▪️Friday, January 22nd, 2018▪️

▪️Tuscon, AZ▪️

When I open my eyes, the familiar photos of Mike taped to the bottom of the bunk above comfort me: Mike on the bike in LA, Mike stuffing his mouth full of food, Mike running along the shallow part of the ocean on the beach in Seattle, Mike sleeping in the hotel bed next to me. I should take them down, but I'm too weak to do that. Waking up to them has been the best way to improve my habitual sour morning mood. I'm sure I wasn't built for mornings. Maybe I wasn't built for not having Mike near me either.

I run my fingers over Mike's face. "One more day, then I'll take you down," I say to the images of him frozen in time and climb down into the walkway between the bunks. Blurred notes float in my head, the leftover dream state not ready to let me go. I stretch and consider brushing my teeth first, but to accomplish that task, I need the energy only coffee can give me. I shuffle over to the espresso machine that makes the best morning fuel and is part of the reason I've been able to tolerate being up.

"What bit your arse?" Neil's at the table, drinking a green slushy out of a bottle—a special smoothie he chugs every morning. In a sprint of daily writing sessions, we have completed the songs The Whats were working on, recorded the extra tracks, the group's done with the draft vocals, and Neil's ready to send it out to their producer.

"Not a morning person." I sit down across the table from him and put a pencil and my sheet music in front of me: my attempt at capturing the elusive song that's been haunting me the last three nights. "You should've learned that about me. Been two months."

"Maybe you should try going to bed earlier?" Neil brings the bottle to his lips.

"Maybe you should try minding your own business." I focus on the paper in front of me and put the chord in the bass clef first, jot down the melody, and vocalize it. Sounds off. I take a sip of my coffee and wait for the caffeine to kick in and connect the missing notes that made total sense in my dreams. The disjointed chords float in and out of my ears, bounce around my skull but do not fuse into anything remotely coherent. "Shit."

"Maybe you should show me what you're working on."

I glare at him over the rim of my mug.

"I make everything better." He licks his lips and returns the stare. "Remember the last song you were struggling with?" He points his two thumbs to his chest.

The bus takes a ramp off the highway, and the sun shines into my eyes. I pull the blinds down, nowhere near ready to greet the day.

"I'm not in the mood." I tap my pencil on the paper in front of me. I need a bridge.

"What's with that face?" Neil circles the air with his finger on the same level as my head.

I relax my facial muscles and give Neil a bored look. "It's my resting bitch face."

"Maybe we should do something about it."

"A facelift?"

"You're going to have to wait for that a bit longer. Maybe wait till my age before you start on plastic surgery?"

"Too late. Where do you think this nose came from?" I point at my face.

"Liar." Neil screws the lid onto his empty bottle with green streaks of vegetable matter on the inside of the glass.

"Hang on." I go to the photo gallery on my phone and find one of me at eighteen, before the crash. "See?" I pass the device to him. "That vs this." I point to the phone and back to my much straighter nose.

"You were cute." He uses the two fingers to enlarge my image on the screen.

"Were?" I throw a pencil at him. "I still am."

Neil catches it and twirls the writing implement in his hands like a stick from a drum set. He pushes off the built-in bench, stands up, and points the phone my way. "Smile for the camera."

Dang it, no. My hair and teeth need brushing, my face was clearly offensive to Neil earlier, and though PJ shorts and T-shirt might be cute, I'm not ready for a closeup. "Give it back." I reach for Neil to take my phone back, but he moves away.

The phone buzzes in his hand. "Oh, what do we have here?" He taps at the screen. "Hello, lover-boy."

Neil's been calling Mike that around me, but I didn't expect him to do it to Mike's face.

"No boys here," Mike's voice is lower than Neil's tenor, and if I didn't know their ages, I'd assumed Mike was older from the way he sounds. "Pass the phone over to Angie."

"No please?" Neil's looking over the top of the phone at me.

"Pass the phone the fuck over to Angie." Mike's dislike of Neil has remained a constant. He was happy to know I don't have to work on The Whats' songs with Neil anymore.

Neil does what Mike asks, but the smirk on his face tells me he's up to no good. Whatever Neil's planning, I've had enough of him for this morning.

"Hey." I look at Mike's face. He's probably at the dojang, which is where he's been spending every weekend, as well as evenings all other days of the week. "What did you want to show me?"

"It better be impressive," Neil whispers. "Maybe his biceps aren't the only big things on his body." I know what Neil's after. A reaction. He's always goading me, trying to rile me up, make me lose my cool.

"Could you go to your bunk?" Mike looks away and back at me. "Now?"

"Gladly. One sec." I raise my finger in front of the phone for Mike to wait. I get from behind the built-in table, dump the rest of my coffee into the sink, and rinse off my mug. I walk over to the sleeping quarters and climb into my bunk, find my headphones under my pillow, and stick them into my ears. "I'm all yours. What's going on."

"Is he bothering you?" Mike's face takes up the whole screen. He looks tired and serious, but I could've kissed some life into him if I were there.

"Neil's all bark and no bite. I can handle him." Neil uses his words to push people around, and the push and pull worked wonders in the songwriting process, but I'm two more cups of coffee or four more hours of sleep away from being able to explain the dynamics between Neil and me to Mike. "I much rather you tell me the latest. I'm dying to see the progress at the Academy. Did the new lockers get installed?"

"Yeah. I have the most recent photos. That's not why I'm calling."

"What's up?" I raise the pillow behind my back higher and prop the phone on my knees at a better angle, where my face does not have the double chins.

"I have a surprise for you." Mike moves, but remains extremely close to the camera, close enough for me to see the stubble on his cheeks. I wish I could run my fingers against it, and not the smooth screen or the photos. "Close your eyes," Mike tells me.

"Is it really necessary?"

"Please." He doesn't have a problem saying please to me. His please rumbled low in his throat when we shared the hotel bed. I squeeze my eyes and don't let my mind get there.

"Can I open them now?" I don't want to peek, but I've never claimed to be a patient person.

"Almost."

The bus jerks, and we stop. I don't remember a planned stop anywhere this morning, but the guys tend to break the timetable if they see something. "How much longer?"

"Count to ten. No, count to twenty."

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine—" I hear the curtain on my bunk slide open. "Ten. Hey, privacy—" Lips on mine. Hot, eager lips kiss me. Did I fall asleep? Am I dreaming? My body flushes with the desire to keep going. I open my eyes and the disjointed melody from earlier returns. I see Mike's stubble up close, next to his nose and eyes. But they're not on the screen. They are on the same face that's sucking mine. I close my eyes. I must've fallen asleep. Wake up, wake up, wake up. The tantalizing mouth leaves mine. Good. I peer through my eyelashes.

"Surprise." Mike's voice sounds through the headphones in my ears, but Mike's face is in front of me. Not above me on the ceiling, but to my left, instead of the separation curtain, there is a real, live Mike Stavros grinning at me.

I tug the headphones out of my ears. "Mike?"

"Are you surprised?" His face is still tired, but it's near, less than an arm's reach away. I run my fingers over the stubble on his face, and he pushes into my palm, like a giant cat, clamoring for a good scratch behind his ears. My mouth finds his, and I transfer my longing, my happiness, the ounces of energy from the morning coffee into him. Satisfied, I lean back and survey the results. An ear-to-ear grin lights Mike's face. He doesn't look that tired anymore. My kiss did the trick.

"Mike."

"I could taste the coffee. But maybe you didn't have enough?"

"Mike!" I wrap my arms around him and bury my nose in the hollow beneath his ear.

"Am I climbing all the way up or are you climbing down?"

My mind screams yes. Climb up. I want Mike's body pressed against mine, but my bunk is less than the size of a twin bed. I'm not sure Mike would even fit here by himself, without me in the way.

"Me down."

"We moved on from Mike, good. And that's wise. Not sure you'd want me to ruin your bunk with the stench of three airports and two flights." He starts moving down, pulling my hands apart. I don't want to let him. What if this is the dream? What if, by letting him go, I allow it to end? I wrap myself tighter around him.

"Whoa there. I can't get down with you still attached. We'll both fall."

"Mike?" I move my face back, without letting him go and find his eyes, way too close, but I like him close.

"Are we back to that?"

"Are you real?"

"Oh, we're back to that." He nudges my nose with his. "All real. And I can prove it to you some more, as soon as you let me get down."

"Promise?"

"You bet."

Just in case this is the end of the dream, I plan one more kiss and let go. I don't blink. I don't move. Mike's still here. "How? Why?" His presence on the bus makes no logical sense.

"Let's go get more coffee into you, before I tell you everything."