Heroes...And The Rest Of Us.

We've been on the road for five days. We started in Chicago and we're now in Kansas. The show's have been good, Adam was worried about his losing his voice, but so far so good. Brad brought his wife Rhonda, and his son James. And Neil brought his wife Janin, and his daughter, Roo, who is Adam's Godaughter. It's been fun being out here with the kids, albeit a little crazy, but fun.

Adam and I are still awake, laying in our bunk just kind of staring at each other, trying to be quiet to the other's can sleep. I'm laying on my stomach and he's laying on his side. I reach out and touch the side of his face softly.

"I feel like the luckiest girl in the world." I say, almost whispering. He doesn't say anything, he waits until I move my hand back.

"Why?" He finally says.

"I have the most amazing man, with the most beautiful soul, by my side for the rest of my life. You give me so much hope, baby, for my future. I see what you've been through in your past, and what you still go through and it makes me want to be that strong. You make me a better person." He sighs.

"I'm not that strong."

"If you could only see yourself the way I see you."

"You've made me into what I am. It's all you." I smile at him.

"Thank you." I say.

"For?"

"Loving me."

"Anytime, Babe."

The next morning, I'm woken up by Adam gently shaking me and whispering my name.

"What?" I whisper back.

"We're stopped. Come on, lets go get dressed."

I roll out of the bunk and walk to the back of the bus with him. There are six bunks and one actual bedroom on the bus. We have the bedroom set up as our 'Dressing Room'. All of our suitcases are in there, and we take turns getting dressed. I put on faded jeans that have a large rip in the thigh, and a tight little t-shirt with a v-neck. I put on my black combat boots and pull my jeans down over them. Neil knocks on the door and walks in when Adam says it's OK to come in.

"What's up, man?" Adam asks him.

"Nothing." They talk and I walk quitetly to the main area and sit at the little booth.

The guys come out a minute later, and I hear the other women getting the kids up. Adam sits across from me.

"Where are we?" He asks.

"Truck stop."

"Babe, will you wake Barry up so we can go smoke and get coffee?"

"Yeah." I get up and walk back to Barry's bunk. I pull his curtain back a little.

"Barry." I say gently. He rolls over and looks at me.

"What?" He whispers.

"We're stopped."

"Give me five minutes." He starts to get up and I go back to the 'Kitchen' area.

"Five minutes." I tell Adam.

Brad, Rhonda and Janin come out with the kids. The women aren't dressed, the kids are, but they look tired.

"Hey guys." I say to them.

"We're waiting on Barry." Janin says.

"Well, I'm right here." Barry says coming from the back of the bus. The three of us grab our jackets and head outside, lighting cigarettes. We stand alone next to the bus until Janin comes out with the kids.

"Hey, will you guys take the kids in to get some breakfast while Rhonda and I get dressed?"

"Absolutly." We don't ask why their father's aren't doing this, we just do it. I take Roo in my arms and hold James' hand and we walk across the lot. I told the guys to finish smoking.

"Alright, what do you guys want for breakfast?" I move Roo to my hip as we walk into the small dining area to get some take-out breakfast.

"Pancakes!" James says.

"OK, Roo, do you like pancakes?" She nods her little head and then lays it on my shoulder. I order two orders of pancakes with bacon for the kids. We go to the store part of the truck stop while we wait for the food. I stand at the coffee counter and pour myself a large black cofffee.

"How are my favorite girls?" I hear Adam say from behind us. He pinches Roo's cheeks and makes kissy noises in her stomach. She laughs at him and he give's me a kiss on the cheek.

"Did you two get some food?" He asks the kids.

"Yes we did." I say. "We're waiting for it to get done."

"How about we go get it then,James?." He asks.

James nods and they go off to get the food together. I laugh at them and get a coffee for Adam.

"We don't need the boys do we, Doll?" I ask Roo. She doesn't say anything.

"Yeah, you're right. We do need them." I hear Barry and Brad come in to get coffee for themselves. Roo and I walk over to a newstand to look for some magazines for the drive. I scan over the large selection and grab a couple for the kids and two bridal magazines for me.

"Hey baby!" I hear Neil say to Roo. I turn and hand her off to him. Janin is standing next to him.

"We are waiting for the boys to bring us breakfast." I tell them.

"Thanks alot, Soph." Neil says.

"No problem, she's a doll."

Adam brings James and the two styrofoam boxes with the food in it over to us.

"Come on James, let's go find your mama." He says giving Janin Roo's food. When he comes back I give him his coffee.

"Let's go have that cigarette that you didn't get to finish." He says.

"OK, then we have to get ourselves some foo cause I'm starving!"

Later on we're back on the road. We don't have much farther to go before we get to the venue. We're all hanging out in the lounge area on the bus. Adam and Barry are playing acoustic guitars, the kids are playing on the floor and Janin, Rhonda and I are reading the bridal magazines I bought. Basically we're just bullshitting.

"March 19th." I say out of nowhere. Adam looks up at me.

"Uh, what now?"

"I want to get married on March 19th."

"OK."

"That's it?" I ask. He smiles.

"That's it, whatever you want." I open the magazine again and flip through it. Janin show's me a picture of a model wearing a wedding dress, sprawled out in an awkward position on a chaise lounge.

"That's not natural." I tell her. Rhonda dies laughing. I'm really enjoying having these two out here. I've never really had a lot of girls as friends, other than Daisy of course.

"So I guess we should keep our calendars open for March 19th?" Rhonda says.

"Yeah, I guess so."

"That's so soon. We won't be getting off of the road until the end of February." Janin says.

"It's going to be crazy that's for sure." I listen to Adam while he sings to the kids for a minute. I smile at him.

"What kind of theme are you thinking of?" Janin asks.

"I don't know. Casual, traditional, simple."

"Casual?"

"Yeah, none of these dresses feel like me or Adam."

"None of them are going to feel like Adam, you know." I laugh.

"You know what I mean."

"I do." She keeps looking at the magazine.

"I've never been into like, white dress, black tie formal weddings. That's not me at all. Plus it's pretty unrealistic money wise." I say. Rhonda nods.

"Don't worry about the money." Adam says, not looking up from the guitar. His face is inches away from being rested on the top of it.

"I am going to worry about it. I don't want to have our parents paying for our wedding."

"I have money to pay for the wedding."

"But what about the house?"

"Don't worry about it, Babe please."

I look back down at my magazine. We were supposed to use the money from this tour to put a down payment on a house. I know that Adam has his own money, but he's far from loaded. I would be one thing if he had been consistently touring this past year. The last tour he was on wasnt that big and he didn't get paid well. I'm gonna try not to worry about it, I don't want a big wedding, never have. I get up and walk to the back of the bus to smoke away from the kids.

I shut the bedroom door and open a window to vent the smoke. I sit on my suitcase and dangle the cigarette out of the window. The battery operated clock on the wall says 5:30, 3 hours to showtime. We should be stopping anytime. I look up when Adam comes in without knocking.

"Hey." I say. taking a drag off of the cigarette.

"Are you pissed?"

"No, why would I be pissed?"

"You just got really quiet and then you left." He lights a cigarette for himself, coming over and sitting near me on another suitcase.

"Sorry, I get quiet when I'm thinking." I say with a smile. He smirks and kind of laughs to himself.

"Tell me what you're thinking about."

"I'm not worried about money. I was just confused."

"I don't want you to feel like we can't have the wedding of your dreams because I can't afford it. My parents are loaded, but I'll be damned if they pay for my wedding." He pauses. "Our wedding." He corrects himself.

"I've never dreamed of a big wedding. To be honest, I never thought of wedding stuff period until now. Is that weird?"

"No. I've never thought about it either." I laugh.

"You're not supposed to. I'm a girl, those thoughts are supposed to be like, mandatory."

"What were you thinking?"

"I just want to wear jeans at my wedding." I say. He laughs.

"That's perfect."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I love it." He kisses me and I feel the bus jerk to a stop. We put our cigarettes out and shut the window.

"Let's go kill it." Adam says, grabbing his stage clothes out of his suitcase.

We all go into the auditorium, following a member of the crew to the official dressing room. The guys all shower, dress and hang out while we listen to Metallica. Janin and Rhonda are going to take turns watching the kids in the dressing room while the guys are onstage. We all clasp, hands in a circle to say a prayer before they go out. Adam is chosen to say the prayer.

"Hey God, thank you for each and every one of us. Thank you for our wives, fiances, and our beautiful children. Thank you for our crew and for giving us this amazing gift. Thank you God for rock and roll. Now lets go out there and rip their fucking heads off. Amen."

"Amen." We all say. We all hug each other and walk out to the side of the stage.

"Knock em dead." I tell Adam. He gives me a kiss.

"I'll see you later." I watch the whole show side-stage, like I have the entire tour so far. An hour and a half later, the show is over. The guys come of the stage looking wired and exhausted at the same time. I just follow them to the dressing room, not wanting to be the clingy girlfriend. I keep my distance until Adam comes to me later, right before we board the bus.

"How'd we do tonight?" He asks before he lights a cigarette.

"Great, of course." He nods and tilts his head backwards as a gesture for a kiss. When I kiss him I can taste the smoke and tobacco, and the sweat from his face, on his lips. The tour manager, Chris, approaches us.

"Ready to go guys?" He asks. Adam looks at me.

"Here we go again, Babe."