Heroes...And The Rest Of Us.

I wake up a while later and see that it's dark outside the hotel windows. The lights are on in the room, though. I roll over in bed and see that Adam's side is empty, so I roll onto my back and sit up on my elbows to look around the room for him.

I see him standing next to where my luggage must have been placed after it was dropped off. He's only wearing jeans and his hat, no shirt. The guitar case is sitting across the front of a chair, and it's lid is open. Adam is staring into the case, looking at the guitar.

"Happy Birthday, Babe," I say to him quietly with a smile. He looks over at me startled, like he didn't know I was awake.

He picks the guitar up out of it's case with one hand, and his cigarettes in the other, and comes over to the bed with it. He crawls on his knees between my legs and kisses my lips.

"I love you," he says.

"I love you, too." He hands me the cigarettes and lays down on his back between my legs, resting his head against my chest.

"Play me something," I tell him.

"Like what?"

"Something pretty. A love song," I say with a smile, tucking his hair behind his ears.

He strums a little on the guitar, having to play with his fingers rather than with a pick.

"I had Jack tune it because I remembered you telling me that he was good at that kind of stuff." I say. He nods and keeps playing.

I run my fingers through the short peices of his hair around his neck and kiss the top of his head, even though it's covered by his hat.

"I don't know any love songs," he says after playing for a minute.

"Yes you do." He shakes his head and I laugh. I take a cigarette out of the pack that he gave me and put it in my mouth, then take another one out for him. I put it between his lips for him, then I take his lighter from it's place inside the pack and light mine, not bothering to cup my hand around the flame, then I do the same with his.

I feel him inhale deeply then exhale through his mouth without taking his hands off the guitar. I take mine out of my mouth after my first inhale and carry between my fingers.

"I missed you so much," I say to him.

"I missed you, too," he says. He crawls out of bed and takes the guitar back to it's case, then comes back and lays on his stomach between my legs, kissing me.

We roll onto our sides and stare at each other. He puts one of his legs in between my knees while we lie together.

"I've racked my brain all day and I still can't figure out what I did to deserve to be the luckiest man in the world," he says.

"Why do you think you're the luckiest man in the world?"

"I'm here with the most beautiful woman in the world, who I get to call my wife. I'm doing what I love to do everynight, with three of my best friends. The only way it could be better is if you were here with me everynight."

"I don't think that there's room for me on the bus," I say.

"We'll kick Barry out." I laugh.

"Poor Barry," I say. He shrugs.

"He doesn't fuck as good as you can."

"If I remember correctly, he's not in the band for his fucking ability," I say. He doesn't say anything, he's just pondering the thought.

"You need him because he's an amazing guitar player, and he's your friend," I say.

"Yeah, but if it came to having you everynight, and him sleeping on the crew bus. I'd take you in a heartbeat."

"I'm going to tell him you said that! He's going to be so offended," I say sarcastically.

"No he won't."

"You're right, he won't."

"He's got a fiance now, he knows how we all stand," he says.

"Chicks before dicks?" He laughs.

"Exactly."

"Fiance? When did that happen?" I ask.

"When she was out here, I guess."

"She never said anything to me about it," I say.

"Maybe she wanted to wait until Barry got home to tell people," he says.

"That could be it." The phone in the room start ringing, interrupting our conversation.

"Ugh," I say, grabbing the phone and handing it to Adam.

"Hello?" he says into it, then pausing to listen. I roll over onto my back again.

"Yeah, we can do that. What time are you leaving?" he says. I grab my still smoldering cigarette out of the ash tray that I put it in, and take a hit from it.

"What time is it now?" Adam asks the person on the phone, who I'm assuming is Chris or Shawn, the tour managers.

"Yeah, we'll be down in a little bit," he says, then waits for a short pause, " bye."

He leans across my body and hangs the phone up, then lays his head against my chest, face down.

"Who was it, babe?" I ask him, rubbing his shoulder.

"Nathan," he says, his voice muffled from having his mouth against me.

"I see. What did he want?" Nathan is like a band assistant or something. I don't know what his actual title is. Band Slave might be appropriate.

"Everyone is going out to dinner, he wanted to know if we wanted to go."

"I was content just having you for dinner, but that's fine," I say, feeling his lips form a smile against my breast.

"My amazing wife, who curses like a sailor, and says things everyday that shock the hell out of me," he says, lifting his head up to look at me. I shrug and smile.

"That's what I'm here for."

"You're beautiful." I frown and shake my head at him.

"Don't lie," I say.

"I'm not lying. You're stunning." I smile.

"You're too good to me, babe. I don't deserve it."

"You deserve so much more than I will ever be able to give you," he says.

"Don't say it like that. You give me everything that I need. You think I'm stunning, and that I'm kind of a big deal," I say cockily, "I think I'll keep you around."

He laughs and gets out of bed. I get up and go into the bathroom to fix my hair and make up. When I come back out, I see that he's already dressed in his clothes that he was wearing earlier.

"I'm gonna go over to Barry's room and have him come look at this guitar," he tells me.

"OK."

"I'll be right back," he says, walking out the door.

I put my underwear and bra back on, then my shorts and white cami top. I pick my brother's Army issue button down shirt that I was wearing earlier, up off the floor and put it on the bed. Then I straighten the sheets up a little, so when Barry comes to look at the guitar it doesn't look like we just crawled out of bed.

I hear a little knock on the door and then Adam's voice.

"Babe, are you decent?" he asks through the door.

"Yeah," I yell back. He opens the door and comes in with Barry following him.

I smile at Barry and say hello, then I finish getting dressed by putting my other shirt on while Adam shows off his new guitar. I go though my duffle bag and pull out a new pair of sandals, and sit in the other chair like the one the guitar case is sitting on, and put them on. I take my camera out of the duffle bag and go over to where the guys are standing.

"Go over there with the guitar, I want to take a picture," I say to Adam. He doesn't say anything, but he picks up the guitar and goes over to where I told him to stand, holding the guitar in his hands out in front of him. Barry casually puts his arm around my shoulders while I take the picture, leaning down to see the display on the camera.

When I finish taking pictures, I put the camera back in my duffle bag.

"You guys ready to go?" I ask them.

"Yeah, I'm surprised that mother hasn't already been knocking down the doors looking for us," Barry says.

"Now Barry, you know that thats his job. He has to know where we are at all times of the day and night," Adam says mockingly. Barry laughs.

"I think he takes his job a little seriously sometimes," he says.

"Yeah, no shit." We all walk out into the hallway together and get into the elevator.

When we get to the lobby, I lead them, watching out for people that might recognize them and try to approach them for any reason. They both have hats on and are trying their best to look unconspicuous. I find Chris on his cell phone waiting impatiently in a corner of the lobby.

"Where the hell were you guys?" he asks. Adam and Barry exchange looks then they both look at me.

"We were taking a group shower," I say, completely serious. Adam looks like he's trying really hard not to laugh. Barry doesn't hold back, he gives a bark of laughter and keeps walking out the doors of the hotel to where the van that's taking us to dinner is parked. Chris just shakes his head and follows us out the doors.

I see Neil and Brad standing outside of the van with Nathan, smoking a cigarette and waiting for us. We walk up to them, then load up into the van. I get into the back seat with Adam and Brad, and rest my head on Adam's shoulder while we drive.

We drive until we find a Waffle House thats open, since it's pretty late at night, not a lot of places are still open. We go inside and see that its completely empty. Adam and I slide into a booth next to each other, and Neil and Brad sit across from us. Barry, Chris, Shawn and Nathan, all sit in a booth right next to ours.

"Ask Barry why he has stiches above his eye," Neil says to me, leaning across the table. I look over at Barry and see that under the bill of his hat, he sure as hell has stiches.

"Barry, what the hell happened to your eye?" I say loudly.

"Ask Neil about that," he says, giving Neil a dirty look.

"Someone want to fill me in?" I ask.

"Neil and Barry got into a little wrestling match on the bus the other day, and Barry wrapped his face around a waste basket and had to get stiches," Adam says. Neil looks totally impressed with himself. I shake my head at him.

"How nice," I say.

"It looked like a fucking crime scene, man, there was blood everywhere. Chris freaked the fuck out. It was great, you should have been there," Neil says.

"I'm sure." The waitress comes over and takes our drink order, and gives us food menus. When she comes back, we order six baskets of chicken fingers and french fries to split between the tables.

"What kind of dipping sauce would you like?" she asks.

"All of them," we all say in unison. I look around the diner and see the waitresses staring at our boothes. We must look like a motley crew. All of us, with our weird hair, peircings, tattoo's, Barry's wearing eyeliner that he probably should have washed off and redid two days ago. I smile at the mental image and listen to the guys while they talk about random things, telling me some of the crazy shit that they've done while I've been home.

"I think Sophie needs to ditch her plane ticket home and come with us," Brad says.

"I wish, babe, but not this time. I have to go home and finish what I started with Jack," I tell him.

"Jack will be fine, just send him a text message," Neil says.

"Tell him to stay with Shaun. Shaun will keep him in line," Barry says. I look over at Adam, who's not saying anything.

"I can't do that to Shaun. It's not his situation to deal with, it's mine and Adam's."

"Yeah, it's my fucking money that put him through rehab, I don't want him to fuck it up by staying with Shaun," Adam says.

"Who do you think he's staying with right now?" Barry says.

"True," I conceed. Our food comes and the waitress splits it up between the two boothes.

While I'm eating, I feel a straw hit my head. I look up and see Barry grinning, Neil and Adam are grinning too.

"Who did that?" I ask. They all point at Chris, who is oblivious to anything that's going on. He's been on his phone, texting the whole time we've been here. I smirk at them all and fling a french fry in Chris' direction. It hits him in the shoulder and we all try to contain our laughter by looking down at our food.

"Who did that?" Chris asks.

"Did what?" Brad asks him.

"What are you talking about?" Adam says, acting confused.

"Fuckwads," Chris says, annoyed. We all laugh at him. I recall Barry putting his arm around me earlier in the hotel room and how he just did it like it was totally natural for him, like it was no big deal. I really did miss these guys, they all are really like my brothers. All this time I thought I was just missing Adam, but now I realize how much I missed all of them. They are all such a presence in my life, and it's been pretty boring without them.

I feel Brad kick from under the table. I look up at him and he nods towards Adam. I look over and see that Adam has ranch dressing on his nose and doesn't even realize it. I laugh out loud.

"What?" he asks me, "what's funny?"

"Nothing," I say, kicking Neil. He looks up and I motion at Adam. He looks at him and grins then goes back to eating. I see Barry looking over at him now from the other table. Adam catches him looking.

"Alright, what the fuck are you guys staring at? Do I have something hanging out of my nose or something?" he says.

"You could say that," Neil says.

"Did Adam tell you about my porn career?" Brad asks me. I give him a blank stare.

"Your what?"

"My porn career. I've been practicing on the bus and I think I have a pretty good thing going. I think I could be a porn star," he says.

"I've been helping him. I've been filming him," Adam pipes in.

"Yeah, it's going to be like a second career, like a side project," Brad says.

"Yeah, like Snoop or Em," Adam says. Brad nods his head. Neil and I are laughing so hard I feel like one of us might piss ourselves.

"Oh my God, lets get out of here before they kick us out because they think we're drunk or on something. Did I tell you about the guy on the plane asking me if I was on something?" I say to them all. I tell them the story as we walk back out to the van. We left Chris inside to deal with the bill for the food, and we sit in the van talking.

"I wonder what Chris would do if we all went back to our rooms and ordered porn movies on pay per view," Adam says.

"He would throw a shit fit. You know all of that shit would show up when he went to pay the bill for the hotel," Neil says from his spot in the front seat. A minute later, Chris, Shawn and Nathan come out of the diner and get in the van.

"That was most money I've ever spent on chicken fingers and french fries," Chris says to us.

Later when we get the hotel, Adam and I ride alone in the elevator up to our room. He pushes me against the wall and kisses my neck and throat the whole time, and tells me a few of the things he wants to do to me before I have to leave again. I run my hands up and down his back until the elevator beeps and the doors open. He takes my hand and leads me towards his room.

I see Barry and Brad walking towards their rooms. They see us and wave as we go into our room.

"Finally."