experience this bliss without finding their own way to attain what I suddenly, irreversibly had.