Miranda sighed and tuned her out, resolving to backtrack to the nearest gas station and get directions from a professional. Professional lukewarm coffee dispenser and stale-candy-bar salesman, maybe, but anything would be better than Harper’s geographically challenged attempts to guide them. Especially since Harper periodically forgot whether they should be heading east or west.
This was supposed to be a bonding weekend-or, rather, a
Call it the sisterhood of the traveling crankypants.
Miranda turned the key in the ignition, eager to start driving again-somewhere. Anywhere.
A small, suspicious, gurgling sound issued from the motor. Miranda turned the key again. Nothing. With a sinking feeling, she lowered her eyes to the dashboard indicators: specifically, the gas gauge.
Uh-oh.
“Harper?” she said softly, nibbling at the edge of her lower lip.
“Maybe if we circle around to Route 17,” Harper muttered, lost in her own cartographic world. “Or if we-wait, am I looking at this upside down?”
“Harper?” A little louder this time.
“Fine,
“Harper!”
Miranda tore the keys out of the ignition and threw them down on the dash, then leaned her head back against the seat. She closed her eyes. “We’re out of gas.”
She couldn’t see the look on Harper’s face. But she could imagine it.
There was a long pause. “So you’re telling me-” Harper stopped herself, and Miranda could hear her take a deep breath. Her voice got slightly-very slightly-calmer. “You’re telling me that we’re out of gas. We’re out here in the middle of nowhere, and now we’re not just lost-”
“We’re stranded,” Miranda confirmed. “So, Ms. Look On the Bright Side…
He woke her with a kiss.
“Whuh? Where…?” Beth Manning opened her eyes, disoriented and unsure why she was sleeping sitting up, lodged into the corner of a van that stunk of pot and sweat socks. But she smiled, nonetheless. It didn’t really matter where she was, or how much her neck and back ached-not when Reed Sawyer’s chocolate brown eyes were so close and his dark, curly hair was brushing her skin.
It was the best kind of alarm clock.
“Was I sleeping?” she mumbled, slowly making sense of her surroundings. She remembered piling into the van, nestling into a space between the guitar cases and the drum that was just big enough for one-or two, if they sat nearly on top of each other. She had curled under Reed’s arm, leaned her head on his shoulder, promised to stay awake for the long drive, and then zoned out, staring at the grayish brown monotony of the landscape speeding by. “Sorry, I guess I must have drifted off.”
“No worries,” Reed assured her, giving her another quick peck on the lips. “It was cute.”
“Yeah, the snoring was adorable!” Hale called from the driver’s seat.
“And the drooling,” Fish added teasingly. “The drooling was
“I did not drool!” Beth cried indignantly.
“Oh, don’t worry.” Fish, riding shotgun, twisted around toward the back and brandished his cell phone. “We’ve got pictures.”
“Shut up, losers,” Reed snapped. But Beth just smiled, and snuggled into his side, resting her head in the warm and familiar nook between his chest and shoulder. He looped his arm around her and began lightly tracing out patterns on her arm. She shivered.
Without warning, the van made a sharp left turn, veering into a parking lot and screeching to a stop. “Welcome to Vegas, kids,” Hale said, with a sharp blast on the horn. “Gateway to stardom.”
Stardom couldn t come soon enough, if it would mean an entourage to carry all the instruments and equipment up to the room. Or, even better, a van with a real lock on the doors that would keep out any thieves desperate enough to steal fifteen-year-old half-busted amplifiers. But since they currently had neither roadies nor locking doors, the three members of the Blind Monkeys had to make due with what they had: the combined strength of three scrawny potheads.
And one ever-faithful blond groupie.
“You don’t have to help,” Reed told her, pulling his guitar case out of the back. Beth was loaded up like a packhorse with heavy, scuffed-up duffel bags-no one trusted her to carry the real equipment. “You can go check in and we’ll meet you inside.”
“I’m fine,” she protested, ignoring the way the straps dug into her bare shoulder. “I want to help.” She was afraid that if she didn’t make herself useful, the other guys might realize that she didn’t really belong. Reed might finally figure it out himself.
Yes, she was the one who’d found out about that weekend’s All-American Band Battle, and she was the one who’d convinced Reed and the guys to enter. But no matter how much she hung out with them, she’d never be one of them, not really.
And she dreaded the day they got sick of her and left her behind.
Alone.
She couldn’t stand that. Not again.
Reed shrugged. “Whatever.” He slung his guitar case over his shoulder and hoisted an amp, heading across the parking lot. Beth began to follow, but then, as the hotel rose into full view, she stopped. And gasped.
The Camelot was the cheapest hotel almost-but-not-quite-on the Strip; Beth, a Vegas virgin, would have been willing to bet it was also the gaudiest. The gleaming white monstrosity towered over the parking lot-literally, as its twenty stories were sculpted into the guise of a medieval tower, complete with ramparts, turrets and, down below, a churning, brownish moat. It reminded Beth of a model castle her fourth-grade class had once built from sugar cubes, except that in this version, the royal crest was outlined in neon and featured a ten-foot-tall fluorescent princess wearing a jeweled crown-and little else.
Then there was the piece de resistance, guarding the palace doors. Beth goggled at the enormous, green animatronic dragon swinging its long neck up and down with an alarmingly loud creak each time it shifted direction. Periodically a puff of smoke would issue from its squarish mouth, followed by a warning siren, and then-
“It’s not going to eat you,” Reed teased, tipping his head toward the front doors, which were now nearly eclipsed by smoke. “Let’s make a run for it.”
Weighed down by luggage and guitars, it wasn’t much of a run, but they
