Chapter One
Nick
"Why do you always have to challenge me?" His voice echoed through the empty seats surrounding the stage. "Every single time I say anything --"
"Maybe if you weren't such a self-righteous prick --"
"-- you gotta butt in like I'm a complete idiot and --"
"-- and you didn't expect everyone to kiss your fucking ass --"
"-- interrupt me like I have nothing important to say!"
"-- you'd see I'm just trying to help!"
We glowered at each other.
"Guys." Kevin came between us, his hands up as though we were about to launch at each other's throats. Brian's nostrils were flexing with his breath, sure, but even if he'd come at me he probably couldn't have reached my throat if he tried. "Stop it," Kevin commanded, "For Christ's sake, this is getting ridiculous."
"He started it," I snarled, childishly.
Kevin rolled his eyes, "I don't give a fuck who started it," he replied, "But one of the two of you needs to finish it." He glared at me, then at Brian, then back at me. "I mean it," he growled. "I did not come back to this band to listen to the two of you act like colossal dickheads to each other."
Brian's jaw was set.
It'd be a snow day in hell before I'd be the first one to apologize.
Kevin sighed. "Can we at least be civil?"
AJ and Howie were hanging back a few feet, studying their microphones, trying desperately to stay out of the whole thing.
Brian nodded sharply. "Yeah, I can be civil." His voice was flat, toneless. "I'm done with soundcheck. The mics sound great. See ya later." He stared right at me as he dropped his microphone to the stage. It made a resounding thunk through the stereo system. Brian turned and walked away, jumping down off the stage on the far right and walking across the lot to the line of tour buses.
Kevin sighed again. He looked at me. "What the hell is wrong with you two?" he asked.
I shook my head. I didn't really know anymore. It'd been going on too long. I had my suspicions about when it started and why, but the reasoning behind them was so far buried that I couldn't decipher any longer what was truth and what was just speculation.
"Can't you just let it go?" he asked, and his tone was sad, almost broken.
"I don't know how," I replied. I turned my microphone off and put it down on an amp that was sitting at the side of the stage before heading to my own tour bus, leaving the other fellas on the stage.
I heard Kevin ask Howie and AJ, "How long has this been going on?"
"Years," AJ answered.
I hated the tone he said it in. I knew the tone too well. It was the tone I used to answer questions about my parents' fights. I felt tears threatening the edges of my eyes as I reached my tour bus and pulled open the door. I jogged up the steps and threw myself onto the couch face-first. I stared at the game I'd left paused on the screen and rolled onto my back. If only all of life was that easy, I thought, that we could just hit a button and pause it, juse freeze frame it and take a break.
Everything was so frustrating lately.
I closed my eyes and I guess I fell asleep at some point, and I dreamed about the past, when me and Brian were friends - best friends, even. I dreamed about this one time when we were on tour and we'd tried to find the baseball hall of fame and got so drastically lost that we were like a hundred and fifty miles in the wrong direction and got so punch-drunk from the experience that we were riding along singing to the oldies station at the top of our lungs, off key and horrible.
When I woke up it was because my phone was ringing and I glanced at it and realized it was Eddie, probably wondering where I was. It was almost time for us to go on - I could hear Jesse's set coming to an end, the screams of the audience echoing off the tour buses.
I stretched and sat up, my eyes landing on the video game screen where my first person shooter character was crouched, a shower of bullets frozen mid-air all around him. I'd paused it because it was my last life and the character was about to die. I always felt bad when I'd led characters I'd played into their death like that. So I'd paused it to give him a few extra hours of life.
I reached down and grabbed the controller. "Sorry, man," I mumbled. I unpaused the game and I watched the bullets pierce the computer animated model of my character, watched the pixels of blood spray across the screen, and the words Game Over slowly fade in. I sighed and reached for the TV remote and turned it off.
There was an urgent knocking on my door.
"I'm coming, relax," I called, and I stood up. I grabbed a protien shake on my way past the fridge and shook it as I descended the steps and pulled the door open. Outside was Eddie. He looked tired and he had dark cresents under his eyes. "I know, I know," I said, "It's almost show time, I know. Relax."
Eddie glowered at me, "I haven't relaxed this entire tour. You know that." He herded me along past the end of the tour buses. Brian was standing there at the end, arms crossed over his chest. Eddie stopped in front of him. He looked at me, then at Brian. "Look, Kevin came to me and we talked for a few about what happened at soundcheck this afternoon."
Brian looked annoyed. I'm pretty sure I did, too.
"Look, fellas, this whole you-two-not-getting-along thing? It ain't working." Eddie took a deep breath. "You two need to stop. Resolve whatever this is, kiss and make-up, or --" he paused. "Or tthe other three guys say they're gonna call off the tour."
"What?!" Brian and I both reacted at exactly the same time, in exactly the same pitch. Brian looked at me in surprise. It'd been a long time since we'd said or done anything in unison that wasn't part of a tightly choreographed dance routine.
"AJ, Howie and Kevin talked and came to a consensus and they agree that they can't handle you two fighting anymore," Eddie explained, "And Kevin said that the three of them agreed that if it isn't resolved and it doesn't stop that they're all going to walk off the tour. And let's face it, the two of you aren't gonna hold this production together alone."
Brian looked up at the stars in frustration and let out a urrrgh sound. I licked my lips and cracked my knuckles.
"I think the two of you should drive to the next venue together," Eddie said.
Brian's head snapped back to look at Eddie, "What?" he asked. I was too incredulous to ask, but I was totally thinking the same exact word. In the same exact tone.
Eddie shrugged, "I don't know what else to do to help you two except... When my grandfather died, my brother and I had been fighting for years, and we drove up to New Hampshire together, mostly out of convience than anything, and the time on the road, I don't know. It changed everything." Eddie held up his hands, palm-up. "I don't know what else to do," he said.
"What about Leighanne and Baylee?" Brian demanded.
"Oh it's always about Leighanne," I snapped, my blood pressure rising.
"Like it isn't always about Lauren," Brian retorted, his voice heating as he turned toward me. "You're so quick to criticize me and my wife, and then turn around you're just as obsessed with yours."
"She's not my wife," I snapped, "She was my fiance. We aren't married."
"That's not the point," Brian replied, "The point is that you are a hypocrite."
"You wanna talk about hypocrites?" I yelped, "You really wanna talk about being hypocritical Brian?"
"GUYS!" Eddie shouted.
We both stopped and looked at him.
"Seriously." His voice was low, "No more fighting or we're done here." He waved his hand at the fence that blocked the audience from our view. We could hear them all, milling and talking, laughing. A few randoms screamed out stuff like I love you AJ at the top of their voices. "Do you really wanna do that to them?"
We both shook our heads. In unison.
"Okay," Eddie said. "Then you gotta find a way to work it out."
We nodded. In unison.
He sighed. "Okay. Well, c'mon, let's go get this show on the stage..."
Brian and I glanced at one another and I puffed out my cheeks with a long exhale and Brian ducked away after Eddie, his eyes carrying an air of reluctance that I was feeling in my gut.
I didn't wanna say anything, but I could picture us calling off the tour a lot easier than I could picture me and Brian getting along. That just seemed... impossible.
Story Notes:
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