If Only I Knew How to Hate You

Alex

“Duuuuuude.”

My head snaps up from walking towards the buses, and glancing over to my side, I see that Travis has caught up and he grins at me. “How is it?”

“Rainy,” I tell him with a smirk.

“No!” He puts on a fake face of disbelief. “Never would have guessed. Your voice all better?” He asks after a moment, no longer joking about but now curious. “We’re all missing you and Bailey at the cook-outs.”

“Cook-outs in the rain? I gotta see that,” I grin, then shake my head. “You’ll have to miss out a little longer. I think I just gave Bay the bug, so…” I shrug helplessly. “It’ll be another few days, man.”

He swears in disappointment but all the same, follows me onto the bus. From the corner of my eye, I watch him watch the place, wondering why he’s here. But then again, it’s Travis and he probably doesn’t know either- he just decided to come for something to do. So, done with thinking about that, I drop my coat and umbrella, glancing around myself for Bailey.

Walking over to her figure on the couch, I pick up another blanket on the floor, draping it on her casually. Soon, she stops shivering, but she’s still asleep. Travis comes over, taking it in and nods; then he himself feels her forehead and cheeks, and grimaces.

“Anything I can do to help?” He offers, walking a little off to grab some drinks.

“Nope,” I pop the word from my mouth as I shake my head. “You want to play some poker, man?”

“Thought you’d never ask,” he laughs, and then to our surprise he finds Jack’s stash of jellybeans and other garbage that he pulls out for us to munch on. So we sit on the floor with a deck of classic old cards with probably one or two missing, and start playing some casual poker together.

Morning eventually arrives and I find myself awake before everyone else, except Matt who’s driving- so he doesn’t count. Humming to myself, I take a quick shower and the guys start to wake up and mumble, still exhausted, about before settling down again. We were the last to leave the venue tonight, so we’ve got a late slot and another fifty or so miles to drive, apparently.

The guys are happy enough to settle down with tuning their instruments and playing some halo. But at least I’d managed to move Bailey to our bunk last night, so she sleeps there with a little more quiet to help her rest.

“Pancakes,” I nod to myself around ten, finally coming upon the right idea. Grinning enigmatically to myself, I start pulling out ingredients and hoping we have enough of everything, and I start making them.

Humming around, I make the mix and get the small batch started. While on the pan, I see I have a minute or so, and take Sebastian out for a second. After he’s done going, we troop back in and I smell my pancakes burning. Cursing loudly, I let go of Seb and run around, getting the pancakes off the ridiculously cheap and crappy stove, onto some plates.

“Jack get some fireworks?” Comes a drowsy voice after a few minutes, and I turn to see Bailey looking exhausted, wrapped in my blanket. She grabs a chair and sits near by, resting her head to keep herself awake but comfortable.

“Close enough,” I grumble, and start moving some things around. “Here, if you love me, you’ll eat them.”

She wrinkles her nose at the burned pancakes. “Hun, I might love you, but not enough to eat those.” Leaning back, she yawns.

I watch her thoughtfully and wonder if I should try to figure out her statement. Or let’s just say she just admitted she loves me. It makes everything easier, doesn’t it? “Feeling any better?” I ask finally, fiddling with the last of the batter and hoping these won’t burn.

“Yeah,” she sniffs. “Just a little tired. And hungry.”

Grinning, I point the spatula her way. “And that’s always the first sign of feeling better. Here, maybe these will be better…” after a minute, I carefully shovel off the pancakes from the stove onto some plates, and hand her two on a plate. “They smell good, right?” I ask hopefully.

“Mhm,” she sighs, grabbing a fork slowly. “Wish I could cook.”

“Maybe someday,” I chuckle. “With plenty of fire extinguishers all around, just in case.” She glances up, scowling and I just wink at her. The two of us eat together, some of the guys passing through too to grab the burned pancakes and obviously not caring. I amuse her with tails of my childhood and my own mom’s cooking. It took her about ten years to learn how to cook, and I’d learned during that time. What can I say? I like the right stuff and she couldn’t make it yet.

“Is everything okay?” I ask her finally when we’re done, relaxing on the couch together. “And I mean everything.”

After a minute she glances up to me, her eyes already slowly glazing over with sleep. She sighs and bites her lip for a moment. My heart pounds, watching her, and I’m not sure why. Worry? Wonder? Curiosity? With her, it’s always so impossible to tell, and its so frustrating. “No.” She says to me at least, the word barely above a whisper. “It hasn’t been for a long time, either.”