All characters property of Stephenie Meyer.

Baby You Can Drive My Car

Chapter Ten

And incredibly, when I got out into the main room and started talking to people out there, no-one else thought I'd been a lame dead-ass. No-one except my band of course, who always thought so anyway.

There were twenty or thirty people hanging around, and they wanted to ask questions and buy us drinks and tell us they loved us, and get us to sign any old scrap of paper they could come up with. One girl wanted Mike to sign her boob. I could have chucked my cookies all over again, it was so revolting. Not her boob - the look on his face. They both disappeared after that, and I couldn't fucking see why anybody would want him near any of their body parts at all. Maybe it was something about bass players.

Speaking of the mysterious appeal of bassplayers, Lauren, surprise surprise, was glued to Tyler. I bet she'd like him to sign her boob with his fucking tongue.

"So, Bella when are you guys putting out a cd?" someone asked and someone else said, "I heard you talking on the radio today and decided to come along, and you were amazing," and on it went. "Have you got any band t-shirts?" "Can I have my photo taken with you?" All straight to my head.

I had control of my limbs by now and was no longer staggering, in fact I was moving with my usual feline grace and I went from group to group, keeping one eye out for Deadwood, and the other for the Jaspinator.

Jasper found me pretty quickly.

"Darlin', feeling better? Another juice? Let me get it it for you. Or why don't you come with me?" he said, and took my hand. I'd had my ego so stroked by now I was pretty much floating on air, and I allowed him to guide me back to the band room. He got the OJ out of the fridge and poured us one each.

"Are you having fun, Mizz Bella?" he asked and by now I was. He and I were in there alone together, and he watched me as I took a sip.

"I am now, but I wasn't during our set, no. I was severely hungover after I more or less skinny-dipped in the hotel pool last night a little too long after the witching hour," I told him, and whoops. What I said had wiped the smile clean off his face. Could eyes darken? It looked like his just had. And had I noticed how perfectly formed his mouth was before? His lips were slightly pursed, and slightly open. Christ, I hadn't seen a finer mouth during two years of studying art history at high school, and looking at mouths formed by the greatest portraitists known. His was full, beautifully defined, and extremely expressive and pardon - was he speaking to me?

"You were skinny-dipping? With your band?" he enquired softly, his voice that Southern drawl that adds syllables. It sounded like he actually said "bay-and". It sounded like his voice could strip layers of clothing, and reduce me to last night's condition of pretty much nudity, apart from one very small pair of panties. And his voice could probably divest me of those pretty quickly. I had to make him laugh.

"No," I admitted. "I was by ma-seyulf."

He didn't laugh. Oh shee-yit.

"I got in a whole heap of trouble with hotel security for inelegant swimming," I added quickly. "I broke all fourteen points of the water code, so I'm going to lay off the alcohol until I've been to water-ballet school."

And he grinned again, averting what could have become a crisis.

"Ok, Bella, you're not drinking. Do you smoke?" he asked, and I shook my head.

"What do you do?" he persisted.

I turn into a complete no-hope fucking natural disaster around sexy boys. Maybe it was time to get out of that little room.

"I chew gum. It's my only vice. Uh, I think our adoring public want us," I said, taking his hand, and he shrugged, and we went back out. Deadwood let us all have about another twenty minutes until he turned up with the cattle prod. I hadn't even talked to any more of the adoring public because the Jaspinator had been telling me tour stories and I'd been concentrating on keeping a distance of around a foot between me and him at all times.

As Deadwood was doing his rounds collecting us, we suddenly realized no-one knew quite where Mike was.

"He went off with some girl," Ron shrugged, and Edward swore. He went charging through the door, after ordering the rest of us to stay put. Mike was the only one of us who ever went off with people after shows, and he didn't have a girlfriend, so I suppose it was okay, apart from the gross factor. But we were on tour now, in a strange city, and he could be anywhere. He wasn't answering his phone.

It turned out he wasn't far. Edward found him and the girl on the fire escape, and he hauled them back inside. Fuck knows what was going on out there. Eww. I was fucking glad I hadn't been the one to go looking. And I was so fucking glad it wasn't me solo on the receiving end of one of Edward's little pep talks for once. He very clearly told all of us to be responsible, to inform him if we were leaving the venue temporarily, and to have our phones handy and working at all times. And to never ignore a call from Edward.

"Takes it all very seriously, doesn't he?" Jasper murmured to me.

"You have no idea," I answered darkly.

"Oh, it's a good thing. You're lucky to have him. He's running a tight ship," Jasper said. "God, we heard about a TM once who went back to a hotel with two girls offering him a threesome, and he had the night's takings in his bag - they tied him to a bed and stole the lot. He was found the next morning by the cleaners. The money was never recovered, and once they'd tied him up, the girls reneged on the sex."

"Ok, that's bad. The money part and the sex part. I guess Deadwood would never let something like that happen," I said, and God, I didn't know where my head was at. Would Deadwood go anywhere with two girls offering him a menasha twa? Not on tour, he wouldn't, I was sure of it, but what about otherwise? And come to think of it - what was happening to the takings from every night?

"We're moving out people, mosey on along," Edward called, and Jasper's hand was on my arm.

"See you tomorrow, lovely girl," he said, lips to my cheek for the second time that night, and I went out, grabbing Lauren on the way. She was flushed, pink spread along her cheekbones and even down her throat.

"Is it just you, or was it getting a little steamy back there?" I said and she actually giggled. She's not the giggling type.

"Fuck, Lauren, you're so fucking hot right now, let's sit up the back and make sweet love," I said loud enough for everyone to hear, and we clambered in.

Mike got up front with Edward, completely unabashed about recent events, and started to discuss football, with Ron sitting in the middle humming, and Ben hunched down staring at a game.

I sat with Lauren but she was looking dreamy and glazed and was no company, so I lurched back up to the front seat.

"Eddie, I have some tour managery questions for you," I began, sitting right behind Deadwood. Mike grimaced at me and plugged himself into his i-pod. I had a whole bunch of questions, actually, and I was ready to fire them.

"Yes Bella?" Edward asked politely, eyes on the road.

Now, alcohol blurs the edges. It softens them. With no alcohol in my system, my edges were perfectly honed, and lovely and sharp.

"Why don't we have any merch?" I said. One.

"Carlisle had t-shirts organized but there was a problem with the suppliers not getting them to the printers on time, and we had to source new stock. Carlisle's found a printer in the town we're due in tomorrow and I should be able to pick them up once we get in so they'll be ready for tomorrow night's show. We'll carry the extras with us, and we'll pay whoever is selling the Monsters' merch at every venue to sell ours as well."

Impressive. Behind the scenes planning, implementation and damage control. You get points, Deadwood, and so does dear old Dad.

"Nice work. Why aren't we recording shows so we can sell live cd's?" Two.

"Sam's doing a desk-recording every night and giving me a cd, but so far the budget hasn't stretched to a full multi-track set-up. Carlisle's organized one for the last show - and he's bringing in an engineer who specializes in live recordings. You'll be able to get it all mixed and made available on the website, and you can sell it on the next tour."

"You seem to have things in hand," I grudgingly admitted. He certainly did. I kept perving at those capable hands, at their grip on the wheel, at the finger porn right there in front of me, and the forearm, and fuck me, bicep porn peeping out of his shirt sleeve. Oh God. Don't look at the thighs, the thigh porn is too much. Ask another question. Might as well load up on the voice porn. He had a fucking beautiful voice.

"What's happening to the takings from every night?" Three.

No hesitation. "We were offered a flat rate at the beginning of the tour. Carlisle then negotiated a bonus per night based on the number of people through the door. The Monsters' management and I get the nights' figures from the venue managers and I take our cut, in cash, which I leave in the hotel safe overnight. In the morning I'm at the nearest bank by ten a.m. to deposit it."

Shit, he was already up and taking care of business while we were all still asleep? I couldn't fault the guy. He had everything under control.

"Well, Gog, that crash course you did in how to tour manage has certainly earned its accreditation. You're completely on top of things, aren't you?"

"I hope so," he said, and he didn't look into the mirror at me, it was still eyes on the road.

"Are you taking a record of the set lists so when we submit a live performance return to the royalties agency we'll get properly paid?" Four.

"I am, yes. Erik gives me a copy every night and I'm keeping a spreadsheet."

"Well, fuck. Mr Efficiency. I am very, very pleased with your performance, may I just say?" I purred. "I have just one more question. Now that I'm not drinking any alcohol, we need to make an amendment to the rider. Don't you think you should ask me what I want?" Five.

We were stopped at a red light or I never would have done what I did. I leaned around the driver's head rest and I put my hands on his shoulders. That's all I intended to do. It wasn't my fucking fault that he was wearing a t-shirt that was loose at the neck, and that my right hand slipped inside the neck-band. It wasn't my fault that his skin felt the way it did, that it was so fucking smooth that my hand just slid a little into his t-shirt, and then slid a little more, and my fingertips touched chest hair, and that fucking warm, soft, breathing, velvet, silken, muscled, alive, male fucking skin. I felt his heartbeat, and I felt it speed up under my touch. My eyes flew to his in the rear view mirror, and his gaze shot up to mine, and that thing happened again. That fucking thing, where everything disappeared and he and I somehow went all cave person on one another and it was me woman, you man, stripped back to absolute basics. Primal. There's a new idea that the Neanderthals didn't die out, they interbred with homo sapiens, and there's a little bit of Neanderthal in all of us. I saw it in Edward and myself right then. Well, I don't know what I saw, apart from all veneer gone, and a sheer, unadorned physical awareness of one another in its place. My mouth opened in shock and his heart jolted wildly and I know my tongue came out to moisten my suddenly dry lips, and I saw him stare at my tongue.

Jesus Christ. All I wanted to do was jump over that seat, sit across him, and taste him. I wanted to fucking eat him. I wanted to consume him.

"What do you want, Bella?" he asked me quietly.

His hand came up to take my wrist, and stop my hand, which was slipping further in to his shirt. Fuck, my middle finger must have been just about at his nipple. He didn't shove me away though. We sat suspended and staring until a horn blasted rudely behind us, and we both looked up through the windscreen to see the lights had changed to green.

I whipped my hand out from his shirt, and Mike came back to life with the sound of the horn, which was joined by a few more, and he said, "Jesus, Bella you freakhag, don't you know you should fucking sit down in a vehicle? What are you doing over Edward's shoulder anyway? Are you trying to check the odometer or something? You're fucking weird."

"Bite yourself," I mumbled, and sank back into the seat next to Ben. He had earbuds in and I grabbed one and stuck it in my own ear. He didn't care - he and I got along fine. I listened to his game sounds as he played, and I like a lot of the game music. I concentrated on it so I didn't have to let my brain wander to what the holy-hecking fuck was happening between me and my tour manager.

We glided to a stop in the car park in the basement of the hotel and we all filed obediently out, Deadwood waiting wordlessly next to the van. I briefly thought about making up some excuse to keep him there - "Oh, Edward, I dropped my contact lens, could you help me?" and then I thought never mind excuses - why don't I just throw him against the side and have him, somehow? Anyhow?

But Lauren was fussing about in the back seat and not coming out, and I went to see what the hold-up was, and my girl was crying. She was hiding in there, fucking crying.

I prioritized, quickly.

"Come on, Lollipop, darling, come with me. I'll kiss you better," I promised her, and I turned to Edward. "Er, women's business," I explained.

He looked alarmed and stepped back while I put my arm around Lauren to help her clamber out. I was murmuring comforting things like, "Sshh, baby, it's okay," as I took her upstairs, poor little sobbing thing. Whatever her problem was, surely it could be fixed with the contents of the mini-bar. Mini-bars fix everything, don't they?

.

.

.

That's true about mini-bars.

Except the next morning, when you get the bill.