1
Xander
The snow fell lightly outside as our tour bus made its way down the long, dark stretch of highway we were traveling on. It was quiet, except for the soft chords I was strumming on the old acoustic guitar I held close. My mind was full of the past this holiday season, some good, some bad, but all of it had shaped me into the man I am today.
I grew up in Denver, Colorado. A punk kid moving in and out of several foster homes after the death of my parents when I was seven years old. My older brother, Eric, got out on his eighteenth birthday, leaving me behind. I had just turned ten when he left, but was already on my sixth foster family. Partly because no one wanted to take on two brothers, but mostly because I tended to find trouble wherever I could. I was difficult, hard to get along with. Angry at life and anyone who tried to become a part of mine.
Things went downhill after Eric left until Greg and Mary Scott came into my life almost a year later. They took me in, stood by me through the hard times, and showed me that I had enough room in my heart for more than the family I’d lost.
A small smile turned up the corner of my lips as I ran my hand over the top of the sleek, light brown guitar. Greg had given it to me the night he asked if he and Mary could adopt me. They’d never insisted I call them Mom and Dad, but that was what they’d been to me until the day I lost them. Greg to cancer, and Mary a year later to what I would always think was a broken heart.
Two days later, I graduated from high school. With no one there to watch, I didn’t bother walking across the stage with the rest of the class to receive my diploma. After that, there’d been nothing holding me back. I left in the middle of the night, with just my old, ratty guitar case in one hand and a duffle bag full of clothes in the other. A year later I was on the fast track to becoming famous, and I only went to Denver one time a year, when I flew back to visit Greg and Mary’s graves and thank them for being there for me when it felt like no one else was. It was always on the day they adopted me—giving me their last name and hope for the future.
Sighing, I leaned my head back against the bus seat, closing my eyes. I’d been given the chance of a lifetime just a couple of years after leaving home. Being able to stand on stage in front of thousands of people, playing my music and belting out lyrics to the roar of the crowd, was exhilarating. Something I normally lived for. However, I was exhausted, both mentally and physically. I loved what I did, but I was getting burnt out. I needed a break badly.
“It’s picking up out there, Xander,” the driver called from the front of the bus. “Getting slick, too.”
Turning my head, I let my eyes slowly open as I stared out into the dark of the night. We were on our way to the next stop for a tour my band, Rebellious Dynasty, was doing. The rest of the band had flown back to California to spend Christmas with their families, but I decided to keep going with the bus. I didn’t have anyone waiting for me at home. Just a large, quiet condo in downtown Los Angeles that an interior decorator designed while I’d been out on tour. It was a place to eat and sleep when I was home, nothing more.
Sometimes, when I wasn’t on stage performing in front of a crowd, life felt lonely. It was then that I wondered what it would be like to have a family again. I would contemplate hiring someone to track down my brother, but then I would remember that he was the one who left me and never looked back.
It didn’t matter. I had my band. My guitar. My fans. That was all I needed. Well, that and a few days of downtime.
Suddenly, the bus lurched forward, making me almost drop my guitar and jerking me from my thoughts. A low, muttered curse emerged before I could stop it, and I slowly rose to my feet as I glanced out the window across the aisle with a frown. Where the hell were we?
“Tom?” I yelled up to the driver, setting the guitar down on the seat beside me. “What happened?”
“Damn thing died,” Tom grumbled, shaking his head in agitation.
“Can you fix it?”
“I have no idea. I don’t have a clue what’s wrong.” Tom stood, opening the door before he glanced over in my direction. “Hang tight for a few minutes. I’m going to see if I can figure out what happened.”
Ignoring him, I grabbed my black leather jacket off the back of one of the seats and shrugged it on before following him out the door into the darkness. It was cold, and the light snow that was falling not too long ago had turned into more of a flurry. Shoving my hands into my pockets, I walked around to the back of the bus and watched as Tom flipped a latch and opened the hood.
After several minutes of rooting around inside, the dull beam of his flashlight skimming over everything, Tom sighed and stepped back, shaking his head.
“What’s the issue?” I asked quietly, walking over to stand beside him. I wasn’t a mechanic. I had no clue what to even look for, but I had high hopes that Tom did.
“Not sure,” Tom muttered, slowly closing the hood and latching it shut. “Might be a fuel line.” Taking out his phone, he looked at it and then grunted, “Damn thing has no service.”
After checking my own, I raked a hand through my thick, dark hair and turned to walk back to the front of the bus. “Any idea how far we are from the nearest town?”
“I’m pretty sure we are only about a mile away from Santa Claus.”
I paused, glancing back in his direction. “Santa Claus? Seriously?”
“Yep. Santa Claus, Indiana. It’s the next town we were going to drive through. I was thinking of stopping there for the night. Looks like we have to now.”
“Guess we better close up the bus and get moving.”
Before Tom could reply, I heard the loud honk of a horn and then was momentarily blinded by bright lights as a large truck pulled up beside our bus. The window on the passenger side rolled down, and a deep voice yelled, “You folks okay?”
I hesitated a moment before walking over to look in at a man about my age with light blond hair and brown eyes. “Bus broke down.”
Resting an arm over the steering wheel, he leaned over to look out the window toward the bus. His eyes widened and his gaze swung back to mine, then they narrowed on me. “You with that Rebellious Dynasty band?”
“Son, heisthe band,” Tom said, coming up beside me. Squinting into the truck, he asked, “Think you can give us a lift into town so we can find someone to take a look at the bus?”