Love at First Fright

I woke up the next morning half expecting to hear Eric yelling for me and Rayna to wake up. Instead I was jerked awake from the bus screeching to a halt. I sleepily hopped from the bunk I was sharing with Rayna and slowly made my way to the front of the bus where I could hear Eric talking at a million miles per hour. I pushed open the divider to see Rayna standing beside the sad excuse of a coffee pot we had, Eric was sitting on Wednesday’s lap rambling on and on about what I don’t know, Jason was still driving poor guy, Roman was fast asleep on the couch beside Wednesday, and Jack was sitting on the floor playing what looked like Halo. Everyone was wide-awake yet; no one could wake me up.

“Morning sleeping beauty!”

I groaned as Jack laughed and turned his attention back to the game as I sat on the smaller couch across from Wednesday, Eric and Roman.

“Sleep good?”

I smiled as Rayna sat beside me and handed me a mug of coffee. I nodded as she moved in closer to me, laying her head on my shoulder. I watched as Wednesday listened to Eric’s endless story. He seemed like he was actually enjoying his nonsense, no matter what Wednesday always made sure Eric was happy when he was watching over him.

“Snare, what on Earth are you going on about?”

Eric giggled a little bit before taking a deep breath and focusing his attention over to me.

“I telling Uncle how we going to see Cwis and Mikey tonight at da show.”

“Oh yeah we’re headed to Vegas.”

“No we are in Vegas! Only reason it took us so long is this damn traffic. Ten minutes and we’ll be at Chris’s place.”

I got up and walked over to Jason to see exactly where we were. Everyone thought it was weird that we had blacked out pretty much every window on the bus except for the front but as soon as they fond out whose bus it was they understood. I stared out the huge, front window to see that we were driving down the strip most likely looking for the hotel the Mad Manager had booked us.

“Daddee!! Look what Uncle did to Man!”

I looked down as Eric came running to the front of the bus. He nearly made it before he tripped over his own feet sending him straight into the hard flooring face down. Before I could even have one thought my coffee cup was on the ground and Eric was in my arms crying. I rushed him to the back of the bus with Rayna following close behind. I had no idea if he bleeding but from the volume of his crying I knew he was hurting.

“Set him on the bathroom counter I’ll get the first aid kit.”

As Rayna searched through the “luggage bunk” I put Eric on the counter. Despite my best efforts to look at what the damage was he kept his face buried in his hands and continued to cry bloody-murder.

“Snare, please let Daddy look.”

“No! It hurt!”

I tried and tried to get him to move his hands but he just kept on crying. Even when Rayna came into the bathroom with the first aid kit he continued to cry.

“He okay?”

I turned to see Wednesday standing in the doorway with a look of concern.

“I don’t know he won’t let me look. Probably just has some rug burn from the carpet but he’s being stubborn.”

“Sound like someone you know?”

I fake laughed as Rayna walked back out of the bathroom, giving Wednesday a playful shove as she passed him.

“Eric, will you move your hands for Wednesday? He’s right here. I have to see how bad you’re hurt.”

Despite my efforts Eric just shook his head no. I was just glad he wasn’t crying anymore. It was now more of a forceful sniffle. I leaned against the bathroom wall as Rayna came back in carrying something behind her back. From the look on her face I could tell she had something up her sleeves.

“Eric, look what Mommy has. If you don’t move your hands you won’t be able to see it.”

I watched as Eric slowly let his hands down revealing the nice sized bruise on his forehead along with a scrape trailing down his nose. No blood thank God.

“I wanna see.”

Rayna held up her finger and said that he was only allowed to see after I cleaned up his scrap and put a band-aid on it. He scoffed and crossed his arms but he did let me clean up the scrape. After his band-aid was on and he was off the counter he held out his hands and stared at Rayna expecting her little bribe. She laughed a little and pulled her hands from behind her back revealing a small, hand made Murderdolls shirt that said, “My dad’s in the band!”

Eric smiled big and grabbed the shirt before hugging us both and running down the hall to probably show everyone his new shirt and bandage. No matter how big the cut, scrape or bruise was he always had to show it off after he was done crying. Thank God there wasn’t any blood because he was notorious for touching the blood and putting his finger right back in his mouth. I know it wasn’t a big deal but when you’re son is as weird and curious as Eric you have no clue where his hands have been or what they’ve touched.

“When did you get that done?”

Rayna shrugged a little and laughed before replaying, “Just a little something Steph did before we left. I was going to give it to him at Chris’s place but I felt like it was a good bribe to get his hands down.”

I laughed and grabbed her in a hug as Wednesday groaned and said he had to pee. As the both of us walked to the front I could see that Roman was finally awake and was helping Eric put on his new t-shirt. Jack had moved on from playing Halo to playing Guitar Hero. I laughed a little when I heard that he was just beginning the intro for “Psychosocial”.

“You know what would be awesome? If they put a Murderdolls song on that damn game.”

We all agreed with Jack as he continued the song. We all sat on the couches watching as Jack played song after song, eventually handing the guitar over to Roman. As Roman began playing Avenged Sevenfold’s “Bat Country” Wednesday came into the front room buckling his pants up, like always.

“Really Wednesday? You’re gonna start that again?”

Wednesday laughed and turned to go back to the bunk area as Roman handed me the guitar saying it my turn to put some hurt on the scoreboard. I searched through the songs until I finally found one I thought would be a nice challenge. Upon settling on John 5 and Jim Root’s “The Black Widow of La Porte” I switched the difficulty from hard to expert and I started on the insane song. I knew John was an amazing guitar player and his songs were nuts to play on an actual guitar but when it comes to a game anything was simple for an actual guitar player.

With my eyes set on the screen I watched my score rise as the guys laughed and cheered me on. As the song ended Wednesday came back into the room with a pair of pants in hand. He clapped loudly before tossing the pants at Rayna.

“Ray, could you sew up the crotch hole? I’m afraid someone is going to get a little sneak peek.”

She laughed a little and said she’d get it done before the show tonight. Before I could begin another song Jason parked the bus and said we were at Chris’s place. I guess he had just blown off finding the hotel for now. As he turned off the bus and opened the doors everyone began walking out one by one. With Eric on my shoulders and Rayna behind me we walked out onto the sidewalk to see Chris, Andrew, Mikey and some girl holding Mikey’s hand.

Before I could even say hi to anyone Mikey cleared his throat and said, “Guys I want you to meet my fiancée Krista.”