Brian watched as Nick slowly went through the motions of getting suited up
for the first act of the show. His movements were stiff and mechanical. The
migraine Nick had been expecting had shown up in full force.
Staring at Nick, he finally got him to look over at him. “Are you gonna be
able to work tonight?”
“I have to, there’s no other choice,” Nick replied, his voice barely broke
above a whisper.
“But look at you and listen to your voice, you can hardly move and you can’t
talk loud. How the heck are you going to be able to sing?”
Nick repeated his reply again. “I have to, there’s no other choice.”
Leaving the green room, Brian brushed past a lazy AJ, legs flopped over the
side of a chair, remote control in his hand.
“Where you off to in a hurry?” AJ called out.
Brian chose not to answer, he kept heading out the door down the hall
towards where the PR manager and Kevin were likely to be. When he reached
the meeting room door, Brian took a deep breath and knocked.
“It’s open,” Bruce yelled.
Brian clenched and unclenched his fists. He knew that Bruce was going to hit
the ceiling but he had to tell him about Nick, there was no way around it. He
entered the room, finding Kevin and Bruce sitting at a small table, papers
layed out in front of them. Brian waited for Bruce to direct his attention
towards him.
Brian decided to just plunge into it. “It’s Nick he’s too sick to go on tonight.”
An odd look came across Bruce’s face. “Well, Nick should have known better
than to get all shitfaced last night. Sorry, I don’t allow cancellations of
performers because of hangovers.”
“Oh come on Bruce, he can barely talk or move. He has a migraine,” Brian
defended. He looked over at Kevin hoping that he would jump to Nick’s
defense but was only met with a cold stare.
“Listen, he can and he will go out there and do his job,” Bruce demanded.
“Oh and if he doesn’t what are you gonna do, fire him?”
“Fire isn’t the word I would choose, it would be more like fine him.”
Brian shot a look at Kevin. “Aren’t you going to do anything? Come on Kev,
have a heart!”
Kevin shrugged his shoulders and looked back down at the papers that were
laying in front of him on the table.
“I can’t believe how cold and uncaring you two are! Nick can’t work like this
and you two know it, what kind of a point are you trying to prove here?”
Brian angrily stated.
Bruce chuckled. “The point I’m trying to prove is that you people have
no business partying during a tour especially those of you that don’t know
what the hell they’re doing and get hurt in the process and have media on
their asses and me to cover it up.”
“I think Nick’s already learned his lesson,” Brian defended.
“Good, because he will surely be paying for it tonight,” Bruce replied casually.
Brian folded his arms across his chest defensively. “You’re enjoying this,
aren’t you?”
Bruce looked up. “Do you have anything else important to say because I am a
busy man and I have things that need to be taken care of.”
Shaking his head, Brian turned and walked out of the room.
Toured Out by Jenna
