I turned to find him in his black basketball shorts, ASICS running shoes and a T-shirt. He didn’t even look like the same man who went onstage every night in a button-down shirt and dress pants with his hair gelled or moussed into perfect place. I thought he looked even better when he wasn’t in that persona, but that was probably just me.

We’d only spoken a couple of times about how the most recent show went, and he still seemed like a really nice guy who brought up nearly every day how I’d kicked him in the ass. Twice already he’d walked by me with his hands splayed out behind him like he was protecting his butt cheeks from attack. I also tended to go to bed before he did, so it wasn’t like we got to gossip in our bunks or anything.

“I want to go get something to eat,” I explained a little awkwardly, eyeing the piano keys I’d come to recognize were tattooed on his neck.

He smiled easily, making those black and skin color keys tighten. “I’ll go with you.”

What? “You will?” We’d spoken a few times but really, it hadn’t been more than ten or fifteen minutes total. There was also the fact that every time I spoke to him, I thought about how we’d met and it made my insides cringe. We were friendly but we weren’t friends exactly. At least, not like how Carter and I were. We were at the point where I knew he liked Dr. Pepper and sour candy, disliked the same music I did, and he had a girlfriend who hated him going on tour. You knew you were friends with someone when they grew comfortable enough around you to let you read psycho text messages from the person they were dating.

“Yeah,” the tall man agreed with a dip of his chin.

I didn’t miss the pleased look Carter had on his face.

Just like that, Sacha and I were walking across the parking lot at his guidance while I pocketed my younger companion’s twenty dollars.

The black-haired man walking alongside me looked down from over his shoulder, his eyes such a pristine shade of ash they were nearly a clear blue. “Are you craving anything?”

I scrunched up my face. “As long as we aren’t eating pizza again, I’m game.”

Sacha laughed, his gaze still on me. “It’s the worst, isn’t it?”

There was a reason almost everyone on the tour crossed their fingers and toes that pizza wouldn’t be the meal of choice wherever we happened to be that day. Venues were responsible for providing the tour package with food every night. Each band had a rider, or a list of requests, of items they wanted. It wasn’t anything crazy like all red Skittles, Oreos without the filling or anything. Ghost Orchid’s rider consisted of a case of Dr. Pepper, some kind of vodka, a large bag of barbecue chips, a sandwich tray and Oreos. They were a vision of health.

Apart from their riders, the two bands were either supposed to have dinner provided or if that wasn’t available, each person on the tour was given a certain amount of money to supply their own food. The problem was that when the venues did have dinner available, more often than not, it consisted of pizza. Not the good kind of pizza either, at least so far, but the kind that had cheese that tasted like the off-brand individually packed crap, suspicious-looking pepperoni, and no sauce. It made me want to puke.

If you thought there was a food you could eat every day without getting tired of it, you were lying to yourself. Everything got old.

“I haven’t had pizza on tour in almost ten years,” Sacha continued. “There’s a Thai place about five blocks away…” He trailed off and I didn’t miss the hopeful look he shot me.

He gave me the type of innocent smile as he raked a hand through the hair at the top of his head that reached into your soul like a puppy’s lick could. “I swear it’s great—”