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Chapter Eight

I spent the rest of the afternoon avoiding Charley. I figured if she wanted to do her job, she'd have to work for it. After all, if she couldn't find me then she couldn't protect me and therefore she was failing miserably and Eddie would have to send her back. As it were, when I mentioned it to him that I wanted to trade her in, he'd just given me the Look and said that he wasn't switching out my bodyguard just because I was sexist and didn't think it was a woman's job.

"She sexually harassed me," I argued.

Eddie snorted. "Please, Nick. I don't think it's possible to sexually harass you."

And he'd left it at that.

It wasn't until I was getting off stage that I finally resigned myself to the fact that I was about to spend another night with Charley on board the U.S.S. Carter Tour Bus. I trudged through the process of getting my mic taken off. Charley was hovering in the doorway with a walkie talkie. "Hurry up," she called my direction.

I purposely dragged my feet slower.

The other three guys had already gone out and I was the last to go.

"Clear to go?" Charley asked into the walkie-talkie as I finally had no way to prolong my aversion to her. She looked at me, "Okay so we gotta move quick. No pausing."

"Why what's the big --"

Charley swung open the door and I realized why the security team always rushes us out of the stadium after the show. The entire crowd seemed to be outside, surrounding in the buses. And they all shrieked when they saw me. Visions of that time in Rio where the bus almost got flipped by rampaging chicks rushed through my mind and I halted right there in the door way.

"Hoo-oo-oooly shit," I said, shaking my head.

"Nick, c'mon." Charley pulled me.

"You're trying to have me killed," I accused her, "Squashed by mob scene, a likely demise for a Backstreet Boy. You won't even be suspected. It's brilliant."

"I'm aware of my brilliance, but I'm not trying to squash you," she said. She shoved me forward into the crowd and pushed the first wave of fans off me. I ducked down and Charley pushed our way forward until we'd reached the bus. I scrambled up the steps. Charley paused at the very bottom, grinned back at the jostling fans, and announced, "Sorry, ladies, but I'm the only girl that's gonna be sleeping on Nick's bus tonight. Toodles." She stepped back and Donald - the guy driving the bus tonight - closed the door.

I was hovering a few feet behind Charley. "Now they all think we're sleeping together."

Charley laughed and started yanking the seat cushions off the couch to reveal the hide-a-bed that she'd tucked away at some point during the day. I stood there in the middle of the bus and watched as she set up the bed and pulled out her quilt, pillow, and teddy bear from the luggage rack over the sofa and put them on the bed. She turned around. "What?"

I shrugged. I turned to the fridge and pulled out a soda. I sat down at the table.

Charley pulled a soda out, too, and sat down across from me.

"So how come you're such a bitch?" I asked.

Charley laughed, "Don't beat around the bush none."

I shrugged.

"I'm a bitch because that's what I'm good at," she replied, swigging the Coke. She studied me as she lowered the can. "Why are you such a dickhead?"

"I'm not a dickhead," I argued.

Charley shrugged. "At least I'm honest about my flaws." She chugged the rest of the soda, then crushed the empty can with her hand. She put it down on the table. It kinda resembled the core of an apple.

"Why do you have a teddy bear?" I asked as Charley stood up and went over to her own bunk.

Charley shrugged, "Why not?" She sat down on the bed and kicked her shoes off.

"I dunno, because you've got this whole macho act going on..."

"I've told you like three times now Carter," she said evenly, "If you're so certain it's an act, that I can't kick your puny ass, then fight me."

"You act like you've got something to prove."

Charley laughed, but it was a nervous sort of laugh. She rolled onto the bed so she was laying on her back, staring up at the ceiling, the teddy bear under her head. "You wouldn't understand even if I told you," she mumbled, closing her eyes.

"Why not?" I asked, my curiousity admittedly peaked.

Charley didn't even open her eyes. "You just wouldn't."

I stood up and put my mostly-empty can into the sink. "Fine, don't tell me," I said, "I probably don't care anyways." I headed towards the curtain that separated me from her.

"Probably not," she mumbled.