20. SOS
TWENTY
SOS
Cade
We’re going on tour. Well, just a long weekend of gigs around the state and dipping into Oregon a little bit—I’ve been calling it our “mini-tour”. The steadier gig schedule around Seattle since the beginning of the year has been incredible for growing our stage experience, but nothing’s going to prepare us for touring better than getting on the road as much as we can.
Swinging the keys to the band van around my fingers, I saunter out of the garage and make my way toward its spot in our parking lot. I’ve got an extra pep in my step, I’m whistling the tune of Walking on Sunshine , and I’m positive that nothing is going to rain on my parade today.
I hop into the driver’s seat and give Ol’ Starry —that’s what we named our van, derived from starboard, because both driving and riding in it is quite the boat-y experience—a pat on the dash for good luck. The only time we’ve driven the van for longer than 30 miles was the day we bought it.
It was a hot summer day last July—Beau, Logan, and I all piled into Zack’s Honda CR-V and drove to Spokane, where we would meet Mike from Craigslist in an abandoned K-Mart parking lot. I’ll save the rest of that story for when we eventually get interviewed by Rolling Stone .
While I back the van up toward the open garage, I look in the rearview mirror and see the other guys messing around instead of getting equipment organized to be packed into the van. I don’t want to be the fun police, especially not before we’ve even left, but I need to convince them to start packing up now if we want to get on the road anytime soon.
No matter how many times we’ve packed our gear in for shows, a tour is different. There’s a lot more to fit in the small space—personal belongings, heavy equipment, way more merch than normal. It all needs to be packed in a super specific way to make sure the weight is balanced and that you can easily access whatever you might need to get to quickly.
To make it easier and to avoid the bickering that always comes with the task, we’ve divided up the items that need to be packed and have come up with an order for packing—who puts what in first and when, that type of thing. I may or may not have gotten the idea from Mel—nobody is as good at organizing as she is, especially not this bunch of wannabe rockstars.
I swing open the back doors of the van, and then turn to face the guys. “It’ll be just like we talked about at practice last night, heavy things first and on the bottom, our personal bags last, does everyone remember their piece of the puzzle?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, we got it, don’t gotta worry about us at all,” Beau huffs out as he hoists a merch box into his arms.
“Beau!”
A look of guilt takes over his face the second his name leaves my mouth.
“Merch goes last, we’ve gone over that with Halle a million times,” I chastise him and he drops the merch box he was carrying back onto the floor.
“Speaking of, shouldn’t she be here by now?” Zack chimes in with the question I’ve already been asking myself.
I pull my phone out to check that she hasn’t said anything since the last time I checked it— nothing. The text I sent her yesterday afternoon is still waiting for a response.
“I’ll go over to her place and check on her, when I get back I hope to find a perfectly packed van.” I do an I’ve got my eyes on you motion with my hands as I set off toward the other side of the house.
I check my phone again while I walk, we’re already ten minutes late. My mind starts racing—Halle’s never late to anything, but maybe she forgot to set an alarm, or she’s running behind, making sure she has everything she needs for the next few days. She’s not ignoring me, right?
We haven’t talked as much this week, being so busy with prepping for the weekend. Halle didn’t come to practices this week—she last minute picked up extra shifts at Jubilee to have some extra spending money for the weekend. I start replaying the few conversations we’ve had this week, searching for anything I could’ve said or done to upset her. I can’t think of anything, but it’s hard to shake the ever growing uneasy feeling I have. We’ve both been busy and haven’t had as much time to talk, I’m sure it’s fine.
I feel my heart rate grow faster as I find myself standing in front of her door. I notice how clammy my hands have gotten as I ball my right hand into a fist to knock. Before my fist meets the door, it swings open and standing in front of me is Ruby, her messy cherry cola hair caught under the shoulder strap of her overflowing duffle bag. She must have stayed over last night, and Halle’s probably rushing her out since we need to leave.
“I was just headed your way, do you think we can stop for coffee on our way out? The girls have nothing good here.” She steps out of the door and joins me on the landing, pulling the door shut and locking it behind her.
What the heck is going on? Where is Halle? Why is Ruby talking to me like she’s coming with us? ?? “Did I miss something? Is Halle bringing you along or something?” I don’t mean for it to come out so bitter, but I feel the heat of my words still burning on the tip of my tongue.
“Something like that.” She takes off down the steps into the parking lot and gets a few steps ahead before turning back toward me. “Ever heard of walking and talking? Let’s go, Rockstar .”
My chest aches at her calling me that. As much as I don’t like being called nicknames, I don’t mind when Halle uses them—but coming from Ruby, it feels more like an insult than a term of endearment.
I set off on a light jog to catch up to her. At this point we’re halfway to the garage, so I don’t know if all the questions I have for her will be answered before we get back to everyone. “What’s going on Ruby? Where is Halle?” I beg her for answers.
“She didn’t say anything?”
Obviously not .
“Not at all, that makes it sound like she’s not coming, though. Please tell me she’s still coming?”
Ruby lets out a sigh and brings her pace to a full stop. I have a feeling I’m not going to like whatever she will say next. She grabs my wrist and pulls me to make it so that we’re standing face to face.
“Cade, I’m going to hold your hand when I say this.” She slides both of her hands into mine. “Halle’s not coming. She’s in Arizona.” She shakes my hands off hers and they drop back to my sides.
Arizona? That’s where Abbott just left for last night to go on a Spring Break trip with the baseball team and some of their girlfriends.
Ruby must see the wheels turning behind my eyes. “Baseball Spring Break trip with Mel.”
“B-but she’s supposed to be here, with the band, with me ,” I plead.
I don’t understand, why would she take off to Arizona without saying a thing?
“Look, whatever is happening between you two is between you two. I don’t want to get in the middle. At least I’m here in her place so you don’t have to worry about merch. Can we at least pretend to be happy that I’m here?” She has every right to give me attitude with how unwelcoming I’ve been to her this morning.
“Sorry I’ve been a bit of a grouch to you, Ruby, just feeling a little blindsided this morning.” I nervously rub my hand on the back of my neck. “Do you mind telling me what is going on between me and Halle, because I, for one, have no clue.”
“All I can tell you is you need to figure out if you’re ready to leave your player days behind for her. If you want her, you need to want only her. No entertaining other girls anymore, Cade. I know that’s really hard for you,” she bites out.
Ouch .
She gives me one last burning glare and takes off into the garage to greet the guys. I try my best to shake all the anxious thoughts out of my head and return to my happy-go-lucky mood before heading into the garage myself. The last thing we need is for me to be in a bad mood around the guys when we’ve got a long drive to the east side of the state today.
But still, what could she be talking about?
I take one last deep breath and make my way over to the couch where Ruby seems to be making friends with Beau’s sister Claire. None of us knew she was coming to surprise Beau for the weekend. He wasn’t even the one who got surprised by her, I was. She had pinned the location of the garage while we were practicing one night, and showed up looking for him when I was in there playing by myself the other day. I didn’t know what else to do so I told her she could hang out until Beau would be around for practice that night.
She’s pretty cool, and has been getting along with us at practices so far this week, which is a relief considering she’s joining us for the whole weekend. I even started looking forward to having her around, hoping she and Halle would click and that they’d both enjoy having another girl around. All I can hope for now is that Ruby will be half as good at selling merch as Halle.