Chapter 6.
Chase
It’s a totally new day.
It’s a bold, beautiful, totally new fucking day.
I still can’t believe I pulled it off.
“Whose birthday again?” I lean in to ask.
“Esmeralda,” repeats Dee. We’re just offstage in the wings.
It’s our next show. Loud as fuck. The opening act is noisier than usual in this venue, something to do with the acoustics.
“Es-mer-al-da. Second row in a black sweater with your name on it, your number one fan, can’t miss her.
She went to my high school. Could you sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to her, maybe between the third and fourth songs with the band intros?
I can tell Naomi so she can hold the lights.
You’ll make Essie’s every last dream come true. ”
“The power of a song,” I mutter to myself. “Did Ian okay it?”
“Did he?” she asks with a smirk before slipping away.
And when the third song on tonight’s setlist ends, “Easy Path to My Heart”—one of my recent personal favorites for totally no reason at all that has nothing to do with a guy from a little town called Spruce—I decide to take the request an extra step and, after an introduction, extend my hand toward the lady and ask her up to the stage with me.
She literally won’t stop screaming the whole way—neither does the audience, they really eat this shit up—and then goes as silent as a corpse when I, Fiona, and Wily surround her on all sides and, in the bright key of F, sing “Happy Birthday”.
Poor Esmeralda does not know what to do with herself, her hands erratically going from fanning her face to clutching her breasts for some reason as she mouths, “Holy fuck,” over and over.
The song ends too quickly, and I can’t help but notice the audience is going nuts over this, so I tell her to hang out for a spell, flag a frazzled Dee in the wings, and get Esmeralda a chair.
And it’s there she sits, right next to us, while we play one more song in her honor: “The Big Happy”.
She’s crying halfway through the number, even though it’s an upbeat earworm about chasing your dreams, but I’ll take that as a win.
Afterwards, I take her hand—she won’t stop shouting, “Thank you, Chase!! Thank you!!” at my face with tears dotting her flushed cheeks—and help her off the stage.
Then we’re back in full swing, rocking our next number with the audience clapping along and stomping their feet.
I catch Fiona smirking happily at me from the keyboards.
Wily’s deep in the feels, banging on his bass, and Raj bounces energetically behind hissing hi-hats and snares.
It’s just one of those shows that reminds you why you started doing this at all and why you still do it, despite everything.
The crew are loading out so much more chill than usual, like the energy in the backstage and loading bay areas is bubbly with infectious optimism I haven’t seen in a while, like it’s everyone’s birthdays.
Seriously, no one will stop talking about it.
I heard even Rob watched from his post, cackling every time Esmeralda would shout out a sudden curse word of joy.
Dee shed tears. Naomi could not wipe the smile off her face from the lighting board.
Someone tells me I’ve got a pep in my step tonight.
A total 180, that’s what this is.
Chase’s back!—That comes from one of our backline techs, the comment accompanied with a cheery high-five.
In a nook by the back hallways near a table of cheeses, snacks, and fruit bowls provided by the venue, I’m with Fiona, Wily, and Raj in a post-show huddle, first one we’ve done in a while.
“I did a different bass line in ‘No Love Lost’,” blurts Wily, like a sudden confession, except a note of excitement tickles his voice when he adds, “I just felt in the moment, y’know? I went off a little, and—”
“Keep it, Wiles,” I tell him, patting his back. “It worked.”
“Yeah, definitely worked,” agrees Fiona. “Made the chords so much less repetitive at the turnaround before the final chorus. It’s not like you went and added a whole new song or something.”
I give her a smirk of appreciation. “You won’t let me live that down.” She shakes her head no.
Raj winces. “I hate to cut this short, but I’ve been holding it in since the encore, and I really gotta—”
Another set of arms flops over my and Wily’s backs, inserting a new face into the circle. Ian’s, specifically. I’ve already prepared a reply for when he gets on my case about the invite-a-random-fan-onstage-for-a-birthday-song situation, ready for the heat.
Instead, Ian says, “You guys killed it out there. Did you feel that crowd? They were connected, full-steam until the last encore. I’m so proud of all of you. Truly great show. Bravo, seriously, bravo.”
Ian gives my shoulder an especially tight squeeze.
Honestly, I still can’t tell whether I’ve really made him happy or he’s holding back.
That’s something I’ll give Ian: he listens and takes what I say to heart.
Maybe our convos recently have been sitting with him.
That could be what it is: Ian holding back his usual criticism.
Letting the moment be. Trusting in our instincts.
“Sorry, no, can’t, not another second,” grunts Raj, splitting from our circle and darting down the hall for the bathroom.
Hope the fella makes it in time.
Fiona perks up suddenly. “Tomorrow, we’re off again, right?”
“Yes, ma’am,” confirms Ian.
“Hmm,” grunts Wily, who never knows what to do with spare time, likely preferring we have a show every single day.
When one of our new sound techs calls Fiona over to ask her something about her keyboards, our circle is disbanded, and we all go on our separate ways.
Ian’s gaze lingers on me a second longer than the others.
I give him a nod and a, “Good show,” as we always say to each other.
He still looks like a puppy holding back a bark.
But he smiles, returns a, “Good show, Chase,” and then I’m off to finish packing up my dressing room.
It’s not at the venue that it happens.
It’s at the hotel bar that Ian pulls me aside for a drink. Fiona and Raj join us along with seven of the crew, including Dee and Rob. Wily was wiped and just went straight up to his room.
Ian and I sit apart from the others, huddled over a table in the corner like we share a secret.
“Look, I acknowledge that the crowd tonight was eating out of y’all’s palms,” he tells me after wriggling his way through pleasantries to get to his point, “but I can’t help feeling like you’re chasing something lately. ”
Chasing something.
That puts me right back in my rental car yesterday morning. Zooming from the hotel after just a quick word to Dee and no one else. Didn’t wait for the official go-ahead. Did I really need one?
And walking down those streets of Spruce had me in such a different headspace than any other town, city, or college campus we’ve been at. I felt like I shrunk away. Shed off the skin of Chase Holt. Became a normal human being.
Is this what I’ve lost? I asked myself, hands in my pockets, going down one street, coming up another.
Feasting my eyes on the ma-and-pa businesses.
The cute storefronts. A church with a group of ladies out front chatting away.
Nearby, two men holding hands under the shade of a tree, and just as my eyes found them, they exchanged a kiss.
I didn’t come here chasing after a guy, I kept telling myself again and again. I would have said I went there chasing after myself, but that’s too corny to even use as lyrics.
Honestly, I think I went to Spruce to get away from myself.
I didn’t expect to find him so soon. The worst part is, I didn’t see him at first. I saw an adorable guy in an adorable apron outside an ice cream shop sweeping the sidewalk with a broom like a total dork.
Who sweeps a sidewalk? I don’t know what dirt he imagined he was cleaning up, but all of it was bound to just settle right back into place the second he walked away.
And when I did realize who it was, I swear, I’d never better understood the saying of having a rug swept out from under you.
Then smacking headfirst into a pole.
It was all Dee could chirp about the second I returned from Spruce.
Yeah, it goose-egged a bit. I was tended to immediately, as if I’d just returned from a dramatic battle.
No one needed to know my mortal nemesis was a lamppost. It was about dinnertime, and from what I understood, Ian was frantically searching for me for hours.
When he finally found me, all his panic vanished.
He didn’t even ask about my bandage. He probably just assumed whatever he wanted to assume, then told me to get a good night’s rest and that he’d see me in the morning.
It was as if he thought our conversation had inspired me to abandon him and the tour completely. Mostly him. Less the tour.
I told him I never felt more like myself—he gave me a look—and then I took my dinner up to my room. I ate by the window in a happy silence, notebook opened on the ledge, every now and then jotting down another lyric.
Thinking of Timothy—my new fixation.
I’m gonna finish that song.
“Chase,” says Ian, bringing me back to now.
Right, he said I was chasing something. I drum fingers on the side of my glass, like I think I’m Raj. “Chasing …?”
“The birthday moment worked,” he says, “but only because it happened to be a respectful fan and you took control of the whole situation. It could have gone … very differently. I know.” He lifts a hand to stop something he assumed I was about to say.
“You’re tired of hearing me bring up safety concerns of crazy fans, danger, all of that, but you did have a stalker situation not so long ago and I don’t want to invite someone else to take their place and put us—or you, rather—through that again. ”
“I can’t not interact with the audience ever again on account of one or two crazies, Ian.”