Chapter 25
The heavy smell of grease hangs in the truck stop diner. Since it’s hours past the lunch rush, less than half the tables are occupied. We’re all crammed in a booth. Outside, Gary is filling the bus with gas and water, and dumping the tanks. It’s been a week since we left New York, and we’ve been staying on the bus the entire time. Providence, Boston, and Albany flew by. Tonight we’re in Rochester. Tomorrow we’ll finally check into a hotel. We’re all whipped. This second continual concert run has been more grueling than the last.
The waitress comes back with our drinks, setting them at the front of the table, and Justin hands glasses back to Gabe and me in the corners.
“Can someone pass the sugar?” Sam asks from the front of the booth. His jaw is tight. He doesn’t look my way. Though we’re all crabby, he has been the worst, snapping at his bandmates and ignoring me.
Since the words were said in a general way, I don’t count them as having been spoken to me. I shove the sugar basket down to the middle of the table and Romeo pushes it along to Sam, who has talked to me exactly seven times in three days. “Excuse me” three times. “Watch out” twice. “You gonna eat that?” once. And “Where’s the mustard?”
Curls falling over his forehead, he stirs sugar into his iced tea. The tightness of his jaw reveals his agitation. Lately, he always seems irate.
Holding in a sigh, I glance down at my hands clasped in my lap. I’m still confused about my feelings for him, but the tension between us needs to lighten up. Though I’m scared shitless of the outcome, I’ve been drumming up the courage to talk to him. It’s just—the past three days have been so busy. At least that’s what the coward in me offers as an explanation for my inability to start the conversation.
Sam sets his spoon onto the table and glances at Romeo, sitting next to him. “Peyton should stay with you and Justin.”
Glancing up from his phone, Romeo gives him an odd look. “Why?”
With my hands now clenching my thighs, I echo Romeo, “Yeah, why?”
Across the table in the other corner, Gabe smirks, looking from Sam to me.
Next to me, Justin keeps texting someone. Probably Allie.
Ignoring me, Sam turns fully to Romeo. “Gabe and I are single.” He gestures across to Justin. “You two are * whipped. Why should we have her in our room? Makes it kind of hard to bag chicks.” The last words come out with a sly grin.
My nails dig into my thighs so I don’t go off on Sam in front of everyone. Of all the low-down things to say in front of me. I’m angry and more confused than ever. Is he doing this to get back at me? Or is this what he really wants? Here I’d thought it was time to bridge the gap between us. He’s thinking of bagging chicks.
Gabe is now silently laughing across from me.
I resist kicking him under the table.
Texting more, Justin shrugs. “Doesn’t matter to me.”
Romeo frowns at Sam in confusion. “I could see Gabe bringing this up but you’ve been pretty tame this tour.” He leans back against the vinyl booth, glancing at Gabe. “Did you put him up to this?”
Gabe puts his hands up and shakes his shaggy head. “Dude, this is news to me too.”
I wrap my hands around my water glass, then glare down the table at Sam. “Well, I don’t want to be stuck in a room with groupies coming and going.”
He holds my glare with one of his own, and I sense everyone at the table looking from him to me. Oh crap, I’m not bringing this drama into the band. I let out a huff and look elsewhere, only to find Gabe still smirking at me.
Would a tiny kick be that bad?
Romeo reaches into the sugar basket and yanks out a tiny container of creamer. “Peyton can stay with Justin and me. I just thought you two were friends from before.” He glances at Sam. “You told me she’d be more comfortable in your room since you two go way back and she dated your brother.”
Romeo’s words settle in my gut, then blast inside me. Red-hot anger erupts in my veins and pounds through me until my fingers itch.
“What?” I screech so loud that almost everyone in the diner looks my way. I’m off my butt, leaning over the table and ready to dive at Sam. In addition to the bagging-chicks comment, I can’t believe he told Romeo about our past after we’d both agreed several times to leave it in the past. “You’re an asshole!” I hiss at him as Justin holds me back and Gabe catches his Coke before it spills.
“Whoa,” Justin says, hauling me down by the waist. “Slow down. You’re going to get us kicked out of here.”
As I resist getting pulled down, tugging at the hands at my waist, Sam glares at Justin. “Get your hands off her.”
Justin blinks at him, his hands loosening on my waist.
“Now!” Sam says loudly, snarling.
Justin lets go and puts his hands up. “Whatever, dude.”
Romeo’s head whips toward Sam. “You’re not helping,” he says in a low tone.
People are still staring at us, but leaning across the table, I snap too, “What the hell, Sam? I can’t believe you!” My cheeks are heated. Not as much as my insides. I’m so angry, I could spit. In Sam’s face.
Sam’s jaw tightens again as he stares ahead. “Then that makes two of us,” he says loudly.
“Both of you, quiet down!” Romeo hisses. “And you—he points at me—“sit down.” After I sit and the table is silent for a few seconds, he asks in a neutral tone, “Is there something I’m not getting here?”
“Yeah,” Justin says, his brow creasing, “what the hell is going on?”
Both of them are staring at me as Gabe opens his mouth, and I do kick him in the shin. He yelps.
I grip the edge of the table. “Sam is an asshole. That’s what’s going on.” I scoot over and my hip hits Justin’s. “Let. Me. Out.”
Justin doesn’t budge. “Our order should be here any minute.”
After eating only sandwiches and cereal for the past three days, even the lure of real, hot food can’t keep me sitting at the same table with Sam. I bump Justin’s hip again, harder this time. “Have them box mine up.”
Putting up his hands in surrender, Justin slides out of the booth to let me out.
I slide out too, glaring at Sam.
He stirs his iced tea again and stares into his glass. Refusing to look at me, he mumbles, “Overreact much?”
My hands clench into fists as Justin slides back into the booth. Maybe I am overreacting, but I feel so betrayed that achieving calm isn’t possible.
“Not enough,” I say bitterly, grabbing Justin’s ice water. Sam still doesn’t look at me until the cold splash of water hits him in the face.
Sputtering at me, he gasps. His blue eyes are an angry flash of ice.
“There,” I say, smiling smugly. “Now I’m overreacting.” As Sam stares at me with fire in his eyes, the water continues dripping down his face. I drop the empty plastic cup into his lap, then march out of the diner.