Chapter 19
(Johnny)
Sweat dripped into my eyes and plastered my hair to my forehead as I launched into the final song of the night. While I’d kicked off the show in one of my trademark hoodies, I’d shed it while singing “Walkabout with Wappa,” a song that diehard fans knew the meaning behind while casual listeners constantly mistook the reference for having something to do with Australia. We’d never been, but it was a bucket list dream of mine and Rebel’s to play on a stage there. For Dash, it was Scotland, while Ozzy had been dreaming of playing in Montreal since he’d spent spring break up there during his one year at college.
That was one more than the rest of us had.
I poured my soul into the words, clutching the mic, never wanting the song to end. If I could have frozen this moment in time I would have, because getting off the stage meant facing the possibility that it was the last stage I would stand up on for quite some time. There was a message waiting for me in the back punctuated with the words god dammit, which I’m certain was not a legal term, despite it having come from my lawyer. I’d been putting it off all day, distracted, spending the time before getting on stage working on a song with Dash. Now it was time to end the music, so I could face the music.
Every step felt like a thousand miles.
“That was fuckin’ awesome!” Rebel declared as he slung an arm over my shoulders. “I love coming back to Everett.”
“Like a second home,” Dash said as they descended the steps from the stage to the backstage area.
Despite an hour and forty-five minutes onstage, their energy was still high as they descended upon the bottled water, juice, snacks and sandwiches Draven had started having one of our roadies pick up during the show, so it would be fresh by the time we’d finished. The best part was that our guys knew how we liked our food, so we never had to worry about getting something that we couldn’t eat.
Just the thought of trying to stomach anything left my stomach roiling, so I sought out a quiet corner, and my bag, retrieved my phone, and headed outside to smoke and make the dreaded call. All the while, Christine was a silent presence at my back, never commenting, though she did drape my hoodie over my shoulders when I shivered. Either the temperature had dropped significantly, or I was rapidly hitting the crash that always came at the end of a performance. It took several pulls off my vape before I could work up the urge to hit the call button, pacing and muttering curses the longer it rang.
“How did I know that you were going to wait until ass-thirty to call me back?”
My eyes skimmed over the numbers in the corner and I snickered, because yeah, I’d forgotten all about the three-hour time difference in my zeal to avoid hearing whatever bad news I was sure he’d called to tell me. All day, thoughts had raced through my head, from bad to the ultimate worst-case scenario. Now that I had him on the line, my heart had started pounding. I leaned against the wall because it no longer felt like my legs would be willing to hold me, exhaled and tightened my grip on the phone so I didn’t drop and break it before I had the chance to hear what he wanted.
“It’s only ten here.”
“Yeah, well it was ten here three hours ago,” he pointed out. “Now it’s one in the damned morning and I’m half temped to get on a plane and make you wait until I arrive and can give you the news in person.”
“You wouldn’t!”
“Oh, I said I’m tempted, but only half, the other half is cozy and warm with the blankets pulled up around my ears,” he snapped. “Before you called I was dreaming about sipping cold, fruity drinks on the bow of a boat in the Florida Keys, now I’m awake and I can hear the wind howling outside as we get dumped on by another round of snow.”
“And you can keep those fat, fluffy flakes on the east coast with you,” I grumbled. “And go right back to your dream, after you tell me why the fuck you were blowing my phone up all afternoon!”
He snorted at that. “Oh, now it’s important to you.”
“Oscar, come on man, cut the shit and just tell me!”
“Fine. You want me to tell you, I’ll tell you. The driver of the green van came forward, and his story backed up your story. He even had a partial plate and vehicle make on that red car. Told the cops that the plate had the letters f, s, and h on it. This is Massachusetts, for fuck’s sake, half the vanity plates are fisherman trying to brag about some fish they caught. Figured it would take a while for them to sort it out, so I was going to tell you not to get your hopes up. Only the cops put that information out on the tipline, too, and they got another tip, from a mechanic this time, who said that his brother-in-law drove a 1997 flame red Ford Mustang with vanity plates that say Crwfsh, and that he fixed the front end of that car the day after the wreck, had to work overtime to do it and the guy stiffed him on half the bill. That’s family for ya. Anyway, since you waited so late to call, now I get to tell you that you’re clear. The charges have been dropped. The cops arrested the guy two hours ago, and he cracked and blurted out everything. Guess he’d started getting phone calls from people he knew, telling him they were broadcasting his plate all over the internet. Seems like your fans got involved in spreading it around when it hit the tipline, and well, by now, half the country knows you weren’t involved.”
My knees buckled. Instead of hitting the ground, I found myself supported by a sturdy body and hands that gripped my arms as Christine ordered me to breathe. My vape had fallen from my fingers, the glowing screen flashing forlornly on the ground while I tried to wrap my head around what he’d just told me.
“Johnny! Johnny, did you hear me? You owe me a seafood feast, fucker, I told you the tipline would work!”
My throat felt too tight and my eyes itched as I drew in a ragged breath and shuddered.
I’d been cleared?
It was over?
“Johnny.”
“Tell me what you just told me but say it slow and leave out the extra bits,” I muttered as I leaned against Christine.
“The charges against you have been dropped, the civil suit, too. It’s over, Johnny. It’s all over. ”
“Holy. Shit!”
Squealing, I threw my hands up and danced like I’d just stepped on an anthill, howling at the moon, before wailing as I crumpled in a heap on the ground. Christine was by me in an instant, one hand on my shoulder, a grounding presence as I sobbed.
“Johnny? Oh, shit, Johnny, Johnny, what happened?!”
Rebel’s voice proceeded his arms wrapping around me as he hugged me while I rocked and stammered out a garbled mess of words and choked out sounds that I knew he wouldn’t understand. I felt a tug on the phone, and heard the dim rumbling of my lawyer’s voice still trickling from it as Rebel pulled it from my hands.
“Who is this?” Rebel snapped, then fell silent to listen as he held me.
“Wait, seriously?! You’re serious! You’re not fucking around?”
Rebel’s hold on me tightened, right before his voice nearly shattered my eardrums. “Fuck yeah! Oh my fuckin’ god, it’s about fuckin’ time! That’s wicked awesome! Holy shit, we gotta tell everyone!”
The phone was close enough to me for me to make out my lawyer’s exasperated declaration that we could do all of that without him on the phone, right before he ended the call. Snickering, I felt the first giggle spill forth and in an instant I went from sobbing to laughing.
“Rebel, what the hell, what’s going on?”
That was Dash, which meant Ozzy wasn’t too far behind him.
“Go get Draven and the rest of the guys, too, hurry up, this is fuckin’ awesome.”
“Well, what the hell is it and why are you two on the ground?” Dash called back.
“Just go get everybody!” Rebel declared in between chuckles.
We clung to each other, laughing, singing “Free Bird,” and giggling like we’d spent the whole night smoking Cake Pop and Laughing Budda. We were still at it when the others crowded around, voices a mixture of concern, confusion, and irritation, but that was mostly Dash being pissy about not knowing what was happening.
Jagger crawled over Rebel to get to my lap and shook me until my teeth clacked and I bit my tongue.
“Ohh, oweeee!” Moaning, I slapped a hand over my mouth and tried to get him to stop shaking me, but Jagger was all wound up and ready for the stage, there was no reining him in.
“What is going on?!” Jagger howled, nudging me until Draven dumped a bottle of freezing water over his head, which he proceeded to shake all over me.
Holy shit, that was cold.
But at least it had stopped him from making a milkshake out of my bones and internal organs.
Jagger shot a glare up at Draven, pouted, then flipped him off before turning back to me. This time, instead of shaking me, he gave me those big, puppy dog eyes, complete with his hands folded beneath his chin. I grabbed them, both out of joy and self-preservation, and held on as I gave him the wonderful news.
“They found the guy that caused the accident!” I declared. “The cops have dropped the charges against me. I’m a free man, Jagger, free, free, free!”
“Hell yeah!!!” Jagger howled.
I turned his hands loose, which in hindsight might not have been the best idea, because he hug-tackled me with enough force that we sent Rebel toppling over backward. A dogpile ensued, with me and Johnny crushed beneath a mound of bodies much bigger than we were, but none of it mattered as we held on to one another and listened to Rebel cuss beneath us.
“Hey, watch your hands, fucker.”
“You’ve never minded my hands there before.”
“I don’t mind whoever’s hand that is, but um, I really gotta take a piss.”
Grunts, groans and laughter followed, their bodies muffling their voices enough that it was impossible to make out who was talking.
“We’ve gotta celebrate,” Jagger declared. “And you have to come out there and sing ‘Sunshine and Chains’ with me after we tell the fans and anyone who’s watching the live streams of tonight’s show what we’ve always known. That you weren’t responsible!”
A cheer went up around me, backslaps and hugs followed as Jagger, Rebel and I were helped to our feet.
“Oh man, we’ve gotta celebrate!” Keegan declared.
“Only if that celebration involves going back to the hotel for some Chinese takeout and a Boston Cream pie,” I declared as I brushed my hair back from my eyes.
“Sounds like the best celebration in the world,” Jagger said, hugging me a bit more gently this time. “But you’re still gonna come up on stage with me, right?”
“Hell yeah,” I said, squeezing him. “Third song?”
“Perfect. Robbie will tap you in.”
He let go of me, not that my arms remained empty long as Draven yanked me into a hug, lifted me off the ground, and bounced me so hard my back cracked. It was the best feeling in the world, for three seconds, until he kissed me and that took over the first place slot. I wrapped my legs around his waist and gripped his hair, our kisses frantic and messy.
I wasn’t gonna lose this.
I wasn’t gonna lose him .
Not to prison anyway.
Not to space and distance and a relationship we could only conduct through letters.
We had a fighting chance to make this thing between us work and I couldn’t have been happier. I tasted salt as we kissed and realized they were his tears as he crushed me close and stroked my hair.
“Now there’s no reason for there to ever be five hundred miles between us!” he declared.
“Nor do I ever want there to be,” I said as he held me. “Oh man, ohh man, there are like a million and one things I want to do now. The cookbook, the comic strip merchandise. Dash and I have been tossing around ideas for the next album cover and Ozzy’s been working on a killer drum solo that just needs a song to belong to. This means I get to play Denver, and we promised them a new song when we got back. I need to get on that. You said February, right, for when we head back up to the mountains?”
“Yeah, but right now, the only thing you need to do is breathe and get back to kissing me,” Draven growled against my lips. “Then take a shower, you sweaty bastard, so I can make out with you properly.”
“Doesn’t that need to wait until we’re back to the hotel, too?”
“Mouthy fucker.”
“You love my mouth.”
“You’re damn right I do,” he groaned before kissing me again.
All these years, I’d thought freedom was not being tied down by entanglements and responsibilities, but tonight, I understood why people sang so passionately about it. A world full of choices and possibilities lay ahead of me that I’d been too afraid to embrace due to the uncertainty of what my future might hold. Now the future was a blank page, and I got to choose what I put there. A song, a doodle, a love letter to the man who slowly lowered me to my feet but kept me pressed tight to the front of his body.
“Can’t shower yet,” I reminded him as we slowly drew apart.
He looked like he wanted to protest, until it dawned on him why I said what I said.
“Need to find a mirror and make sure I look presentable after you fuckers jumped all over me like you’ve got on home training.”
“You’ve been around us long enough to know that the only ones with home training are Beast and Beethoven,” he grumbled, voice already growing difficult to hear.
I nudged him and pointed at his pocket, a reminder that if he wanted to continue this conversation he’d have to use that.
“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, only instead of pulling it out, he just slung an arm around me and guided me back in so I could unruffle myself before I had to get back up on stage again.
Inside, Jagger and his boys were nowhere to be seen, which meant they were at the base of the steps, ready for their set to be announced. Good, that gave me time to find a mirror and straighten out my twisted, sweat-soaked t-shirt.
“Here,” Whiskey said, passing me one from a box of merch on his way past.
He headed up our crew of roadies the way Sully ran security, and things had never run smoother. Draven passed me a bottle of water and I chugged half of it before passing it back, mindful of how shitty it felt to try and sing with stomach cramps. Oh my goddess, I thought I was gonna die the last time that happened.
I finger-combed my hair back into place, mostly. One stubborn lock kept refusing to stay put. Too short to tuck behind my ear, I was just going to have to deal with it or put my hoodie back on, which wasn’t happening. Outside might have been chilly, but beneath the lights I’d felt like I was roasting. I wasn’t about to subject myself to that again, even if it was only for one song.
“You look amazing,” Draven murmured against my ear.
I turned to narrow my eyes at him and give him shit for not using his device, but he shut me up with a kiss on the nose, right before he ruffled the hair I’d just styled. “There, perfect.”
“Seriously?!”
He caught my hands when I went to fix it again and tugged me flush against him. Behind us, I could hear Ozzy ask if there was any honey mustard laying around, while Dash suggested I lengthen the intro to “Ballads and Backstabbers, one of the song’s we’d been working on, to bring it more in line with “Bullets and Backstabbers,” it’s sister song and one we’d performed early in the set.
This was what relief felt like.
My world returned to whatever semblance of normal was actually normal for guys like us. Our lives were a series of stops along the highway, new people to meet every day, and the mystery and mayhem we had the chance to experience as we filled in the gaps between shows. Every word we wrote, every song we crafted, was built upon those moments. It was how we kept the music fresh. We spent more time in hotel beds than we did in the ones back at our apartments but that was our choice to do.
That’s what freedom was.
Waking up each day with the choice of how you spent it. Yes, there were consequences that came with the choices, and yes, there were times when we weighed those consequences and still made poor choices, or decided to gamble, tempt the fates, and hope we didn’t get caught. But there were also times when the choices were simple, but precious none the less. Because it was the choice to spend time with the people I loved, doing the thing that had saved my life more than once. It was the choice to love the man who held me in his arms, and man, did I fucking love him. And it was the choice to not dwell on the bullshit I’d just been through. I’d wasted enough time on all that. The music and the man were what mattered now and the way I saw it, he and our merry band of misfits had one wild and winding road ahead.