One Night Only (Season 1: Deni's Story)

Chapter Thirty-Two

When I regain consciousness, I'm lying across a seat in Sawyer's bus. It reminds me of coming to in the green room at The Domino after the explosion, only there's no alarm. This time I recall every moment of what happened prior to blacking out before I open my eyes, but I wish I didn't.

Images flash through my mind. Bowie announced I was in the audience and pointed me out from the stage. People rushed to crowd around me, and short blasts that sounded like fireworks exploded somewhere nearby. Hunter caught me as I fell, seconds after he found out about everything in the worst possible way.

Hunter. I scan the bus for him. He's close by in the tiny kitchen, peering out the window. His mouth is set in a grim line, and his hands are shoved deep into his pockets. He looks shell-shocked.

It's only him, me, Sawyer, and a festival medic inside the bus. Words fail me in this moment, so I concentrate on sitting up. My movement attracts the attention of the medic, Sawyer, and Hunter at the same time.

"Go easy," the medic instructs me. "Are you experiencing any dizziness? Do you know where you are?"

"I'm in a tour bus at a music festival," I reply. "No dizziness. I'm fine. It was just anxiety and a panic attack."

"Do you have panic attacks often?"

"Only since someone set off a bomb at my concert," I mumble.

I'm focused on Hunter, so I don't know if the medic catches my reply. He doesn't respond to it if he does, but instead asks me a couple more questions. Satisfied with my answers and that I'll live, he leaves the bus after I agree to have someone get him if I feel faint again. Now it's just Hunter, Sawyer, and me, and one hell of an elephant in the room no one has yet said a word about.

Sawyer must sense the same thing I do, because he breaks the silence. "I texted your mom about what happened. She wanted me to call her when you woke up, so I'm going to go do that." He excuses himself and heads to the door at the front of the bus, leaving me alone with Hunter.

Great. Mom must be beside herself with worry and fury. She already can't stand Bowie, and I can't imagine the scene that will unfold if their paths ever cross again. Between this, the voice mail from several weeks ago she never did let me listen to, and the texts from him I didn't read, I wouldn't be surprised if she's already gone up one side and down the other of some unsuspecting soul on his management team or at our record label, or if she's contacted a lawyer about a restraining order.

But Mom confronting Bowie sometime in the future isn't what concerns me the most. Hunter hasn't said anything since I became alert again. He's too quiet and tense, and the way he averted his eyes when he saw me watching him makes me uneasy.

"Thanks for catching me and getting us somewhere safe."

"No problem." Hunter's voice is strained. He doesn't look up from a spot on the floor. His phone rings, but he makes no move to pull it from his pocket to answer it.

The way he rubs his hands over his eyes, rakes his fingers through his hair, and won't look at me are all signals that the conversation we're about to have won't be an easy one. I wait until his phone stops ringing to speak again.

"I know I have a lot to explain." My hands are doing that twisty, wringing thing they do when I'm anxious. "I know I should have told you sooner. This isn't how I wanted you to find out, and I'm sorry."

His head snaps up. "Are you sorry you didn't tell me or that I found out? Because I feel like if you had planned to tell me, it would have come up some time in the last month."

I try not to flinch. He has every reason to believe I wasn't going to share this with him, but it doesn't lessen the sting of his words.

"Of course I was going to tell you. I had planned to do it today, but then we ended up here before I could."