Page 2 of Bend

I forgot about my popcorn, letting my eyes fall shut as the deep afternoon sunlight burst through the windows in staccato drafts and the train rolled though the Texas hill country.

The few moments of peace were nice. While they lasted.

2

Eli

Mars Camden was a grumpy-ass brute, though admittedly one I was mostly leery of because it was easy to sense that he disliked me. I didn’t show that wariness, though. No, I enjoyed ruffling his feathers in the downtime between one shot and the next. And what kind of name was Mars anyway? I had to assume it was short for something, but somehow no one knew what. It was just accepted. The earth was round, Mars was Mars. Beginning and end.

I’d never really been into guys like him: rugged and tall with that stain of red still on the back of their neck, a plaid shirt and gallon hat tip away from something you’d find in one of the Country and Western bars on Nashville’s Second Avenue. Except I’d never seen him in plaid before, mostly in T-shirts that stretched across his broad shoulders and wide chest like the fabric was hanging on for dear life or else was in love with the muscles they curved around. I liked guys slender and svelte, refined and well-spoken if mouthy. I suppose there was some crossover there because Mars sure as hell had a mouth on him, and he’d been aiming it at me for most of the tour, every interview request met with a resentful look and either outright denial or some sort of grumping snark as if I was putting him out personally.

It would’ve gotten old by now if I hadn’t started having a little fun with it by assuming the role of instigator. I wasn’t usually aggressive as far as documentarians were concerned. I didn’t go for the throat when I did my interviews but preferred to peel the layers back over time—which I thought was part of the reason Les and Evan had agreed to let me come along to document the tour in the first place. I wasn’t a soft touch, either, but I liked to think I showed the genuine picture in my films.

It was clear to me early on, though, that Mars had a long-standing bone to pick with anyone he considered media, regardless of how well-intentioned I was. But that was his problem, not mine.

And at the moment, I was wondering if I was even worth my salt because instead of focusing on the jam session in progress around me, I was staring fascinated by the way the whipstitch of sunlight over Mars’s face brought out some reddish gold in the stubble peppered along his jawline. His eyes were closed, and if he wasn’t asleep he was close, so I took advantage, tracing his features with my gaze, intrigued by the softness that had descended around his eyes. He had to be nearing forty, but right now? He looked closer to thirty. Until his eyes popped open as if he’d felt me staring. For a second, we just looked at each other, his expression drowsy and relaxed. And unexpectedly sexy.

Then his lips twitched with something that could’ve been a nice smile if it hadn’t crudely fishhooked into a smirk as he turned his wrist over on the arm of his chair and flipped me the bird.

I lifted two fingers to my forehead and gave him an imaginary hat tip that he rolled his eyes at. See? It was fun. Wouldn’t want to meet a Colossus like him in a dark alley anytime soon, but on a train meandering through Texas with a bunch of musicians? Yeah, I was amused.

Derrick, my director of photography, nudged me, breaking my gaze from Mars’s—which was a good thing, because I suspected in a stare down we’d both go for hours. I was just as stubborn as he was. Maybe more so. You didn’t get opportunities like this one by being the kind of guy who bowed easily, and I’d lobbied Evan and Les hard to let me do this project. I refused to let their surly tour manager cow me.

“This is good stuff,” Derrick murmured, ticking his chin in the direction of the musicians sprawled haphazardly over the sofas, chairs, and benches scattered around the car, some playing along, some singing, some just listening to the strange magic that seemed to happen frequently on this tour. Derrick was right. The lighting, the music, the soft sway of the train car. It was a great shot, and I turned my attention back to that, ignoring Mars.

I was 100 percent certain he’d been staring at my ass earlier as I left the cafe car. Well, he could keep on admiring from afar.

What a fucker.

3

Mars

“Want one?” Les shook the little box of conversation hearts in my direction, and I shook my head. I hated the nasty things. Had since I was a kid, but someone had gotten a stash earlier in the week, and the boxes were all over the train now like they were multiplying overnight.

Les, Evan, and I sat in one of the dining car’s deep blue vinyl-covered booths. I’d scrunched onto a bench alone, which was what usually happened. Evan had fit himself into the corner, his back resting against the side of the car and the big picture window next to us that flashed scenery in dark drafts as moonlight peeked through the trees. He had one arm draped loosely around Les, who’d kind of angled himself in a mimicry of Evan, molding himself to his body. It’d taken me a while to get used to that; Evan had never really been a touchy-feely type, but boy, that had sure changed over the last year.

We were in the midst of going over their schedule for the next three days, a task not a damn one of us looked forward to except Evan, who seemed to have been born with the ability to bullet point that shit into his brain.

“So when we stop tomorrow, there’s a car service coming to take you to WHTV,” I read off the sheet on the table in front of me.

“Then do the signing at that record store, right?”

I nodded at Evan. Les tilted his head to one side, eyeing his bandmate. “That’s Dan’s friend who’s the owner?” he asked, and Evan nodded. Dan Grim had a record store in Nashville and had helped launch Porter & Graves’ career. To this day, Dan seemed to have a finger in industry honeypots all over the country, even though he resolutely said he was done with music. Making it, at least. He had a lot of rumors swirling around him, too. Bet Eli would die to get the story behind it all. I groaned, wondering why I was thinking about him again, and Les grinned at me.

“Told you to stop eating all that crap.”

“You eat worse crap,” I pointed out.

“My stomach is a decade younger than yours.”

“Minutiae.” Les blinked slowly at me for that. “Yeah, you like that five-dollar word right there?”

Les pursed his lips and lifted a brow. “It’s a pretty sexy word. Too bad you’re wasting it on me.”

“I’m practicing.” I waggled my brows at him, and Evan snickered.

“Don’t bother. Les is all about the one-cent words. Sometimes just caveman-style grunts.” He dropped his voice in a mimicry of Les’s sultry baritone. “Moooooore. Me hungry.”