A/N: Thanks for the reviews of the last chapter, glad you liked it. this was updated as a request to someone so I hope that it doesn't disappoint them. Anyways, hope the chapter is enjoyable and that you like it and if you want to review it, then I hope you do, it always makes my day! :)
"Who do you think is amazing?"
She asks him, but he pretends to not hear her or that he's too busy or something to do before she inquires even further. Or he at least wants some excuse so he doesn't have to tell her the truth, that he finds her pretty damn amazing. What hasn't entered his mind yet is the fact that this person, whom he assumes to be the mystery person that has been hounding him for a while now thinks that Stephanie is amazing too. That's strange, but he hasn't thought of that yet. It will probably come to him later, when his mind isn't racing with explanations.
"Chris, who's amazing?" she asks again, then she sits up in her seat a little and he fears that she knows that it's her he was talking about. If she does know, he can explain it away that he just thinks she's an amazing friend, which she is, not that she's an amazing anything else because frankly they aren't really anything else, no matter how attracted he is to her. She's off-limits, she's Paul's, not his and he understands that.
"Um, nobody," he answers, thinking, hoping that she'll drop it.
She does not as she bounces in her seat a little, "Oh my God, Chris," she speaks and it's high-pitched and tinged with excitement, "is there a diva or something that you like, is there someone you have a crush on?"
"What, are we in middle school?" he jokes because joking is easy and it covers up whatever else he might be feeling right now, whatever that feeling is that he is suppressing. He almost feels like he's suppressing a lot when he's around Stephanie, which as time passes is more and more. Not that he minds, not really because he likes her and he likes spending time with her.
"Men can have crushes, crushes can exist all the time, even if you're a really old man you can have a crush," she tells him, then almost seems like she wants to clap her hands in excitement. "Who is it, who is it?" she wants to know and he doesn't want to tell her. Well, maybe part of him wants to tell her, but that part is being stamped down right now.
"It's nobody, I was just talking about…Lady Gaga…" He's not sure where the hell that came from, but since everyone and their mother seems to be creaming over the woman, he figures that it's an appropriate if not a little odd answer.
"Lady Gaga? The singer?" she says and it's obvious she's trying not to snicker.
"I think she's got some really good songs," he tells her, trying to save face. "I mean, people are saying she's pretty revolutionary and innovative and just what the pop scene needs."
"And some people say she's just like Madonna, but like the poor man's Madonna," Stephanie shoots back at him and he smiles at her. "I can't believe you think she's amazing, I might have to rethink this entire friendship. It could be a deal-breaker."
"You wouldn't," Chris pretends to be aghast, "that would be a deal-breaker. If I were a guy who picked my nose and then wiped it on your shirt, then yes, stop being friends with me by all means, but because I happen to like a particular artist?"
"I'm a harsh and cruel mistress," she responds and he thinks about her in some latex catsuit, whip in hand, her hair in a high ponytail and is he really thinking about Stephanie being a dominatrix? Does he really want to let those thoughts into his mind when he's about to spend days with her on a very cramped, very small bus? "Now, before I really do start to hit you or whatever, can we please go, we're already off schedule."
"Yeah, we can go," he snatches up the computer, that offensive item and instead of throwing it out the window like he wants to, he puts it back in its case and zips it up. Stephanie grabs it from him, shoulder it and he wants to take it from her, but she shakes her head and is already out the door by the time he can even pretend to protest. He zips up his luggage and puts it on the ground as he rolls it behind him and goes after her.
Her bus is sitting downstairs, waiting for him. They have a driver, which Chris should have expected because he can't picture Paul sitting behind the big wheel and driving anywhere. There's a partition that slides between the driver and the rest of the bus so as soon as he steps on they are alone for all intents and purposes and though he has been on the bus a couple times since they've been friends, it has never felt quite as small as it does now. She's given him the official tour and he knows there are a couple bunk beds leading to the "master bedroom," and that will be where he sleeps. He sets his bag on one of those beds and then goes and sits at the little dinette area they have set up. She comes over and sits across from him as Chris hears the bus start up and they start rolling.
"Thank you again for coming to stay with me for the weekend," she tells him, but she need not thank him so much. He should be thanking her for getting to spend time with her. Somewhere in the future, there is a man who is thankful for getting to spend any kind of time with her. "I know that we're going to have our very own grand adventure!"
"Through the Midwest?" he laughs.
"Of course, where better to have one?" she wonders. "You always have those silly little rest stops and we have to find all of them and then stop and take silly pictures with things like the world's biggest ball of yarn or that place entirely made out of corn! We'll stop at them all and buy crappy souvenirs and then you can give them for Christmas presents and people will hate you, but that's half the fun."
"I have a feeling you've done this," he tells her, loving her enthusiasm. Whenever he sees Paul, he's always so intense and focused and he can't imagine him "having an adventure" like Stephanie just told him. He sees Paul just wanting to wrestle over and over again and then study his wrestling over and over again. Once again, he does not see anything in common between Stephanie and Paul and if that is the case, then he can't see Paul as being completely faithful, though now that he thinks about it…
The person said that they thought Stephanie was amazing as well. If they thought that and they were cheating with Paul, why would they think she was amazing? Unless they meant something like she was amazingly stupid. If Paul were cheating right under her nose then this person could think she was amazingly stupid and gullible for not realizing what was going on. If that's the case, it makes him want to seek out this person and shake them, telling them all the wonderful things about Stephanie.
Then her hand is on his and he stares down at it as she brings him back from wherever his mind went. "Well, I did when I was younger, when I used to travel with my parents. There wasn't a lot for a girl to do on the road as you traveled from place to place. My parents were so overprotective of me that they wouldn't let me stay home alone even though I was a teenager at the time so I'd come along and I'd have to occupy my time somehow, right?"
"So you would find cheesy things to do?" he says.
"Yeah."
"But you don't do that with Paul?"
"Not so much," Stephanie answers, "Paul is a little bit more serious, which isn't a bad thing."
"Just one of those things you were talking about before," he remembers how she said that they were different, how they weren't really happy, rough spots, but then, Paul didn't want her to be alone on this trip, was fine with him coming along, was that just him not caring about Stephanie or him genuinely concerned for her safety?
"Chris, Paul and I will be fine" she explains to him. "It's just one of those things that you have to work around, get over, you know. Nothing is wrong between us, it's just not completely right. And please don't believe those rumors, I swear, he's not cheating on me."
As far as she knew, Chris thinks to himself. He can't help but let those thoughts into his brain, but he has to put them out of his brain for now because if he lets himself think about them, being in such close proximity to her, he might do something stupid, like pull her hands towards him and then lean over this table and kiss her, just gently, just their mouths pressing together, nothing more. Yes, he might just do that and he doesn't think she would actually appreciate that. Or she might. Maybe she's just looking for a better situation, a situation that he can give her if he'd let him. He knows that he can give to her if she would just let him.
"I believe you," he says instead because he doesn't think starting off their road trip with a fight is the best idea with such close quarters.
"You don't seem to," she observes, "but that's okay, nobody's asking you to believe anything I say."
"I just worry about you," he tells her, holding back from spilling everything. "I don't want you to get hurt."
"Do you know something I don't?" she asks and he thinks about telling her what he's heard, what he might know, but it really is all conjecture and hearsay and he could very well be making it up because it suits him.
"No, I don't, I mean, he's your husband, if anyone should know what their husband is doing, I guess it would be his wife."
"Or his wife is really the last to know," she laughs, "make yourself comfortable, mi casa es su casa for the weekend. So live it up, Mr. Irvine."
"How can I live it up on a bus?" he wonders and she grabs his hand and then pulls him over to a couch, pushing his shoulders down so he sits. She goes over to a wall and opens a panel with a bunch of electronics and then opens another panel with a whole stack of DVD's.
"What do you want to watch?" she asks. "We have a ton of stuff."
"I don't care, you can choose," he tells her and she nods, pulling something from the pile and putting it into the DVD player, turning on the plasma screen they have sitting on the far end of the bus. She finishes with that and comes to sit next to him and she's actually cuddling him at the moment.
It makes him wonder if Paul is cheating, who is to say that Stephanie can't very well do the same thing? He just automatically thinks her as innocent, but with her cuddling up to him now, he has to wonder if maybe she isn't so innocent. He doesn't know the true nature of her relationship with Paul, but maybe she simply wouldn't care because perhaps she's the same way. Maybe she wants to cheat as well, maybe she has cheated. Stephanie isn't the innocent creature that he thinks her sometimes, he knows this because he's seen her with business dealings, the way she can take charge and then take someone down the next second. She can be ruthless, but he wants to believe she is that innocent creature.
In a not so distant future, Chris keeps seeing signs of her popping all over his house. He relishes each one. He remembers too, he remembers these moments and feels them and yet, she's nowhere to be found and he starts to wonder if it's all futile. They said he could fix one past mistake, but what if that mistake cannot be fixed. Death is so permanent, what if it's just entrenched in a life, that no matter the circumstances, no matter how hard you work to avoid it, your death is inevitable, a set moment that cannot be changed. He wants to believe that she'll come back, but he knows, even unwittingly though it is, that it might not happen. He hopes to wake up one morning and see her smiling face back at him, but this whole operation could fail.
At least he's getting the memories.
