Flesh & Bone - a contemporary romance: The Minstrel Series #2 (22 page)

Markus eyed her from the rearview mirror. “Hi, Eva.”

“Hi, Markus,” she said softly. “Nice to meet you.” She knew his face, of course, from the website and from seeing him on TV, but now that she knew Sebastian the way she did, she wasn’t fazed by his celebrity status.

A short time later, they drove into a neighborhood of brick warehouses, most of them abandoned with small yards overrun by weeds, and pulled up beside the tour bus.

Eva saw Dirk and Karl waiting for them. Like Markus, Eva hadn’t met them personally, but she knew who they were. Karl had his arm around a short girl with spiky blue hair. Eva remembered Yvonne from the previous year when it was Sebastian’s arm that had been draped around her. Only then, the girl’s hair had been pink.

She reached for Sebastian’s hand and held on tightly.

Yvonne scowled when her gaze landed on Eva, moving from her face to her cane. She rolled her eyes like the sight of Eva disgusted her. Eva’s feelings toward Yvonne were less than amiable, too, and she couldn’t imagine a more awkward tour situation. Sebastian had been with Yvonne for a long time,
years
, and Eva knew they’d had a physical relationship. Sebastian had told her outright that he’d asked Yvonne to move in with him, but for some reason she’d refused.

Eva could thank her for something.

Dirk waved to Eva, and Karl nodded an acknowledgment. Sebastian’s eyes darted between Eva and Yvonne, his expression one of discomfort and displeasure. He smiled faintly at Eva as if he hoped to encourage her before pitching in with the other guys to load up the final pieces of equipment.

Eva found herself standing alone with Yvonne and she felt mild dizziness, like she was trapped in a twisted, surreal alternate reality.

Again, Yvonne scanned Eva from head to toe and narrowed her eyes in contempt. “You must have a really nice personality.”

The first jab in record timing.

“Charm is deceitful, and beauty is fleeting,” Eva quipped. Yvonne’s eyes fluttered, like she didn’t understand, and then she left her suddenly to help the guys. Eva regretted her sharp tongue. Yvonne had lost Sebastian. Eva pitied her.

Yvonne carried a guitar in each hand and stepped onto the bus. Eva’s heart sunk. At least Yvonne could be helpful. Eva was just dead weight.

Sebastian returned and pulled Eva’s suitcase out of Markus’s trunk. He eyed her softly. “How are you doing?”

She shrugged. Her stomach had twisted into a hundred knots. She was dishonoring her parents by running off with a boy she loved but hadn’t known for that long, and his former longtime girlfriend, who still obviously had a thing for him, was coming along.

“I’m fine.”

He kissed her head. “I’m really glad you’re here.”

Sebastian introduced her to the bus driver, a middle-aged guy called Florian, and then she followed him onto the bus.

“Where should I sit?”

“Anywhere you like.”

She took a seat in the second row by the window and waited anxiously for Sebastian to join her. She needed the comfort of his presence. The warmth of his arm alongside hers. His fingers weaving through hers and squeezing. She closed her eyes and metered her breathing, slowly in and out. Her heart raced, and she worried she was going to have a panic attack. That was too humiliating to consider, which ironically made her pulse jump more erratically.

She let out a long breath when Sebastian settled in beside her. “Here.” He handed her a bottle of orange juice and a small plate with a croissant. She accepted them gratefully. She’d skipped breakfast, which wasn’t helping with her drop in blood sugar levels.

Florian drove them out of town and merged southward onto the autobahn. The mood on the bus was somber. Karl and Yvonne sat together on the opposite side of Eva and Sebastian, one row ahead. Eva noted how both Karl and Yvonne often glanced back at them. Eva couldn’t feel more out of place and unwanted as she did now in their presence. Dirk and Markus were friendlier. They’d offered her an understanding smile before each had claimed his own row, Markus behind Eva and Sebastian, and Dirk across from him. They reclined on their backs, feet hanging into the aisle, and fell asleep.

Eva’s phone buzzed. A text from Gabriele:
Mama told me what you did. Are you crazy?

She shoved the phone back in her purse. Gabriele was on her honeymoon. Surely she had more to do than interfere in Eva’s life.

Eva watched the scenery pass by: pastures and rolling hills, villages with their red-tiled-roof homes clustered together. She’d rarely been out of Dresden, and the world beyond both excited and frightened her. Her goal for the year was to face her fears, one by one, and speeding out of town was one of the easier ones.

After a while, they stopped at a rest stop to refuel and use the restrooms. Eva noticed that Sebastian only talked with Dirk and Markus, even about band stuff, adeptly ignoring Karl, and Karl did the same thing. The tension on the bus wasn’t Eva’s doing, she realized. It would’ve been thick even without her presence. She waited for Yvonne to exit the WC before taking her turn. They would never be friends, and avoiding close quarters and the pressure to engage in small talk was pertinent.

They took the opportunity to eat lunch at the restaurant there, again in three groups, with Florian sitting at a table with Dirk and Markus, Karl and Yvonne, and Sebastian and Eva on the other side of the room. Sebastian paid for the two of them, even though Eva offered to pay for hers.

He grinned and shook his head. “You’re my guest.”

Did that mean he was going to pay for everything for her? It wasn’t like she had a lot of money of her own. She didn’t get paid to work at the kitchen, and she never had a job. All she had was limited access to an insurance claim from her accident, and it wasn’t really a lot of money when she considered she had to finance the whole rest of her life somehow.

For the first time since her impulsive move to join Sebastian on this tour did she think about what her life was going to be like
afterward
. It was a big, blank page and the emptiness of it scared her to death.

She shook her head and refocused on her meal. There would be time to think about that later.

“Sorry about this somber bunch,” Sebastian said between bites. “Normally, we’re a lot more lively.”

“It’s fine.”

“The energy levels will rise as we get closer to Salzburg. Have you ever been there?”

Eva shook her head. “I’ve heard it’s beautiful. I had an American nurse when I was in rehab. When she heard I was a musician and music lover she gave me a DVD of a movie called
The Sound of Music,
which was filmed there. So you could say I’ve been to Salzburg vicariously.”

“I’ve never heard of that movie.”

“I hadn’t either, but apparently it’s very famous in America.”

“What’s it about?”

“An esteemed general from World War I hires a nun to care for his seven children. The nun trains them to sing—they all happen to be great singers, and the music in the movie is fabulous—and the unruly children along with the general fall in love with her.” Eva paused and grinned. “She decides she doesn’t want to be a nun anymore and marries the general.”

Sebastian arched a brow. “Sounds like a chick movie.”

“Except the Nazi party is taking root and expects the general to play nice. He doesn’t want to so he plans a daring escape with his family of nine across the Alps into Switzerland—a plan that almost fails because of a secret and forbidden romance between the eldest daughter and a young Nazi soldier.”

“Ah, that sounds better.”

“Don’t forget it’s based on a true story.”

Sebastian reached across the table for her hand and winked. “True stories are the best kind.”

Eva agreed. She smiled warmly at Sebastian. They were in the middle of writing their very own.

“We’re in Austria now,” Sebastian announced. He grinned at Eva’s eager expression as she pressed her face against the bus window.

The white-stone fortress spread across the top of the hill in the middle of the old city, glowing like a magical light in the summer sun. The perpetually snow-covered Alps lay majestically like broken teeth in the distance. Eva’s eyes never moved from the scene outside as the bus drove into the city center. Colorful row houses lined the banks of the River Salzach that sparkled like a jeweled bangle in the sunshine.

Eva sighed happily. “It’s so beautiful.”

Sebastian squeezed her shoulder. “I can’t believe you’ve never been to Austria before.”

“I haven’t been anywhere.”

“I’m definitely going to work on changing that. Tomorrow, before we head to Munich, we’ll take a tour of the fortress. There’s a gondola that goes right to the top, and the view is spectacular.”

Eva turned to him and smiled widely, and Sebastian couldn’t stop himself from kissing her forehead.

Florian parked the bus at their destination and everyone jumped out. They were greeted by the concert organizer, a young guy with spiky hair and an eyebrow ring, and they followed him inside the old building.

Sebastian loved the musky scent of ancient music halls. The worn wooden steps that led to an elevated stage, nicks in the walls from people hauling sound equipment and not quite navigating the turns, the peeling paint in the nooks and crannies—all echoing the performances of hundreds of artists who had played there before Hollow Fellows. Artists that dated back to Bach, and Mozart who had been born in Salzburg.

He set up his guitar stand onstage and unsnapped the case. Tech guys buzzed around him, setting up sound equipment and lights. He stood to gauge the empty space in front of him. The crew set up a few rows of chairs near the front, leaving the rest clear for the fans to stand and watch.

Eva sat in a chair stage left, waiting. Sebastian nodded and saluted. His excitement to play tonight grew as the hour to begin drew nearer and Eva’s presence just highlighted it all. This tour would’ve sucked without her.

His eyes darted to the other familiar figure on the opposite end of the row. Yvonne. Her eyes weren’t on Karl like they should be. They were on Sebastian. Her gaze followed him as he walked across the stage. It irked him to no end that she agreed to go on tour with Karl when she consistently refused his request for her to join him in the past.

The way she stared at him confirmed what he suspected. She wanted him back. “That’s not going to happen,” he muttered under his breath and turned away from her. Sebastian worked efficiently, making an extra effort to avoid Karl.

It was impossible to ignore him completely, and at one point Karl backed into him.

“Hey,” he said.

Sebastian grunted.

Karl grabbed his arm. “Are we cool?”

“You stole my girlfriend.”

“But you got a new one you seem to like a lot. It’s fate, Seb. Let’s just chill.”

“Fine. But we’re not friends. We just play in the same band.”

Once the stage was set up, another hour was spent on sound checking vocal mics, guitars, the drum kit, the monitor system. Over and over again. This was the grunt work. Sebastian felt bad for Eva. She’d pulled an e-reader out of her bag and was reading.

He jumped off the stage when the sound check ended.

“How are you?” he asked. “I know it’s a long wait.”

Eva slipped her reader back into her bag. “I’m fine. Nice to catch up on my reading.”

“The greenroom is ready. You must be hungry.”

“I am. Lead the way.”

The greenroom wasn’t actually green. It was just the standard name used by all musicians for the room where they waited before a gig. It usually had food and beverages, and this one was no different. A broad selection of buns, meat, cheese and salads, along with water, fizzy drinks and beer filled a table along the back wall. Everyone loaded up plates and sat at a second table to eat.

Sebastian excused himself to use the facilities, and when he returned he walked up behind Eva who was conversing with Yvonne. It freaked him out. His old girlfriend and new, talking. The expression on Eva’s face told him she wasn’t enjoying it very much.

“He’s just with you to get back at me,” Yvonne said.

“If he wanted to be with you, he’d be with you.”

“You don’t know him like I do. Sebastian isn’t all that you think…”

“Yvonne!”

The girls spun, and Yvonne forced a smile. “Sebastian, Eva and I were just getting to know each other a little.”

Sebastian threaded his arm through Eva’s. “I heard you, Yvonne. You’re not my spokesperson.”

He led Eva away before Yvonne could respond. “Don’t listen to a word she says.”

Eva answered, “Don’t worry. I’m not.”

Tension filled the greenroom as the clock ticked. The band had changed into stage clothes, basically just cleaner versions of what they all wore earlier, and waited while the local opening band finished their set.

Finally, there was a knock on the door. “You guys are up.”

Sebastian stopped to kiss Eva just before he went backstage. “Are you going to be all right?” he asked. He’d made sure a seat in the front row had been reserved for her, but he hated leaving her alone with a thousand strangers.