Free The Song Remains the Same by Kelli Jean Page B

me a guilty look. “She will when her dad tells her at the end of the week.”
    Alys worked for her father, Papa David’s, accounting firm.
    “Damn, Phil.”
    “Like she’d object! She wants to come on tour, too.”
    “What about Lili?”
    “Well, she is our favorite photographer…and maybe Lewis agreed to be our personal chef for the summer.”
    “Shit. What does he charge for something like that?”
    Phil shrugged. “He’s writing a new book, and he needs to travel to gather recipes from all over the nation anyway. Two birds, one stone, you know? He can try out his spin-off of the recipes on us, and we’ll be happy to tell him if it’s shit or not.”
    “You’ll eat anything!”
    “Except that ambrosia garbage. That was like solidified vomit,” he said, and picked up his chopsticks once more.
    “For the love of—”
    He jabbed his chopsticks in my direction. “I can have what I want, woman, and I want all our friends with us on this tour. We spent five fuckin’ years tourin’ the world with strangers and weirdos and people who smelled worse than the tour bus. We all want this. And Connor will need you for moral support.”
    “You’re full of shit.”
    “Yeah, but you love me anyway.”
    Too fuckin’ right. “I’ll think about it.”
    It was a no-brainer really. Phil was like an enormous fairy godfather, just handing out answers to people’s wildest fantasies. He was brilliant, intuitive, compassionate, and wealthy enough to give the people he loved what they wanted in life.

    Alys’s hand flexed around mine as we stared up at the monstrosity that was to be our new home for the next ten weeks. Sleek, shiny, and massive, the black tour bus with its obscene amount of vehicular decadence loomed above us.
    “Kenna, I think it’s bigger than our house,” Alys whispered.
    “Mmm…”
    This was our first look at it. We hadn’t even gone inside yet, and we were scheduled to head out in less than an hour. NOLA’s Junk had had this thing custom-made for them. Usually, a beast of this size could fit around twenty-five people, but it would service only the band, their women, and a small handful of friends.
    The bunks housed double beds with smaller spaces for those who needed to tag along. However, Phil, being the mad giant of the clan, had a special space on the second level to house a queen-sized bed. For five years, Phil had slept on a sofa on their tour bus because the bunks were unable to contain his gargantuan body, so the guys had happily let him have the space they had coined as The Attic. The Attic was now my space, too.
    Most of our luggage was already on board, carried on by the roadies who had joined us the night before. They had their own smaller, older bus that would be following this one.
    They’d hired their driver, Mack, from their European tours. He was the quintessential truck driver—middle-aged and bald with a gut that had only shown up from a diet rich in beer and fast food. He smelled a lot better than he looked though. Phil had said the man could drive through any condition.
    There was a fully functional kitchen, and according to Lili, Lewis had brought on every imaginable appliance for it. Since I was a certified and licensed nutritionist, Lewis had asked for my help in designing the menus. I’d be working alongside Lewis fucking Lee on his new cookbook.
    How awesome is that?
    “How much did this thing cost?” Alys asked, still whispering. It was as though, if she raised her voice, the bus might take offense.
    “I’ve given up trying to figure the cost of shit anymore,” I replied, my voice strong and audible. The bus didn’t scare me. Spending ten weeks cooped up with horny, moody musicianswaswhat scared me—along with having only one toilet. “Aren’t you their accountant? How do you not know?”
    “I’m only doing the expenses accrued on the road. If I do a good job, then maybe I’ll take over everything else. This is just a trial period.”
    “Ready for the