Chapter 8
EIGHT
Travis
What was I doing? Not long ago, I was a semi-sentient head placed atop a body made of clay. A houseplant. Then Katie Armstrong had showed up—she had literally been delivered to my house and offered to me. A beautiful, smart, sexy way out of my problems. And instead of following her script, I’d left town.
Travis White, fucking genius, right here.
I was bad at following rules, even when it fucked me over. As a kid, I had skipped school to rehearse with my shitty teenage band, then cheated on tests to barely pass my classes. I had used fake ID’s to play shows before I was twenty-one. I had gone on tour with my shitty teenage band instead of getting a summer job as a camp counselor, which would have earned some actual money. My bandmates and I had driven off in an old van, sure that we were destined for great adventures and stardom at eighteen.
We’d lasted exactly sixteen days before my bandmates decided they hated road life and wanted to go home. Talk about useless. I’d wanted to keep going—I was barely winded. But we’d gone home and broken up.
That same summer, after my failed tour, the Road Kings came to Baltimore, my hometown. I went to the show—using my fake ID—and it blew my mind.
The Road Kings were a legendary touring band by then. They’d never had a chart hit, but anyone who was anyone in the music scene never missed a Road Kings show. They’d played an old theater that had seen better days. The tickets were cheap, the beer was cheaper, the crowd was rowdy, and the band had blown the roof off. They were in their twenties, but they’d been playing together for years, and it showed. They were tight. They were talented. The songs were good. Their lead singer was Denver Gilchrist—skinny, dark-haired, good-looking, with a voice that could growl or scream or make you weep. Onstage, he was fucking incandescent, as if he was lit up from within. He’d raise his arms and the crowd would jump as one, howling the words along with him. It was religious. It was the best musical experience I’d ever had.
It was exactly what I’d dreamed of doing if my bandmates hadn’t chickened out. I decided two things that night. One, I’d get another band. And two, no matter how good they were, I hated the Road Kings.
I joined another shitty band, and then another. Most bands don’t work, just like most dating relationships don’t work. People don’t click, or they go their separate ways. You get ghosted, and then you ghost someone else. I struck out until a producer noticed me. He knew a manager, who knew other musicians and record execs. I got thrown into a session with four guys I didn’t know, and we were given songs someone else had written. We were paid to rehearse and jam for a week, during which we cut demos of the songs. The demos were given to record execs, and suddenly we were a band called Seven Dog Down.
I cut a record with those four guys I barely knew, and the first single hit number one. I was twenty years old.
In all of the madness that followed, I knew now that I should have seen the signs. When someone comes to you, it’s never because it benefits you. It’s only because it benefits them. Those producers, managers, and execs looked at us and saw a way to make money.
From day one, we were worked like dogs—tours, rehearsals, videos, photo shoots, promo, press tours. People loved the music, and we were famous, so what was there to complain about? It was a great life. Except that we were all taking whatever we had to in order to keep up the schedule, and at the end of the day we somehow didn’t have much money in our bank accounts. There are a lot of expenses, we were told. They have to be paid up front. Eventually, the profits would roll in.
So we kept going. My bandmates and I barely talked, and what started out as a coworking relationship turned to mutual hate. We were exhausted. I was pretty sure at least two of us were full-blown addicts, or almost there. Our drummer got married and divorced twice and our bass player got a married actress pregnant. Our lead guitar was such a narcissistic asshole I wanted to kick his teeth in every time I looked at him. Eventually he got a lawyer and filed a suit that claimed that he was “the essence of Seven Dog Down” and should be entitled to most of the money.
That’s when the shit hit the fan.
More lawsuits. We didn’t have much money, it turned out, because management had kept most of it. We didn’t have rights to the band name or any of the songs, because we hadn’t written them. The record deals fucked us over at every turn. We could have fought it better if we stuck together, but we hated each other, so we sued each other instead. Everything was still in the courts, except for the trickle of money that was what I was actually owed under those shitty contracts I’d signed.
So I was understandably pissed when my best friend, Finn Wiley, said, “I think you should work with the Road Kings.”
I was staying at Finn’s house outside of Seattle. My road trip had led me here, probably because I was skilled at mooching off of people, especially my friends. Finn didn’t seem to mind. His house was big. He’d had a huge hit song when he was sixteen, one of those songs that you couldn’t escape for an entire summer. The albums after that one had bombed, so Finn left the music business and lived off his royalties and investments like a sane person who had signed decent contracts and now had money coming in. I could never hate him, partly because he let me sponge shamelessly off of him and partly because he was the best guy I knew.
“Fuck off,” I told him.
I was lying on the floor of his music room, which was his basement. It was my favorite room of his house—an open space filled with instruments, amps, mics, speakers, and a killer recording and mixing setup. Finn made music down here. I was lying on the floor because I was busy loving up Finn’s old dog, Gary. I rubbed Gary’s head, his ears, his chest, and his grizzled face as I told off one of the only friends I had left.
“I’ve never understood why you hate the Road Kings so much,” Finn said.
“Easy. Because they’re dicks.”
“But you’re also a dick,” he pointed out. “I don’t see the problem.”
I kissed the top of Gary’s head shamelessly, and his tail thumped the floor in bliss. This dog didn’t think I was a dick, or a failure. This dog thought I was the greatest thing on earth.
“You don’t even know them,” Finn continued. “Not really. Have you ever even met them?”
“Denver Gilchrist said onstage at a show that we sucked,” I said.
“Yes. And you retaliated by sending them a bottle of champagne that was actually a glitter bomb. They opened it backstage right before a show.”
I smiled an evil smile. The glitter champagne had been my idea. I knew that the Road Kings’ drummer, Axel de Vries, was sober, so I had made sure that the fake champagne was labeled non-alcoholic. That was how dedicated I was to making sure those guys would open it and play a show covered in glitter.
“The rivalry is stupid,” Finn said. He was sprawled on the sofa, wearing basketball shorts and an old tee. He ran a hand through his tousled brown hair. In his thirties, Finn still had the remnants of his teenage-dream good looks—not just the face, but the way he simply never looked bad. He looked like a decent guy, which was what he was. He could sing, play multiple instruments, write songs, produce, mix—anything. He was even a great dancer, due to his dance training as a kid. Finn had had rough times in life, but I didn’t think he’d ever been called a houseplant.
“Who cares if it’s stupid?” I said. “I’m not working with them. And I’m sure they don’t want to work with me, either.”
Finn shook his head. His fiancée, Juliet Barstow, played bass with the Road Kings. She’d started as a fill-in when their bass player took leave, but even after he came back, Juliet stayed in the band. “I don’t think that’s true. I think they’d work with you. In fact, I think it would be perfect.”
I rolled my eyes. Gary’s tail thumped, and I rubbed his ears again. “Do tell.”
“They built their own studio and started their own record company. They release their music independently now, and they’re more successful than ever.”
“Gee, good for them. What does that have to do with me?”
“Well, they make money now,” Finn said, his gaze locking with mine. “Good money. That they, you know, keep.”
My hand scratching Gary’s ear slowed. There had been years and years when I didn’t think about money—it never crossed my mind. Flights were booked, hotel rooms were ready, cars whisked us around from one show to another. For Seven Dog Down, money seemed to simply happen, the way oxygen and breathing happened. It was everywhere, so I never thought about it.
I thought about money now. I’d unloaded all the dumb, thoughtless things I’d bought when I was famous—homes, cars—and I still had very little to live on. My money, so plentiful, had vanished into a black hole of legal fees I didn’t fully understand. I had my Camaro, a few belongings, and that was it.
I didn’t need much, but I needed something. I couldn’t mooch off friends forever. I was a good-looking, stupid guy in his thirties, who had cheated to graduate high school and had lived his entire twenties with his head up his ass. I wasn’t exactly employable.
If I tried, I could probably get my agent to find me a paying gig. Acting, or maybe modeling. He could land me on a reality show or find me a ghostwriter to write my memoir. I could live the has-been life. But I really only knew how to do one thing: make music.
What if I…made new music? My own music? And it made money?
As incredible as it sounded, I had never once seriously considered this in the last year and a half. I had been part of Seven Dog Down for so long that it felt ingrained in my identity. We’d been handed songs to play. It had all been so easy. Unfulfilling, sure. But easy.
I hadn’t written any songs in years. But what if I started?
The deal with Katie Armstrong was supposed to be part of reviving my career. Andy and Jonathan were pushing me to do something other than sit around. But even though I’d thoroughly fucked that deal up, a faint signal had gotten through my skull and penetrated my brain. I was young, healthy, sober, and very much not dead. I could do something.
I narrowed my eyes at Finn. “What’s the difference between working for the Road Kings and working for the record companies that already fucked me over?”
Finn smiled, because he knew he’d pulled me in. “The difference is that the Road Kings don’t fuck anyone over. Do you think I’d work with anyone who would do that? Would Juliet?”
I stroked Gary’s head and thought about it. No one knew the music business better than Finn, who had started when he was a kid. And Juliet was a lifelong musician. She’d seen every trick to screw over musicians, and then some. The music business is still a boys’ club, which means that no matter how hard I’d been screwed over, a woman had been screwed over ten times harder.
As if she’d been summoned by a dark spell, Juliet came down the stairs. She wore vintage jeans with flowers stitched on the pockets and a one-shoulder shirt with the words Just Try Me on the front. Her shoulder-length blond hair was tied partly up, and she wore dark eyeliner. “I’m going to the studio,” she said to Finn, ignoring me. “I’ll give you some alone time with your boyfriend.”
“You mean Gary’s boyfriend,” Finn corrected her.
Juliet looked at me, and I hugged Gary harder.
“I like your dog,” I said to her.
“I know.”
I had been friends with Finn long before Juliet arrived in his life, and that was the only reason she tolerated me. So far, I couldn’t charm her, make her laugh, or otherwise win her over, but I still tried. I gave her my most killer smile, but she only rolled her eyes.
She walked back to Finn, bent over him, and kissed him soundly. “I’ll see you at the studio later,” he promised her. Then she was gone.
“Your girlfriend is hot,” I said to Finn.
“I heard that,” she shouted from the top of the stairs. “Keep your eyes to yourself. Also, thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I shouted up the stairs.
“She is,” Finn agreed. He had the look on his face he always had when she was around. He was crazy in love with her. It was interesting to observe. I had had girlfriends, but I had never had that look on my face in my life. I was sure of it.
For a second, I wondered what it felt like. To love a woman like that. To have her love you back. How did you get anyone to love you back?
I couldn’t stay here anymore. Finn and I had had lots of fun as single guys, but he wasn’t a single guy anymore. I was in the way.
So, as usual, I said something impulsive that I couldn’t take back. “If I’m going to work in Portland, I’ll need somewhere to stay.”
Finn looked surprised. “You’ll do it?”
I shrugged. “If those fuckfaces are willing to work with me, I guess I’ll do it. I need some time to write first. Do you know where I can get a good apartment?”
“Sure I do,” Finn said. “You can use mine.”
I stared at him. “You have an apartment?”
He nodded. “The studio is in Vancouver, and the commute from here is too long for us to do all the time. We had to leave Gary alone too much. So we got a place in Portland to use when we have to be at the studio a lot. We bring Gary so he isn’t home alone.”
“But you’re here now, at the house.”
“Because it’s quiet now. We aren’t in the middle of a big project. We prefer being here when we can, and Gary prefers it, too. The apartment is empty. You’re welcome to use it.”
I looked away from him, turning my gaze back to the dog. People were too nice to me. First Andy, and now Finn. “I’ll pay you rent,” I managed as my throat tried to close.
“Don’t pay me rent,” Finn said gently. “It’s sitting empty, honestly. It’s fine.” When I didn’t speak, he continued. “Do you remember when you stayed with me in Paris? Years ago?”
“I remember.” Finn’s third album had tanked, and he’d quit the music business. On a break between tours, I’d stayed with him in a small flat in Paris. We’d had a few months of fun, drinking and clubbing and trying to get laid.
“You remember what I was like then?” Finn asked. “I was lost and depressed. Aimless. I wasn’t myself. You showed up, Travis, and you stayed. You didn’t judge and you didn’t try to fix me. You just stuck with me and pulled me out of it. You were my best friend, and you still are. Just last year, you told me to release my music and get back in the game, and you were right. It changed my life when I did that. So, no. Don’t pay me rent.”
I sighed. It was nice of him to bring that shit up. But one of these days, I would have to be a grownup.
Today, apparently, was not that day.
“I’ll take the apartment,” I said. “Give me the address.”
It was a nice apartment. It was on the eighth floor of a century-old warehouse that had been remodeled into loft apartments for hipsters. There was an indie coffee shop on the street level. I did not have the luxury of scoffing at the Portland man-bun Birkenstock pretentiousness of it, because not only was the place free, it was also kind of awesome.
There was a couch and a big TV in the main room, a kitchen with stainless steel appliances and a big countertop, and a bathroom with a huge walk-in shower. In the middle of the main room, an open staircase wound up to the loft area, which held a big bed, two dressers, and a closet. The floor-to-ceiling windows looked out on the city. Yeah, I would wear Birkenstocks if it meant I could live here. Maybe I should buy a pair.
The day was gloomy, with lowering rain clouds. I made my way up the staircase—noting that the stairs would be impossible while drunk—and dropped my bags next to the bed. I lay on top of the covers, thinking that I would just test the mattress to see if I liked it. Seconds later, I was asleep.
I awoke to my phone ringing on the bedside table. The gloom outside the windows was exactly the same as it had been when I closed my eyes. Had I been asleep for fifteen minutes or fifteen hours? Could be anything. If it had been a brief nap, it had hit me like a bulldozer, because I felt like I’d been here for years. Groggily, I reached for the phone. Then I sat up, jerking off the pillow and swinging my legs down so fast my feet slapped the floor. “Fuck,” I said out loud.
Katie was calling.
“Be cool, man, be cool.” I said it aloud to the empty apartment. I straightened my shoulders, loosened my jaw. Then I answered the call.
“Hey, Katie.” My voice sounded normal. I thought.
“Hello, Travis. Where are you?”
Just the sound of her voice, so calm and polite and pretty—my pulse sped up. I rolled my shoulders. With one simple phone greeting, I suddenly knew I wanted her here with me. I needed to convince her. She had to be calling me to give me a chance, and I had to take it.
It turned out her biggest reservation was that I might be screwing someone else, which struck me as funny. I was alone in this apartment with no idea what I was doing, and—I glanced at the time—I had just slept for fifteen hours, because it was the next morning . The best cuddle I’d had in years was with Finn’s dog. It was safe to say that I was no longer living the rock star life.
Katie seemed to take my word for it. Then she said she was coming. Today.
I played it cool, only because it took a moment for the words to sink in. After we’d said goodbye and hung up, I stared at the wall.
I had asked Katie to drop everything and come here to pretend to have an affair. And she had said…yes?
She had said she was coming today.
“Holy shit,” I whispered, and then I got up and bolted for the shower.