There was no reason for me to feel weird about being in the sauna with Sandy and Dave.
At least, that’s what I tried to tell myself, but the reality was that I did feel weird. Really weird. She still had a crush on him and also still bewilderingly thought they had some sort of chemistry. Thankfully, we’d all been busy enough the last couple of days that she hadn’t talked about it much, but I could tell by the way she always stole glances at him when she thought she wouldn’t get caught (by him—anyone else could see plain as day that she was fawning over him), that he was still very much on her radar.
That, compounded with his admission by non-admission that he had feelings for me, was a recipe for extreme awkwardness, especially at such close quarters. Like being in a sauna wasn’t hot enough.
But there wasn’t much I could do about it without shining a light on my awkwardness, so I followed Sandy in, really wishing I wasn’t in just a bathing suit. A borrowed bathing suit that didn’t fit very well, either. It would have been fine for just slipping into the hot tub with my best friend where I’d be covered by bubbles, but here and now, sitting on a wooden bench in front of Dave, I felt very exposed. At least I’d insisted on her one-piece. The bikini she had on was pretty tiny.
“Hey,” he said, giving us a friendly smile. He was in a pair of light blue and white Hawaiian print board shorts, sitting on a towel. No shirt.
I did my best to push away thoughts of him shirtless, only to be replaced with worry over him noticing how badly my suit fit, how it showed a lot more side boob than I was comfortable with.
“I’ll get us some towels,” Sandy announced right before she disappeared out the door, leaving Dave and I alone before I could say I’d go. I stood there like a dolt, keeping my eyes on his face.
“Fancy meeting you here,” I said and then fought a cringe. “Sorry.”
“S’okay,” he said, looking almost as awkward as I felt. His cheeks were flushed pink, but that might have been from the heat.
“How come you’re not with the other guys?” I asked lamely, praying for Sandy to hurry up.
He chuckled. “Same reason you’re not, I would think.”
“Good point.”
“They’re all down in the restaurant with your dad watching a baseball game—except for Max. Anyway, I needed some quiet.”
Did that mean he wanted me to leave? I suddenly very much wanted to but didn’t want to be rude. Or make it even weirder for us once we got back on the bus. Sandy would be right back anyway, I told myself.
I stood there for another long moment, though it was probably only seconds, before I almost started whistling to fill the awkward silence. Thankfully, Sandy opened the door then, her arm outstretched, a towel dangling from her fingers.
“The hot tub’s warm enough,” she announced as I took the towel from her. Then, without another word, she left again, the door swinging closed with a dull thud before I could even thank her, let alone convince her to stay.
I wrapped the plain white, but thankfully big enough, towel around my body, tucking the end in by my armpit.
“So, I’m going to...” I pointed my thumb over my shoulder.
“Don’t go yet,” he said, the plea in his voice rooting me to the spot.
I looked down at my feet that were stark white against the dark cedar planks, except for the bright orange of my freshly-painted toenails. The slight tan I’d gotten last weekend at the beach was already beginning to fade. “Dave...”
“I think we should talk about it, Nessa.”
There was no need for him to clarify what he meant by ‘it.’
“There’s nothing to talk about,” I said. “It’s fine.”
“Not true,” he answered. “Or I wouldn’t be feeling so weird about things between us. You’re feeling weird, too.”
No point arguing, since I was sure it was all over my face, so I simply nodded. And I supposed he had a point about it not being fine, but I wasn’t about to agree out loud.
“There’s a really big elephant in this tiny sauna,” he said.
“But...Sandy...” I looked out the tiny window toward the hot tub where my best friend was sitting, the bubbles coming up to her chest. Even at this distance, it was obvious her eyes were closed as her head was tilted back, leaning on the ledge of the deck. She hardly looked like she was going to interrupt us.
Resisting the sigh that wanted so badly to come out, I stepped up on the bench to sit beside him where I could still see Sandy through the window. Not just Sandy, but a good chunk of the pool deck, including the loungers where we’d put our robes and shoes.
That meant he must have... Oh God.
“Did you see...? Never mind,” I added quickly, hoping the flush from the heat of the sauna covered up the blush on my face. The one that rose to my cheeks when I thought of how he must have watched me stuffing my boobs into the too-small bathing suit when I’d thought Sandy and I were alone.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing. I don’t want to know,” I said, looking over at him so he would understand I really did not want to know and could he please drop it.
His eyes flicked down to my chest. Clearly, it was obvious to him exactly what it was that I didn’t want to know. Thankfully, he had received my telepathic plea and moved on to a slightly less embarrassing topic. “So, the question you asked me that day in the school.”
Looking down at my hands in my lap, my fingers fiddling with the nap of the rough towel, I nodded, knowing exactly what question he meant. I remembered vividly how I’d asked him if he liked me. How he’d avoided answering the question by pretending to misunderstand it. How we’d both known exactly what he was doing.
“I shouldn’t have asked,” I said. “It’s...it wasn’t right to ask.”
“It may not have been the best timing considering where we were and what had just gone down with Andy,” he said. “But you have a right to know how I feel about you, Vanessa.”
I swallowed hard and then looked up at him, into his eyes, noticing how blue they were, light like the sky, but rimmed with darker blue, the color of sapphires.
Ugh, barf. When did I turn into this girl? First I’m all over inky eyelashes and then sapphire-rimmed irises? A smile tugged at my lips in response to my ridiculousness, but I quickly dropped my chin and looked down, trying to hide it.
Too late.
“What?” he said, the smile in his voice. “I could use a joke about now. Unless it’s at my expense.”
“It’s not,” I said, looking up at him again. “It’s at my own. I was just thinking how pathetic I am.”
“Pathetic?” He recoiled, obviously not expecting that.
I shrugged. “Because I was admiring the color of your eyes.”
He frowned. “That makes you pathetic?” he said and then laughed. “I admit, I’m a little confused...maybe I’m foggy on the meaning of the word pathetic. Or admiring?”
“No.” I shook my head, the smile harder to deny when he was being so stinking cute. “What makes me pathetic is how easily I get sucked in by things like nice blue eyes. Eyelashes. Silly things.”
“Eyelashes?”
“Not yours,” I clarified.
“Right. Okay,” he said, obviously thinking I was a crazy person. Because I was definitely sounding like a crazy person.
I blew out a long breath and then looked up at him. “This is so stupid. Don’t laugh,” I said and then paused, waiting for him to assure me he wouldn’t before I went on. “But I think I fell for Andy’s eyelashes. They’re stupidly long and distracting. I don’t know why, but they had this weird effect on me. It doesn’t make any sense, but there it is. Haven’t you ever noticed a body part on someone and it just really did something for you?”
I have to give him credit, because even as I realized exactly what I’d just blurted out, he kept those stunning, sapphire-rimmed blue eyes on mine. Though they did crinkle in the corners and I could see the smirk spreading across his lips.
“I swear to God, Will Davidson, if you so much as glance at my boobs right now...”
He shook his head but his eyes stayed level. “Wouldn’t dream of it. But to answer your question? Yes I have noticed a body part that really did something for me. But not what you’re thinking.”
I lifted my right eyebrow. “Oh really.”
“I mean,” he shifted his eyes away from me toward the door and then back. “I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy that little show earlier, but that’s not your body part—parts, I guess—that really do it for me. I mean, they do, but that’s not what I’m talking about right now.”
I crossed my arms over the towel and widened my eyes in expectation, bracing for him to say my butt or maybe my long legs. Or perhaps he had a foot thing—even without the polish, I’d always thought I had nice feet.
“Your smile,” he said.
My brain screeched to a halt. “What?”
He nodded, his eyes finally dropping below my mine, but only as far as my mouth. “Your smile. You have a great smile. The way your one tooth pokes in front of the other.”
“Seriously? The flaw in my teeth does it for you?”
His eyes flicked back up to mine. “It’s character. There is perfection in your imperfection. It’s not big enough to be really crooked, just a little...imperfect.”
“You’re imperfect,” I said. “Like, nuts imperfect.”
“Maybe,” he said with a shrug. “Anyway, you wanted to know. Now you know.”
“Well, it’s weird,” I said, trying not to focus on what my mouth was doing because it felt weird that he’d noticed my smile, had studied it, apparently. Great, now I was self-conscious about smiling. How did I normally hold my mouth? I felt like I’d just been to the dentist and had swollen lips. Feeling awkward, I dropped my eyes, just in time to see a bead of sweat roll down the crease in the center of his chest.
Nope, can’t look there. I trained my focus on my hands in my lap and forced myself to just keep talking. “But at least you don’t get hung up about eyelashes. That’s legit pathological.”
“Probably,” he said with a snort. “Though...”
When he didn’t continue, I looked over at him. “Though...?”
He glanced at me. “I guess this is the sauna of truth, we’re in, right?”
I nodded. “Of course. What happens in the sauna stays in the sauna. Everyone knows that.” We were joking, but at the same time, I was fully aware that we were making a confidentiality pact; something serious was coming. I glanced out the window, still a bit worried about being interrupted, but Sandy was either asleep or meditating, her eyes still closed, her head resting on the lip of the hot tub. I made a mental note to keep checking in case it was the former. I did not need the drama of having to save her from drowning.
“Well,” he began. “I’ve been accused...uh, apparently I fall for girls too quickly.”
I chewed on that for a minute until he looked up at me. “Okay,” I said, starting to not love being in the sauna of truth. What else was he going to confess to? “Wait, who accused you of that?”
“My ex,” he said with a humorless laugh.
“Emmie Somerville?” I asked.
He nodded. “We were together for a while but I think it meant more to me than it did to her.”
“Ouch,” I said.
“Yeah. And if that wasn’t bad enough, then I fell for her roommate this year.”
But that meant... I cocked my head as I narrowed my eyes. “Wait. Her roommate was Brooklyn.”
“Exactly.”
“Wow. Complicated,” I said.
“Very.”
“Okay, so you were into Brooklyn, but if you and Emmie were over...”
“We weren’t. Not completely.”
I gave him a look.
“I didn’t cheat. It wasn’t like that,” he said. “It was sort of messed up between us for a while. Both of us were pulling away, but it was a while before either of us wanted to make a clean break. Like you said: complicated.”
I wondered which one of them ended it. Not that I was going to ask. “No kidding. Do you still have feelings for her?”
“Which one?” he asked.
“Either, I guess.”
“I...” he shoved his hand through his hair and then looked around. “Is it hot in here? It feels hot in here. Like a pressure cooker or something.”
I laughed. “We should probably get out of here. It can’t be healthy to stay in here until we spontaneously combust.”
He didn’t move off the bench, instead glancing up at the clock on the wall. “I think the timer’s only set for another few minutes anyway.”
“So you didn’t answer my question,” I gently reminded him. “About if you have feelings for either of them still.”
“I don’t think so. No. I don’t. I just...I don’t know. Emmie was right that I get caught up in it and fall kind of hard too quickly. I’m sort of a sap.”
“You’re a romantic,” I corrected.
“I guess,” he said, looking embarrassed, which was freaking adorable. Though I wouldn’t tell him that in a million years. “Can I tell you a secret?”
“This is the sauna of truth,” I said very seriously. “You are morally obligated to spill secrets in here.”
The right corner of his mouth turned up. “I love romantic movies.”
“Ugh,” I said, recoiling away from him. “You are a sap. That’s it, you need to give back your heartthrob boy band card.”
That earned me a laugh. “Well, I might be in a boy band, but I’m hardly a heartthrob.”
“You’re kidding, right? Do you not own a mirror?”
He gave me a baffled look and then looked down. “I...it sounds so conceited to say I figure I’m okay-looking, but heartthrob? I don’t think so.”
“Do I have to spell out for you that you’re in a boy band? They’re not exactly known for their members being just okay-looking.”
He waved me off. “I’m just a fill-in.”
The only thing that got me worse than eyelashes? Modesty. Real modesty. Not the fake garbage that so many musicians put out there. There was nothing fake about Will Davidson. Especially in the sauna of truth.
Be strong, Vanessa, I told myself. “Can I tell you a secret?” I said.
He gestured around us toward the sauna walls.
“I’m really serious about this one,” I said, looking intently into his eyes. “You have to keep this one to yourself, hope to die.”
His lips thinned out, all traces of his joking smile gone as he nodded and crossed his heart. “Of course.”
“I am not saying it will happen because there are all sorts of contracts and other things going on that I’m not a part of, but my dad wants to keep you.”
Dave’s eyes widened at that, telling me this was news to him.
I went on: “You have to believe me when I say it’s killing me to feed the ego of a musician, and I feel like I’m betraying Chris by saying it, but you’re the best of the bunch. Of all of them.”
Dave opened his mouth, then closed it, and I wondered if he had been about to protest, but then realized what I was saying was the truth. He had to know it but maybe he hadn’t heard it out loud before.
“What about Chris?” he asked. “He’s got to be about ready to come back. I wouldn’t want to take a spot from him. Not that Tony has said anything or if I even want the job if he did, but...”
“You know, we’ve been so busy that I haven’t had a chance to even think about Chris coming back. But I’m sure my dad’s been in touch with him and it’s been...” I tried to count the days since Chris’s emergency surgery, but couldn’t—too much had happened since for me to figure it out without a calendar in front of me. “Anyway, I don’t know what he has planned. Though I guess this is something a tour manager should know,” I added sardonically.
“Maybe,” he said. “But you’re only filling in and already have plenty on your plate. I’m sure he will catch you up when he has news.”
I nodded at him, appreciating the reassurance. “Anyway, I’m not telling you that for any reason other than it’s the truth. But if you ever tell anyone—especially my father—that I said any of this, I will not only deny it, but I will then have no choice but to kill you in your bunk.”
“Understood,” he said.
I glanced out the window but Sandy hadn’t slid under the water. In fact, she was looking over toward the sauna like she was waiting for us. “We should get out of here,” I said. “I actually did want to sit in the hot tub. We got massages as part of our spa package today, so I don’t want to stiffen up.”
“Massages? Man, I should have gone with you. I did laundry and took a nap.”
“Naps are underrated,” I said. “Especially ones had in real, full-sized beds.”
“True story,” he said, and I could tell he wasn’t even joking. “Still it would have been nice to get a massage—my arms and shoulders could use it. I’m not used to this much playing and rehearsing.”
“Maybe at the next layover,” I said, making a mental note to check and see if there was a spa near where we’d spend our next day off. Wherever and whenever that was.
“I’m guessing your toes were part of the package?” he asked, nodding down toward my feet. “Very cute, by the way.”
“Thanks.” I stood up on the bench below us. “So, we good?”
He paused and then said, “We didn’t talk about the elephant.”
“No, we didn’t,” I said, feeling my heart speed up and pound hard against my ribcage.
“I...the most important thing is that I don’t want it to be weird for us, Nessa.”
“Me neither,” I said honestly. “Besides Sandy, you’re my best friend on the bus and I want it to stay that way.”
“Me, too.”
“You ever think...” I began but then sort of stalled out.
He cocked his head to the side. “What?”
I shrugged. “Maybe you fall into infatuation quickly. Maybe it’s not the real thing, you know? Maybe you’re just a serial crusher.”
He cringed.
“Sorry,” I said. “I don’t mean it like it’s a bad thing. Obviously you’re not falling for every single girl you come across.” I nodded toward the window and my best friend who I suddenly felt I was betraying.
“That’s true,” he said.
“And you obviously have good taste.”
He grinned at me. Adorably.
“So...” I took a deep breath because it was weird talking about this. It was so weird discussing his crush on me like it was some sort of annoying virus or wart. Something to be endured, gotten over, disregarded. “We just carry on. Maybe we don’t have to slaughter the elephant. Maybe we just need to put it in a cupboard. Who knows, maybe it’ll disappear on its own.”
“Is that what you’d like?” he asked, the grin gone. “Do you want the elephant to disappear?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer that but before I could formulate anything remotely intelligent, he shook his head and said, “That was an unfair question. We’re on tour. We’re living together in a tin can with your father and a bunch of other people, and you only just broke up with Andy. It’s all moot anyway.”
“Technically, though he thought otherwise, I wasn’t with Andy,” I said, feeling the need to clarify. “But I guess we did break up in that I eliminated the possibility of a future with him.”
“Either way.” He put his hands on his knees and stood up, gesturing for me to step down off the bench ahead of him. “Consider the elephant put away.”
I reached for the door handle but stopped and looked at him. “We’re good, though?”
“We’re good,” he said.
“Now we’d better get out there before Sandy thinks you impregnated me in the sauna of truth.”
He asked, “How would she even tweet that?”
I laughed and opened the door.