No Curtain Call

Chapter 5

***

"Anya?" I heard Nick's voice filter through the door. "Are you okay?" he asked, before opening up the door leading into the bunks just a crack. A stream of dim light filtered through the crack, stretching across the expanse of the dark room. 

"Yeah, I'm fine," I sniffled my nose, putting on a smile. I pretty much locked myself away in the bunks after Acton had grabbed my ass, analyzing everything that had happened between the two of us today. The end result of my mental conversation with myself was just a bigger bundle of confusion and chaos that enraptured my mind. Acton seemed to act like an asshole around everyone else, including me, but sometimes when we were alone he was more gentle. And he refused to talk about any of it with me. 

"Okay, then. A-are you sure?" Nick asked, after obviously wondering if my sniffle was the aftermath of me crying. But... I hadn't cried, not really. 

"Yeah, I'm fine," I assured him, sliding out from my bunk which was underneath Acton's. "What do you need?"

"I just came in here to tell you that we've almost arrived in New York City."

"Seriously?" I gasped, shocked that it only took that long.

"Well, it's only about an hour's drive from Boston to New York, so..." Nick drifted off, flicking on the lights. "When we get there we're going to start unpacking the bus and getting set up for our concert tonight."

"Oh, okay. Can I help?" I asked, anxious to see how they all got set up for a concert. I hadn't paid much attention to the concert a week earlier. 

"Sure. We'll be arriving in about five minutes," Nick answered me, offering me his hand to lead me out of the room and into the 'living room' where all of the other guys were seated, still focused on the TV.

"What do I do while the concert is going on?" I asked, a little nervous. I knew there were going to be a lot of people at the concert, and after hearing Cara's horror story, I was a little more than frightened of the bad things that could happen. 

"You can hang out in the crowds or with the body guards backstage. I would suggest you stay with the bodyguards, though," Nick told me as I made my way over to the seat alongside the window of the bus so I could stare at the moving scenery as we drove through the city.

"Beautiful," I murmured, angling my head to try and get a view of the roofs of the skyscrapers. It wasn't possible. 

"Makes you feel small, doesn't it?" Acton murmured, taking the seat across from me so we could both stare out the window. 

"Yeah," I answered, a little unnerved that Acton was still talking to me so casually. 

"I love that about this city," Acton continued, staring at the traffic around us as we moved to a stop in front of the Empire State Building. "It makes me feel small. Unimportant. Less pressure that way."

"You like to blend in?" I asked him, since my opinion of him was the exact opposite. I thought he liked being recognized everywhere he went.

"Sometimes, you need to blend in a little to hold on to yourself. Because when you are exactly like everyone else, that is when you truly know what makes you different. What sets you apart from them. And that's when you can see that you are exactly like them."

"Wow," I teased him, though still shocked he would open up like that to me. "That's pretty deep."

"I could show you just how deep I can get if you'd let me show you," Acton turned his focus on me and lowered his voice to a growl. "I can show you how deep I can get inside so that you'd never get me out."