Epilogue
Tim
Ten years later...
IT’S WEIRD FOR STAGE lights to feel normal. It’s weird to find nothing amiss when a stadium full of people is screaming at you. It’s weird for the thrill of performing in front of tens of thousands of people to be a day at the office.
But that’s been my life for the past ten years, and as I clasp Keannen’s hand and take a bow before a packed stadium, the motion is so familiar that the sight of that many cheering fans doesn’t faze me the way it should.
It’s been a decade since the tour where Keannen and I reunited. Both bands have gone through a lot since then. It’s strange to think back to a time when either of us worried that we wouldn’t get to play music for the rest of our lives. Now, in our thirties, it’s so thoroughly baked into every day of our existences that I don’t know how we’d breathe without it.
Even stuff like this is somehow normal. The stage, the lights, the fans, the makeup turning tacky after I’ve sweat through a whole set.
We take one more bow, both bands sharing the stage for this special joint tour, then finally head backstage.
These things are a huge production now. I thought that tour ten years ago was crazy, but it was nothing compared to the amount of crew and support and handlers we have this time. Someone wipes the makeup off my face before I can ask. Someone hands me a water bottle before I reach the greenroom and flop onto the couch.
This part is the same, at least. For a brief moment, normalcy returns as the members of both bands sink onto couches and stools and the floor. Somehow, we’re all still here, all four members of The Ten Hours as well as all five guys in Baptism Emperor. Unlike a lot of bands, we haven’t suffered the turmoil of infighting and explosive breakups. We’ve stuck together, not just in our own bands, but as this huge, multi-band family as well.
That was part of the reason for this. When we realized it’d been ten years since that first tour we did together, we went to management and petitioned to do another one, a longer, bigger, multi-country tour to celebrate how far we’ve come. We take turns headlining each night, but it doesn’t really matter. Any rivalry that might have existed has long since faded away. We’ve even collaborated on songs and music across albums. Erin sang beside Jacob on Baptism Emperor’s most famous song, “Kaleidoscope;” we borrowed Shawn for some extra guitar support on one of our big hits, “The Other Side.” It’s been more of a collaboration than a rivalry since that first tour so long ago.
But ten years can still change a lot. I glance down at my hand, smiling at the shiny band of metal that marks perhaps the biggest change in my own life. If you’d told that terrified seventeen-year-old kissing a boy under the bleachers that someday he’d get to marry not just a man, but that man, he wouldn’t have believed you. Now, the proof sits right beside me, leaning his head against my shoulder as we catch our breath after the show.
Jacob, still the same ball of energy he always was, comes bouncing into the room with several six-packs in hand and starts passing around beers.
“Don’t be lame,” he says. “We need to toast.”
Cameron, still the same ball of not-energy he always was, groans. “What do we need to toast? This is like our billionth show.”
“And it’s amazing and wonderful that we get to make our living creating art and doing what we love,” Jacob says. “So shut up and toast.”
No one argues further. We force ourselves to our feet and clink our beers together. I have to confess that the crisp, cold beer is refreshing after being onstage. It seems everyone else agrees because soon the air of exhaustion lifts and we’re chatting as excitedly as ever.
Being famous means we don’t get a lot of time like this, time when we’re our sweaty, gross, natural selves, time when no one is asking us to do something or trying to take our pictures, time to simply be. We live charmed, unfathomable lives, but it’s nice to remember how to be a guy drinking a beer with his friends once in a while.
Well, his friends and his husband.
I smile over at Keannen, who smirks back at me. God, how I love that smirk. He may be less bitter and cynical than when we were young, but he wears the same lopsided grin as always, and I can’t help leaning over to kiss it.
“Thank you,” I say softly, only for him.
“Huh? For what?”
“For being here.” I hold up my hand and show off the ring. “For this. For doing this whole life thing with me.”
Keannen’s smile softens around the edges, but he shakes his head. He leans close, his lips nearly against mine. “Still such a sap. You’re unbearable, Freckles.”
“You seem to bear me.”
He huffs a laugh, then closes the distance between us.
“Hey, do you two mind?” Jacob eventually interrupts. “The rest of us are starving and we want to go get food.”
Keannen sighs as he pulls away. “That’s not my problem. ”
“I’m making it your problem,” Jacob says. “Stop making out so we can go.”
Keannen rolls his eyes. Everyone finishes off their beers and prepares to get shuffled through halls and into a car. If we’re lucky there won’t be too much paparazzi around, but we probably won’t get lucky.
I smile despite it. I didn’t get to have much of a family for most of my life, but for the past ten years, I’ve had the most incredible family anyone could ask for. It isn’t only Keannen; it’s our bands, too. We look out for each other. We care about each other. We bicker like siblings yet keep coming back to each other. In all the ways that actually matter, we’re more of a family than my parents and sisters ever could have offered me.
And I’m the luckiest guy in the entire world.
With them, I’m not off. I’m not wrong. I’m not broken and in need of fixing. I’m exactly who I should be. I’m perfect.
I’m loved.