Chapter 12
(Draven)
The only way to deal with Johnny being gone was to throw myself wholeheartedly into putting together the tour. That meant countless hours on the phone in between emails, digitally signing contracts, and scouting potential locations. Through it all, I’d found myself with an assistant I’d never expected to have, though I couldn’t be sure if it was a newly cultivated interest in the business side of things that led Mickey to help or the weird vibe I kept picking up between him and Sully. The three of us had taken to occupying the communal spaces while the rest of the guys were out exploring and trying to keep themselves distracted so they wouldn’t dwell over what was going on with Johnny.
He still hadn’t texted me.
“All right, enough for right now,” Sully said, slamming his notebook shut with enough force that it echoed through the room. “You look at that phone anymore and you’re gonna glare the glass protector right off the screen.”
“Been hoping for a text,” I typed.
“No shit,” Sully replied. “But none of us have left this room for almost forty-eight hours and I’m starting to hate this whole seafoam green motif. Let’s get some real fuckin’ coffee and a fat, juicy steak. Maybe you two can help me with a little problem I’ve been having while we stuff our faces.”
“Problem?” Mickey piped up, propping his chin on his elbow as he stared across the table. “I thought everything was running smoothly.”
Was it just my imagination, or did Sully chuckle more when he was talking to Mickey than when he spoke to the rest of us?
“It is,” Sully replied. “But you guys know your band members better than I do, and right now I’m torn about who to pick for a few of these assignments. So, let’s figure it out over some food. Maybe we’ll get lucky and The Rustic Revelry will have a blues band tonight. Nothing helps sort a problem out better than the blues.”
“Fuck, that place is awesome,” Mickey replied.
“You know it?” Sully remarked, looking impressed.
I felt like a third wheel as I watched their interaction, and didn’t feel a bit bad about it, either. Mickey had always been slow to warm up to people and I’d never seen him do anything that came close to flirting, even from the stage. Right now he was staring at Sully like he wanted to get to know his life story, and Sully was staring back like he was, at the very least, intrigued by our blue-eyed bass and keyboard player.
“Know it, we’ve played it,” Mickey said. “Both bands have.”
“Since we’re dropping in, I’ll touch base with their manager and see if they’ve got any openings we can fill,” I typed. “It’s always good coming back here. It’s our west coast home.”
“I grew up twenty miles south of here,” Sully said. “Soon as I was old enough to have friends with licenses, we spent all our free time in Portland, looking to get into shit. The recruiter’s office I eventually enlisted out of is less than a dozen blocks from here. So come on, get off your asses and let’s get some food.”
I could eat. As if to remind me that I hadn’t since, damn, six hours ago, my stomach chose that moment to rumble as I stood, tucked my device in my pocket and made sure I hadn’t left my wallet back in the room. Mickey had to run to the one he was sharing with Ozzy to collect his, while Sully stepped outside to confer with the team watching the door. I didn’t even have a vehicle there, but before I could worry about how we were going to get where we were going, Sully stepped back in and announced that Christine was bringing the SUV around. I should have expected he’d have a contingency vehicle around somewhere. The man was a beast when it came to staying on top of things.
A compact, fierce looking guard named Zyon was going to remain behind to make certain the suite stayed secure, but Sully promised to bring him back a meal and the man cracked a smile and told him not to be skimpy about the horseradish sauce. I could already tell that Sully cared about his people and looked out for them like my band brothers and I watched out for one another, which just added to the trust I had in him. Sully took the passenger’s seat while Mickey and I got in the back, Mickey passing me his phone the moment we were settled.
“I’ve been working on layouts and slogans for the next batch of pins,” Mickey said as I stared down at the first image. We’d always used a broken Celtic cross as our band logo, a nod to the Irish ancestry each of us carried in our family tree. The one in his drawing was crafted out of glass shards splattered with blood and crumbling at the edges. Around it were the words Broken Pieces Still Shine . It was a powerful message, one I could see us using not only on pins, but t-shirts, stickers and even guitar picks.
“Fuck, man, that’s gonna hit different when people see it,” I typed, letting my device carry on the conversation for me. I knew I could have managed a few minutes of speech in the silence of our SUV, but it was finally starting to get easier to rely on the device that was intended to make things easier for me. It really did. I’d noticed the guys start to go silent whenever I started typing. Their patience with me erasing any lingering fears I’d had about being able to do this job without being able to shout down the band the way I had when I’d been its frontman. I should have had more confidence in my ability to adapt. I’d never let anyone or anything silence me before, even when I’d been outnumbered.
“That’s what I’m hoping for,” Mickey said.
I scrolled to the next one and started down at a Celtic cross guitar, mid explosion. Words poured out of the center instead of flames, the line one from our latest single. We’re all children of the stars.
“Jagger’s gonna love that,” I typed.
“Dude’s got some serious chops when it comes to song writing, why didn’t you tell us what was in that notebook?”
“I wanted him to. Figured if he couldn’t do it on his own terms then he would never feel comfortable singing the words. That wasn’t in the book I read, though. Turns out Keegan had gotten ahold of an old one, not the one Jagger had been writing in when he joined the band. If I’d known he was that good at it, I’d have pressed harder.”
“He and I have been working on something,” Mickey said. “I know we don’t do a lot of ballads, but I’ve been trying to put into words all the shit I’ve been struggling with as I watch you guys falling in love, and Jagger really gets it. Some of the conversations we’ve had, it’s like we’re different sides of the same coin, both searching for the same thing but in different ways.”
“Johnny knew he’d be a good fit, even while Jagger still doubted that he could enthrall a crowd the size of the venues we’d be playing.”
“Johnny’s smart that way.”
I finished looking at his designs as we pulled up to the pub, but when I went to touch the door handle Sully spoke up, halting my movements.
“Hang on a sec, let Christine line us up a booth and let their security team know we’re here,” Sully said.
Next to me Mickey flushed, his hand on the door handle, too. “Sorry, old habits,” Mickey said.
“No worries. You’ll get the hang of things the longer we’re with you. It’s gonna take time before we all move like a well-oiled machine.”
Despite the seriousness of his tone, his face lacked its usual fierceness when he looked at Mickey.
“We’re good,” Christine said when she came back, then she opened Mickey’s door and Sully opened mine, the two of them falling in beside us as we headed inside, where security and the hostess waited to see us to one of the balcony booths opposite the stage where a band was warming up.
“When you said that maybe we’d get lucky and there would be a blues band tonight, you knew luck wouldn’t be involved, didn’t you?” Mickey said once we’d settled into our seats.
“I wouldn’t say I knew with one hundred percent certainty, but Wednesday were always blues night when I lived here, so there was reasonable expectation that they’d hold to the tradition,” Sully admitted.
“All the years we’ve come here, this is the first time I’ve ever been upstairs,” I typed as I took the time to look around and appreciate the rich mahogany of the wood and the hand carved images gleaming from their glossy surface. This place had a history that echoed even when the stage was silent. It was the kind of place that was slowly disappearing, and the kind of venue we’d be proud to play again.
“I’ve been up here once before tonight,” Sully said, pointing to a nearby booth. “Right over there. My brother and I sat across from one another before he shipped out. That was two weeks before I did. He went Coast Guard, became a rescue swimmer. Now he trains the next generation of rescue swimmers.”
“What branch did you serve in?” Mickey asked.
“Marines.”
“Nice.”
“It was. My time taught me a lot, good and bad. Now that it’s over, I’m grateful for the chance to keep my skills sharp and put them to good use protecting others the way I swore to do when I enlisted. The best part about it is that I get to see the country while I’m doing it, and who knows, maybe more of the world than I’ve already seen.”
“I’d love to see us go international one day,” I typed. “That’s the end goal of every band.”
We gave our order, chuckling when we all requested our steaks the exact same way. Medium rare leaning on the rare side, loaded smashed potatoes and the house famous grilled brussels sprouts smothered in onions and bacon. Great minds and all that.
“So, what’s the issue with the assignment and how can we help you sort it out?” Mickey asked.
Sully raised an eyebrow as he glanced from Mickey to me and I shrugged, because Mickey was clearly taking charge on this part and I was more than willing to let him run point while I sat back and observed the way they interacted outside of the hotel suite.
“Right to business, I can appreciate that,” Sully said.
Where others might have made a playful remark about hoping Mickey had a fun side to balance out the serious one, Sully just opened the binder he carried, and flipped to the section marked with a green tab.
“Point blank I need to ask if Keegan and Rebel are hot heads,” Sully said, steepling his hands in front of him as he stared across the table from us.
“Rebel can be impulsive, but he’s not a hot head,” Mickey said. “The more pissed off he gets, the quieter he gets, which is the opposite of who Rebel is. That guy never shuts up unless he’s sleeping, or on the verge of losing his shit, but he never loses it on people. He tends to internalize, twist whatever happened around until he’s picked it apart enough that he can find some way that he was at fault, even when he wasn’t. The only time he rants about anything is when he’s drunk, then it’s a no holds barred, vicious tirade, where he doesn’t care who he offends. The usual result is a shitstorm of profanities and a sliver of what’s actually going on.”
“He pours all of his rage into his guitar,” I typed. “It’s like he’s using it as the weapon to slay his demons. But in the moments when the silence has taken over and he’s stewing on it, he drinks way more than he should. We’ve all had to cut him off and hustle him out of someplace because he was damn near passed out in his chair, or sliding out of it and onto the floor underneath.”
“Okay, good to know, that gives my guys something to watch out for and settles my debate of who to assign to him,” Sully said.
“Who are you thinking for him?” Christine asked. “Steel and Jett?”
“Naw, not Steel. I thought about it, but he’d be a better fit guarding Jagger. Jett, though, I am going to assign to Rebel, along with Cyril, I think those two will work well together and keep Rebel from trying to nap under a table.”
“When Cyril’s assignment set to be over?” Christine asked .
“Saturday night. He’ll be flying in Sunday morning, I’ll brief him on the way back from the airport, that will give him the chance to read Rebel’s dossier. I’ll send Jett a copy tonight. I was still on the fence when I sent him out with Rebel this morning. Now I’m certain that was the right decision.”
“So, was Keegan the other one you were having trouble matching?” Mickey asked.
“Yes, and I noticed that neither of you made any attempt to deny that he has a tendency to lose his shit.”
“He’s gotten in a few fights, and he shoots his mouth off when he shouldn’t, but he doesn’t start shit,” Mickey said. “He will and has finished it. So far he’s been lucky and hasn’t picked up any charges, but we’ve all warned him about keeping himself in check now that there’s a brighter spotlight shining on us.”
“So he doesn’t go swaggering through places trying to throw his weight around?” Sully asked.
“Oh hell no,” Mickey replied. “He’s as low key as they come, he’s just spent a lot of time tucking shit away that goes on between him and his family, and sometimes that all comes out when he’s dealing with someone he doesn’t have to hold back from giving a piece of his mind. I think he’ll be more mindful now that things with him and Jagger and Robbie have reached a point where they are damn near inseparable, but if someone were to threaten them and what he’s found with them, I know that would lead to a more volatile confrontation than any he’s ever had before. That’s a key trigger for him. No one hurts the people he loves. You saw what happened when you guys caught our former roadie. How many guards did it take to keep him from ripping Marcus apart?”
“Four, which was damn impressive considering one of them was Steel and that man’s a beast. I’ve seen him manhandle guys Keegan’s size and bigger without any backup, and Keegan knocked him on his ass trying to spear Marcus. Where the hell did he learn that anyway?”
“Football,” I typed. “We played on the same defensive line all through high school.”
“Let me guess, he played nose tackle.”
“Nailed it in one.”
“And you?”
“Edge Rusher.”
“Put a lot of quarterbacks in the dirt, didn’t you?”
“That was the goal. I was always starting line.”
“Glad you both know how to handle yourselves, but you let my crew do that for you from now on.”
“I’m more than good with that; it’s why I brought you on.”
“All right then, I’m going to have to give some more thought to who is going to guard Keegan,” Sully said as our steaks arrived. “Now let’s dig in before this scrumptious feast gets cold.”
“Hallelujah and Amen,” Mickey said as he snatched up his knife and fork and began carving off a piece that he immediately swirled through his smashed potatoes.
Across the table I saw Sully do the same and wondered if they’d noticed yet or if they were both too busy digging into steaks that smelled like a slice of heaven?
Oh yeah, it was gonna be fun watching them figure it out, and if Mickey needed someone to talk to, then I’d make sure he knew he could come to me. We’d all sacrificed a lot in terms of relationships and love while we chased our dreams. It would be nice to sit back and see us all succeed in that department too, and figure out what our own little slice of forever was supposed to look like, even if we had to cobble it together one broken, damaged chunk at a time.