Sacha didn’t even miss a beat. He blinked those clear gray eyes at me and asked very seriously, “Do you know from experience?”

Was he seriously calling me a hooker on our first expedition out?

By the smile on his face, I would say yes. Yes, he was.

I think I’d found a friend.

Chapter Five

Where are you today?

I had to refer to the list of dates we had on the wall. Every day felt like a near repeat of the one before, and after the first week of The Rhythm & Chord Tour, I’d lost track of what city was next. Since there usually wasn’t enough time to go sightseeing, one place looked just like the rest; maybe one venue was nicer than the other but since that was really all we got to see, it didn’t make a difference.

I texted Laila back:

New Orleans.

A minute later, I got a response from her:

Don’t flash anyone. It isn’t Mardi Gras no matter what anyone tells you.

That’s all you, hooker.

She knew exactly what I was referring to: her twenty-second birthday, Mardi Gras in Galveston, two in the morning. If I tried, I could still hear my screams at her flashing an unsuspecting crowd after one too many Long Island Iced Teas.

OMG. STFU. If I don’t remember it, it didn’t happen.

I’d helped her change out her catheter more than once in the past, so it wasn’t like I was horrified or anything remotely close by her bare boobs. But still. I felt obligated to give her a hard time over it.

I wish I didn’t :P

LOL. I’m about to teach a class. LY.

Have fun. Love you too.

I set my cell back down and sighed.

It was only about three in the afternoon, and we’d been parked at the venue for close to two hours. My brother, Mason and a couple of the guys in The Cloud Collision had decided to go “hang out with some friends in town.” In reality what this meant was that they were doing something they couldn’t do in the bus.

As much as I loved Eli and Mason, I hated seeing them high or drunk, so I opted out of tagging along. Instead I plastered myself in the back room of the bus with one of the books I’d stuffed in my bag before leaving home. I was on The Boy in the Striped Pajamas this week. Even though I was having fun spending time with my three idiots, still getting to know Carter, and sucking at Mario Kart when I played against Mason in the morning, the whole living-with-ten-other-people-thing was difficult.

Even though I missed my parents, Rafe, Gil, their kids and Laila, I missed the lumpy bed at my parent’s house even more. It was the things I took for granted, like showering without shoes and hanging out in my room half-naked, that I missed the hell out of.

But I knew it wasn’t any of those things that were really bothering me right then. I was a little bit aggravated with Eli for still doing the kind of shit that had gotten him in trouble in the past. We’d agreed before I joined the tour that he’d tone down the drinking as one of my conditions. He’d been holding onto his end of the bargain so far, but I wasn’t betting on the streak continuing today.

There was also the chance I wasn’t giving him enough credit, but I wasn’t going to hold my breath.

“Can I come in?” a soft voice asked, the door to the back room cracking open.

“Of course,” I answered, recognizing Sacha’s low timbre on the other side.

His dark head of hair peeked in before he swung the door open. “I wasn’t sure if you were doing something.” His eyes flickered around the room cautiously before he plopped down onto the length of the couch opposite the one I was sitting on.

“I’m just reading. What are you up to?” I asked, eyeing the lean muscles beneath the tank he was wearing. Sacha had on shorts that were riding up his thighs, showing off what seemed like meters of nearly pale skin beneath dark leg hair. He was also wearing a scuffed pair of running shoes, not his normal set of clean black ones.