He wasn’t allowed to set foot on the band’s bus. But he and Chase had followed Jack there after the concert and the next thing he knew they were rolling down the highway. Once the buses got moving, nobody dared ask the driver to stop. The loser who did got assigned bathroom cleanup and trash duty for the next leg of the journey. The only time the bus stopped was when the driver had to get gas or take a piss.

Billie shouted his name again. She’d wake up the entire entourage if he didn’t get moving. He inchwormed his jeans on and his stomach rolled. He almost puked. He drank too much last night and ate too little.

“Dylan!”

“Coming,” he grumbled. He sat up quickly and smacked his forehead on the bunk’s flip TV.

“Fuck.” Now his head hurt, and not just from the dent left by the TV.

He scooted off the bunk and landed in a heap of duffel bags, loose clothing articles, and a random pile of shoes, items from the junk bunk. Dylan peeked behind the bunk’s privacy curtain and found Chase passed out, snoring, and thankfully, alone.

Dylan dropped the curtain and looked around. The bus smelled like urine and stale alcohol. It felt like a sauna. Someone had cranked up the heat and no one had bothered to open any windows. They’d been too drunk to care.

He walked to the front of the bus, stepping over empty bottles. Half-naked bodies sprawled on couches. Food and half-filled red Solo Cups cluttered every surface. Billie was still yelling.

Man, his ass was grass.

He exited the bus and his parents turned in unison. Billie gaped and Jack scowled.

“You see?” she shrieked. “This is why I’m taking Dylan with me. I can’t trust you to keep an eye on him. There’s lipstick all over his face. What happened to him last night?”

Dylan clapped his hands over his cheeks, horrified. What was she talking about? He started wiping off the lipstick he couldn’t see. He had no idea if any was coming off or he was just smearing the marks and making it worse.

Jack shrugged. Dylan knew he had no idea what he’d been up to last night. Jack Westfield had been smashed.

Billie came over. She touched Dylan’s hair, his face, his shoulders. “Are you okay, baby?”

“I’m fine, Mom.” He fended off her hands. He hated when she went all mama bear on him. It was embarrassing.

“Grab your things. We’re leaving,” she said at the same moment a yellow cab pulled into the fairground’s dirt lot.

“What the hell, Billie?” Jack exclaimed.

“I told you, Jack, if you got drunk one more time and couldn’t be a damn parent to your own son, then we’re through.”

“Nothing happened, Mom.”

“Stay out of this, Dylan,” Jack ordered.