Soul Gazer Ch 03

The next thing I remember was faintly hearing the TV being switched off by someone and the lights in the main room of the bus being switched off. I propped myself up on one arm and took a quick glance around the room, noticing that there seemed to be light from something coming from the dining area behind me and the smell of cigarette smoke filling the room. I turned around and saw Taylor sitting at a laptop typing something. Beautiful music was spilling out of the speakers of the laptop and into my ears.

"Hey hon... this botherin' ya?" he said looking up at me and holding up his cigarette for me to see, "I can take it back in the back if it is."

"God, no. I said groggily, "I'm usually a night owl... I would be up hangin' out if earlier hadn't drained me. I'm not used to fighting crowds like you are. Did I bring a little camera case on the bus with me earlier?"

"No... at least I don't think so... Did ya lose somethin' else back there?"

"Oh, GOD... only my concert pictures and my cigarettes. Do you think the driver'll stop for gas anytime soon? I'm havin' a nicotine fit." I said laughing.

"C'mere." Taylor said, patting the seat beside him. "I've got some cigs if menthol doesn't bother ya." He finished as he licked the faint menthol taste from his lips before exhaling the smoke.

"Menthol doesn't bother me... that's what I smoke. I didn't even know you smoked, Taylor." I said as I got up from where I was laying, being careful not to wake up Christene before I noticed she wasn't even laying there anymore. "Where'd Christene go?"

"I showed her to one of the smaller guest bunks in the back earlier. She was watchin' the news when I came back in here. We talked for a few minutes and I let her use my cell phone to call her husband."

"Oh, good. David's actually her fiancé. He's such a good guy. He worries about her so much and treats her so good. I'm glad she got to finally check in with him... I'll hafta be checkin' in with my parents soon... They still don't know where I am. I hope Marie and Missy didn't call 'em earlier when they couldn't get me on my cell phone."

"Here." he said, lighting up two cigarettes at once and handing me one. Digging in his pocket he found his cell phone and handed it to me too. "Call your folks. I call mine a lot. It's always good to check in and let everybody know you're okay."

Slowly I dialed the number to my house and listened to it ring until my mom picked up the phone. I told her that I was okay and that I was calling her from Missy's brother's phone and that I would be home in the morning. We told each other we loved each other and hung up. I hated waking up my parents early in the morning. Especially at four in the morning but I hadn't noticed how late it was until I hung up.

When I looked back over at Taylor he was smiling but he still had that sad look in his eyes. It hurt me to see the pain in his eyes but it really wasn't my business to ask why he looked so sad so I just decided to make small talk with him.

"So... I saw that shirt you have on when you came through the cab earlier. Where'd you get that?"

"Believe it or not I got it tonight. Some little girl had made it for me. Cute, huh?" he said, pulling it away from his body to let me read it better.

"Yeah. Real cute." I said smiling. "Oh... what was up earlier when I mentioned the crazy security guard that threw that cover over our heads and pushed us back into the building where you were?"

He laughed at me for a minute and then slowly answered. "I noticed everyone shovin' you and Christene up to the caution tape and I had a feelin' that you guys were gettin' a little uneasy. I'm such a crazy security guard sometimes." He said laughing at me again before he finished.

"Shit. I can't believe it was YOU who pulled us back into the building with ya. That's crazy. How'd ya know we weren't some sorta crazy fanatics like the rest of 'em!?" I asked in disbelief.

"I just knew. You guys weren't doin' anything but standin' there and the rest of 'em... they were grabbin' at me and yellin' at me and... and... uh..." he trailed off as he ruffled his hair and looked out the bus window, "You know how damn irritating it gets to have strange women grabbin' your ass all the time!?" he said turning back to me, "It's like nothin's personal to 'em. They think they own me but they don't." he finished getting quiet again and turning back to face the window of the bus.

We sat speechless for a few minutes. I couldn't think of anything to say or do. After all, I had thought about touching him more than once, but I had never actually been so brazen to do it. Before he turned back to his laptop and shut it, without looking at me he said "Sorry. I just get so sick of people thinkin' they own me sometimes. None a that was directed at you."

"You tired?" he asked, turning back to face me.

"Yeah... I am... I can share a bunk with Christene. I don't wanna take up too much room."

"Shit. There's two small guest bunks back there besides mine. C'mon." he said as I stood up from the bench.

I let him around me so he could get to the door to the bunks and followed him into the back. "There's the bathroom right here," he said as he pointed to the first door on the right, "There's my bunk, and you can sleep in there." He said, first pointing straight back to a door and then to another door to the left.

"Thanks so much for this Taylor. I don't know what my dad would have done if he would have had to come all the way from Tennessee to Cinci to pick up Christene and I." I said pausing as I opened the door to the bunk I'd be sleeping in.

"No problem... Sleep good, cause we stop and get breakfast pretty early." he said, reaching out his arms to hug me and kiss me on the forehead before opening the door to the main sleeper and disappearing inside the door.

"Goodnight Tay..." I whispered after the door had already closed.

Quietly I opened the door to the guest bunk and went inside to lie down. "God," I thought as I sat down, "the couch in this thing is so comfy... guess they ran outta funding when they got to the guest bunks. I hope he doesn't have to sleep like this ev'ry night." The only thing in the small room besides the bed was a small shelf with an LED alarm clock and a small window. For a while I just lay there on my side staring out the window, watching the snowflakes fall. Slowly... quickly... slowly... quickly. The ground beside the road was already coated with what I could only estimate to be about three inches. Slowly I drifted off into dreams. Vivid, colorful, music filled dreams that didn't make sense at all.

We must have hit a bump in the road... something woke me up. I rolled over onto my other side and started drifting back into my dreams. No... not a bump. I heard the knock on the door again. Sleepily I sat up and rubbed my eyes. It was already five in the morning.

"You guys do wake up early for breakfast don't ya?" I said opening the door.

"Hey... it's not breakfast yet, hon." Taylor said. "I just can't sleep, can you?"

"Well... yeah. I could sleep before you woke me up." I said laughing.

"Sorry. You need anything to drink before I get ready to go back to my bunk? I've got some Bud Lite or Dr. Pepper in the fridge under the dining table out there... or some milk. Yeah. That's what I need. Milk. That helps you sleep don't it?" he said before walking into the main cab again as I sat completely and totally confused on the bed.

"Here ya go." He said when he got back with two glasses of milk. "I hate not bein' able to sleep... which is most a the time."

"Thanks," I replied as I took the glass of milk from his hand and took a drink.

"You wanna come back here with me for a minute?" he asked, motioning back to his bunk. "I've got music back there and a TV."

"Sure, music helps me sleep. I'll come back there and listen to your music with ya for a while." I said as I stood up on my feet and rose from the bed, shutting the door to the bunk behind me.

Taylor's sleeper bunk was much larger than the guest bunks. Oddly, on one wall there were pictures of crowds of people waving with happy, excited looks on their faces; on another there were pictures of his family and friends. There were lights mounted onto the walls and on each side of his double bed there was a nightstand type shelf mounted to the wall with drawers underneath. In the corner by the door there was a small flat screen TV mounted to the wall and a cd player mounted on a shelf on the other side. Taylor closed the door behind us and I noticed on the back of the door was a poster of Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, and Otis Redding and across the bottom it said "Watching Over You..." in white letters.

"Oh! That's cool! Where'd ya get that?" I exclaimed as I examined it closer.

"Some kids and their gramma gave that to me in Texas. One a the things that makes me happy. I doubt the kids knew who those guys were, but their gramma probably did." He said as he smiled softly and sat down on the bed holding his glass of milk in both hands. "You can sit down y'know." He finished with a chuckle.

"Oh... yeah... right." I said laughing at myself and sitting down on the bed. This bed was much softer than the twin bed in the guest bunk; probably from countless nights of being slept in. I'm sure Taylor had another bed he wished he could be in at home though.

"So where we at now?" I said.

"We just passed by Lexington, Kentucky I think." He said looking out the window trying to see the next road sign. You fell asleep before we even left Cinci. We were just pullin' out when I woke you up."

"Wow... really?" I asked before yawning long and hard.

"Yeah... No shit. Here," he said, scooting himself back on the bed and sitting his glass of milk down on the nightstand beside him and picking up a little remote, "Let's listen to some music and I'll let you go to sleep."

Taking my glass of milk and sitting it on the nightstand beside his own he reached for my hand and pulled me back beside him making my heart skipped a beat. I had dreamed about this for a long time. Not just being "in bed" with Taylor; Just to have a close personal memory of just the two of us that I would never forget. Ever since I first saw him on "that show" and began watching him week after week and got to see what a great guy he seemed to be, I thought he would be someone great to be friends with, but this just took the cake. The sounds of acoustic guitar filled the small room and Taylor began singing along with the music.

"Can I stay, here with you til the morning... I am so far from home and I feel a little stoned. Can I stay here with you til the morning, there's nothing I want more than to wake up on your floor...So lay with me in your thinnest dress, feel my heart with each caress, between your blissful kisses whisper darling is this love..."

"Wow... that's beautiful... who wrote that?" I asked, laying back onto the pillow behind me.

"That's Ray... LaMontagne. Y'know... the same guy who wrote Trouble. Great fuckin' musician, man." He said shaking his head. "And that's just the tip of the iceberg with him."

The room grew quiet all except for Taylor's beautiful raspy, tenor voice cutting through the silence and slowly I felt as if I were slipping back into my dreams. Euphoric dreams. Dreams of great imagination and longing... I slept for a while and hid in my dream world until I woke up to my heart thumping in my chest wildly. The beautiful man beside me was slowly running the fingers of one hand through my tousled hair and still singing along with the music.

I sighed and rolled over to face him. Sometime while I was asleep he had taken off his shirt because when I rolled over I could smell his scent and feel his shoulder against my cheek. Skin to skin... This was definitely another something that I would have never imagined I would experience in a million years... Something that I was sure I would never forget. I laid there for a while and listened to the lyrics of the songs playing on the stereo and after a while the realization that I would probably never experience this again hit me. The emotion was so strong that it felt like I had been kicked in the stomach. Immediately I began sobbing into his chest. I was confused. Was this a dream or was this real? Was this really happening to me? I tried to ask him but everything that came out of my mouth was masked by a sob. He held me tighter and closer as I cried into his chest. I could feel his breathing and his heartbeat so close to me as I lay there, nestled to him.

Slowly he sat up, still cradling me to him. "I know, hon... I know..." He whispered to me as he stroked my hair, "Sometimes bein' close to someone is just as sad as bein' lonely. It makes ya realize what you've been missin' for such a long time and it makes ya ache for it even more."

Slowly he rocked me as I sobbed, stopping a few times to brush my tears from my face with the backs of his fingers. A few times he looked at me and I could tell that he was thinking; Deep thoughts that I was sure I would never know. We just lay there quietly for the longest time. Slowly we put our arms around each other as we cried. I cried now because I could finally feel the dam of his sadness break loose. It may not have been my business... but he had told me what I had been wondering all night. His hot tears soaked through my shirt and onto my shoulder.

Slowly with one finger he raised my head to face him and stared into my eyes with that gaze of his... the gaze that burned through to my soul. Tilting my chin up he gave me the deepest kiss that I had ever had in my twenty four years, our faces covered in tears and our tongues caressing each other. I felt things happen to me that had never happened when anyone else had kissed me. It was like I was floating on a cloud. We melted into one person it seemed; our hands roamed and explored each others bodies. We lay there touching and kissing for hours until we fell asleep embracing each other.

(to be continued...)