The past few days had flown by in a whirlwind that had Sunday absolutely exhausted. She couldn't possibly motivate herself to do anything today to take advantage of their hard-won day off. Many of the crew and the other bands, hell, many of Motionless, were headed out to see varying sights throughout St. Louis, but all she wanted to do was catch up on sleep and maybe, if she was lucky, sneak in some reading. She was highly engrossed in her current ebook, a supernatural horror retelling of the Donner Party's story, and all she wanted to do was to snuggle in with her Kindle and some quietude.
Chris had begged and pleaded with her to come out, but she had urged him to go with the others and maybe, if he was lucky, she would feel inspired to catch up with them later in the day. There had been some back and forth, but eventually he agreed to a nice dinner, just the two of them as a consolation for her wanton laziness. She kissed him goodbye as he grabbed his phone and headed out with Spencer from Ice Nine and a few of the crew, mumbling about some awesome haunted house that they were going to check out.
When silence finally descended upon the bus, Day sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Blissful, joyous, magnificent peace and quiet. Living on a bus with a bunch of guys meant that she never had a moment alone, and certainly not a quiet moment alone. Right now, she could orgasm sheerly from the joy of utter silence.
"SUNDAY?" someone yelled from above her.
Groaning, she shoved her head out of the curtain of the bunk and glared upward. A pair of gorgeously haunting cornflower blue eyes stared down at her. "Sunday, why didn't you go with the others?" His voice was especially deep from sleep, gritty grains of slumber making his words gruff.
She frowned. "Why didn't you go with them?"
Rick hooked a strand of long raven hair behind his left ear and eyed her curiously. "I wanted to have some peace and quiet."
"I wanted to have some peace and quiet too," she couldn't help but to laugh at the irony.
A smile stretched lazily across his lips at this. "I haven't been sleeping well lately. Insomnia, you know? I thought maybe if the idiots were all gone I'd be able to get some rest, or at the very least do some reading."
"Same," she laughed. "What are you reading?"
He disappeared inside his bunk and then reappeared at the edge, waving an orangey red book in the air. "Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. He did the Wayward Pines series, and he writes a lot of quantum mechanics-based shit that's so fucking bizarre but brilliant."
She held up her Kindle and then giggled. "I'm reading The Hunger by Alma Katsu. It's a supernatural horror retelling of the Donner Party."
"Are you having an old friend for dinner?" he quipped, cocking his head to the side and smirking playfully.
She couldn't help but laugh. "Alright Olson, you're funny. But you still better keep your fucking mouth shut so that I can get some peace and quiet. Honestly, if I had to listen to Chris ramble for another 10 minutes, I was going to take my shoe off and smack him with it. How do you do it? After a week, the sound of his voice began to go straight through me."
"Well," he grinned at her confession, "he does talk a lot. But that's kind of a lead singer thing, isn't it? I just always assumed that it came with the territory."
"Didn't you used to sing in a band?" she inquired, setting her Kindle back into her blankets and focusing on the guitarist. "I could swear that Chris showed me a video on YouTube of you singing in a band."
He blushed profusely. "I would not say that anything that I did qualified as singing, Day. Screaming, okay. Screaming very poorly and incoherently, definitely. But singing? No, not really. But yes, I was a frontman. A very, very shitty frontman."
Settling into their conversation, Day pulled her hair up into a high bun, fastened it haphazardly and then sighed. "You're a great guitarist. Maybe that was always meant to be your calling?"
Rick hopped down from his bunk and sat in the empty space across from her, which happened to be Shane's bunk. The drum tech was so easygoing that he would hardly care. "Thanks," he laughed. "I guess I'm not so bad. It works out though, because Ryan and I seem to work well as a team."
"He's so sweet," Sunday mused about the band's other guitarist. "He just always says and does the nicest things. Did you see the other day when AJ wasn't feeling so good, Ry went and got him some medicine and juice?"
"They've been best friends for years," Rick shrugged. "They're like brothers."
"It's sweet," she smiled. "I like seeing that there are still thoughtful people left in this fucked up world of ours."
He laughed at this, but nodded emphatically. "I'm very much the same. Sometimes I start to lose a little faith in humanity, but then someone will do something that will give me an ounce of hope. Thankfully, I think most of the people that we surround ourselves with these days are the good ones, you know? We busted our asses to get to a comfortable place and there was no point in bringing a bunch of assholes with us. I think we've found a good group now. Everyone seems to gel well."
She chewed on her bottom lip and began fidgeting with one of her blue socks. "They really do. When Chris asked me to do the tour, I expected that there was going to be a period of adjustment where I would have to prove myself, you know? So that they would see that I'm not some annoying girlfriend that clings to him and goes everywhere he goes; that I'm my own person. But that never seemed to happen. Hell, I think the only person that I get awkward vibes from is Chris himself."
Ricky's eyes widened. "From Chris?"
"Sometimes it feels like he doesn't really want me here," she confessed in a quick gasp and then immediately regretted it. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said any of this. Please ignore me."
"It's cool." He held up a hand and touched her wrist gently. "You can talk to me, Day. I'm not going to flip out or run and tell him what you say. It's between us. We're friends, right?"
She felt a conflicted blend of cautious optimism and a candid fear, wanting to elaborate on her relationship and seek his wisdom but realizing that her boyfriend's best friend might not be the best counsel to seek. To appease all facets of her frustrated need, she chose middle ground and tried to self censor her confession. "Some days it just feels like he would rather I not be here." She tried to shrug this off dismissively and forced a smile. "I guess that's just natural in such close quarters. They do say that you can have too much of a good thing!"
Rick shrugged back at her with a smile of his own. "Sure. But if you want my perspective on things, Chris seems more content than ever before on this run. I don't think he's unhappy with you being here at all, quite the opposite, actually." He paused, collected his thoughts and then continued softly. "Sunday, Chris is never an easy book to read but he's an exceptional guy. We've all seen him go through relationships that were horrible and made him miserable. I can't say how he feels about you, for sure, but I know he's happy right now. Surely some of that has to do with your relationship and you being here."
Day slowly tasted a lengthy breath and then felt some of the stress weighing her shoulders evaporate. "Thank you for saying that. Maybe it's just me? I guess it could also be the financial strain on the band that's making him a little snappy."
His blue eyes widened at this. "What financial strain?"
"Oh," Sunday yawned. "Something about the label or management or someone being unamused with the money that was promised to the other bands, and not being thrilled that you guys are taking a smaller cut for the tour. He said something about having to put his foot down so they didn't dock Vin's pay." She yawned again and suddenly felt all the hours of lost sleep catching up to her. "He said that he's been under a lot of stress because of all of that business stuff."
Rick frowned. "We're making more money for this tour than we've ever made before in our entire career as a band. We all just took home some nice bonuses, in fact." He seemed to chew over his next few words slowly, continuing to frown. "Unless there's something going on that even I don't know about."