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“Nah, I’ll wake him,” Bowie said, bounding past him to get to the bunks.
“Bowie…”
“Too late,” I muttered when Bowie bellowed Claude’s name, hitting decibel levels that should have been outlawed in enclosed spaces.
For the second time that morning, there was a thud as a body hit the floor. Tony growled and launched into the song of the same namesake, so he must have been thinking the same thing as I was. Bowie came out singing it too, with Claude on his heels, hair sticking up everywhere. If looks could kill, we’d all have fried on the spot.
“How much caffeine have you guys been drinking?” Claude asked, looking around at everyone.
“None yet,” Bowie said, “we can drink it on the way to the axes.”
“Axes?” Claude muttered, skidding as he slipped on a pen. “What the hell, and why are there pens everywhere, again?”
“Sorry,” Tibby said, kneeling to collect them, “we fell asleep working on the ending to Twilight’s Edge. I umm, think it’s done, actually.”
“As done as it can be until we polish it, so you can have it tonight to go over. Now quit fussing and fix your hair, we’ve got axes to throw unless you want someone to give you a trim with one,” Bowie declared, shocking the snark out of Claude who stood there blinking.
“Go-karts too,” I said before Claude could dream up a comeback. “Full body virtual reality games in addition to an arcade and I signed us all up to race in giant hamster balls. There’s a steakhouse inside where we’ll be having lunch. It’s all ours for the afternoon gentlemen so go enjoy it and have fun.”
“Go-karts and throwing axes?” Tibby said. “We love you Wolf!”
“Seriously man, throwing axes, we’re talking major badassary right there,” Bowie said. “Hell yeah!”
“Race you to the track!” Tibby said, nearly bowling Pressley over on his way off the bus.
“The t-track,” Bowie stammered.
“You don’t have to if you don’t…” Pressley began, cut off when Bowie kissed him.
“I always loved go-karts,” Bowie admitted, then poof, he was gone right behind Tibby.
“Shit, he’s gonna drive?” Tony squeaked, dragging me off the bus and into the brightness of the desert afternoon. “Hell yeah. Wait for us!”
So much for the part about drinking our coffee on the way to the axes, next time, I might want to think about filling a thermos the night before, so I’d have a shot at grabbing it. Maybe. He was so excited that unless I’d had it right beside me, I’d have been shit out of luck. Guess his happiness would have to be my fuel for the day.
“How’d you find this place?” Tony asked, walking with me instead of racing Bowie and Tibby, who’d already had a huge headstart by the time we got off the bus.
“Just searching for things along our route,” I replied. “The go-karts caught my attention. The rest was a bonus.”
“You guys really woke me up for go-karts…” Claude muttered.
It sounded like he was just behind us. I almost whirled around and snapped at him to go back to the bus and sleep if he had a problem with it, and I’d have been dead wrong for it too.
“This is fucking awesome!” Claude hollered, racing past us with no chance of catching up to Tibby and Bowie, who I couldn’t see anymore, while Tony giggled, shaking his head at his drummer.
“I like him when he’s like that,” Tony said. “The rest of the time I wish we could strap him to the luggage rack.”
Pressley laughed as hard as I did, the three of us catching up to the rest of the band at the go-kart track, where they already had helmets on and were picking cars.
“Have you ever raced these before?” Tony asked.
“Several times. What about you, Little Wren?”
“Nope. Another first. I love ticking off firsts with you.”
“I love watching your face while you do something new,” I replied, “or see something for the first time.”
We were the last to get our helmets because he wouldn’t stop hugging me, but none of the guys hollered at us to hurry the fuck up. Did they realize how much he needed them? My poor touch starved boy. Well, Bowie knew. Tibby was intuitive enough to have figured it out. Claude wasn’t being a shit, which was as good as it got with him. Pressley smiled as we finally climbed in and revved the engines, waiting for the light to change from red to green.
