Authors: Breigh Forstner
After hanging out with the guys and finishing breakfast, I went back home, doubts filling my mind as soon as Cale mentioned he had to get a hold of Kallie Cooper and discuss the upcoming tour. Just hearing her name sent a surge of jealousy through my bones. I had no idea why I was so jealous of this girl, because I hadn’t even met her before. Maybe once we get on tour I’d be her friend. Or worst enemy. I looked up a picture of her at a magazine awards ceremony and she was prettier than I’d ever be. She had dark red hair that she usually kept short between her chin and shoulders, and the most piercing almond shaped honey colored eyes. I had heard from the guys that she was shorter, around 5 foot 3, and I noticed that in pictures as well.
I called up Gina and Bethany when they said they weren’t busy and talked to them for the longest time.
“Raptor and Luke teased me because I didn’t give them your numbers back in Cali,” I explained. I could hear them both giggle in hysterics.
“Why didn’t you? They were some nice eye candy!” Gina whined. “Not that there isn’t any out here, but still. No one can beat the hotness of a rock star…”
“Because I’ve never seen either of them with a girlfriend since I’ve known them. And you’re my best friends. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Pft. I could care less about that,” Bethany scoffed. “Plus we might be coming back home, or at least Detroit in the near future.
“WHAT!” I shrieked, completely surprised about the news. “For what? I thought you guys said you had a bunch of gigs out there!”
“Yeahhh…but we’re both homesick. I think I might try to actually find a
real
job somewhere,” Gina said with a hint of sadness. They had told me stories about how bitchy some of the designers were out west and even with their size 2 bodies, they still weren’t good enough to fit into clothes. Something in my gut said more than likely it wasn’t home sickness.
“Or you could just come on tour with us,” I suggested. “And be like the official Everlasting groupies...”
“
Seriously?
We could?” Bethany asked. “But would there be enough room for us on the bus?”
“We’re getting a new one before the tour,” I said. After the success we’d had so far with the album and our video for “You Were Young” hitting almost five million views on YouTube, we figured we’d celebrate by investing in a brand new bus. “You wouldn’t believe how hard that is for them. They’ve had it since High School.”
“Ohymgosh I can’t believe this is happening!” they both shouted, and I had to move away the phone from my ear for a second. “Are you really sure they won’t mind about having two extra girls hogging up their space?”
Three girls on the tour bus versus one? I seriously doubted any of them would mind, even Cale. I didn’t want to give them a guaranteed yes, but I knew it’d be a pretty easy decision. It gave Raptor and Luke a chance to get to know them better and they could learn the ropes of being on tour. “I’ll talk to them tomorrow when we meet up for practice.”
“You’re the best, seriously,” Bethany said. “Now I’m really looking forward to coming home. We’ve already scheduled an appointment to look through an apartment in Downtown Detroit and a few others in the area. We miss you.”
“I miss you too,” I replied to my two best friends, and we all said goodbye.
Having Gina and Bethany with me on this tour would be icing on the cake. It’d be like the three amigos all over again.
New Year’s Eve was coming up in a couple of days and we were supposed to play a New Year’s Eve bash at a club in Cleveland along with Angels from Hell. This was the first time Bryn was going to meet Kallie and the rest of the group of her band. Christmas came and went smoother than I had ever imagined. Bryn spent the holidays at my mom’s house with me, and the other guys spent Christmas with their families. Of course we had our own little present giving time the day after, where I had given Bryn a silver necklace with her birthstone— an Emerald—in the shape of a heart in the center of it.
I felt sorry for Bryn. No matter how dysfunctional her family was, I knew spending Christmas with me wasn’t the same as her parents or brother. Before we stopped over to my mom’s that morning, Bryn wanted me to take her to the cemetery where Brayden’s ashes were buried. I had been around death before, but Bryn said besides her grandparents’ death years ago, this was the first close person to her to die. Obviously. He was her brother. Despite what happened the day of the shooting slash attack, Bryn balled her eyes out like a baby when she came up to Brayden’s plaque with his name on it.
I stood back and let her mourn. I watched her talk to the plaque, where behind it his ashes were in an urn. I heard her bring up the day he left and how she should’ve known he would have changed. After she turned back to me, I simply held her close as we walked back to my car. She didn’t want to talk about it and I wouldn’t push her. Despite how he hurt Bryn, Brayden was still her brother, and now he was gone.
“So your friends are coming down for the show too, right?” I asked Bryn as we sat in the middle of Lozano’s having a late lunch. Bryn’s best friends from school, Gina and Bethany, were all moved back from California. Once Bryn knew about the great news, she called me. She even suggested us taking them on tour with us since we were getting out of the bus we had now. At first I was paranoid about how we weren’t going to have any room, even after getting a bigger tour bus, but I figured why not?
Raptor and Luke were especially excited about the news. Raptor about shit his pants when Bryn mentioned that Gina and Bethany were tagging along. He was worried about when he was helping set up equipment that he’d take one look at Gina and turn to complete mush and an amp would fall his foot.
Bryn wiped sauce off her chin and nodded. “That’s all they’re talking about, Cale. You have no idea how star struck they get every time they’ve watched us practice. It’s absolutely crazy because they were in Cali and saw a bunch of celebrities out there, and it didn’t faze them.”
My fingers linked up with hers from across the table. “Well I’m flattered. Because I know if I saw a celebrity out in Hollywood as opposed to little old me I’d crap myself,” I replied honestly. “I mean I still get nervous and tongue tied around you…”
“No you don’t!” Bryn smiled. “From the time we met you’ve been so sure of yourself. Remember you said you were going to screw your new lead guitarist?”
I did remember that. At first I meant what I had said as a joke and thought she wouldn’t have taken it seriously…but look where we were now. “It’s the look of innocence, Bryn. It’s totally adorable.”
The look on Bryn’s face turned sour. “Really…adorable? What am I…ten years old or something?”
I shook my head, trying not to laugh so hard at her getting mad. “You are. Not to mention smart, beautiful, amazingly talented, good with your fingers…”
Bryn glanced around the restaurant before looking back at me and whispered, “Don’t start that here…”
“OH what, did the ‘good with your fingers’ comment hit home? Because you are, Bryn. I mean really I could go on and on…”
“No!” she shouted a little too loudly, causing a couple of people to stare at us. “Cale Pelton, you need to stop trying to get me worked up and teasing me. It isn’t funny.” I at least thought it was funny.
“Is everything okay over here with my two love birds?” Louisa, co-owner of Lozano’s wondered out loud as she strolled to our table.
“Of course, Miss Lou,” I replied, calling her by the nickname she told me to use whenever I came in to eat or to see Bryn when she helped out. “Bryn was just saying how she was thinking about desert. Weren’t you, honey?”
She mouthed to me
honey?
As Miss Lou raised an eyebrow at me. “If you say so, Mister. I don’t fall for that charm of yours so I know when you’re trying to schmooze.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure we keep quiet and don’t bother the other guests with our loudness, Miss Lou,” I promised her in my sweetest voice. She looked from Bryn to me, knowing I was just messing with her, and then walked away, where she started yelling to the cooks in the back to hurry up with something.
“You need to stop.” Bryn smirked, kicking my leg hard under the table.
I put my hands up, winking at her before I finished up my lunch since it was getting cold.
After lunch we were going to meet up at our practice spot to work on our songs for the New Year’s show in Cleveland. It wasn’t like it was a full hour or so set list, but the owner asked us to perform five to six songs for our time slot.
“Aww thanks for inviting us to eat…not!” Vince teased us as we walked in.
Bryn shook her head and hugged Vince as she strapped on her electric guitar. “Blame that guy not me,” she replied, grinning at me.
Until the sky turned dark we practiced, changed melodies, changed pitches, and finally, we completed our set list. I was hell bent on making sure that this was an amazing show. It wasn’t going to be a huge deal, but it was kind of an introduction to what the tour was going to be like with Angels from Hell. I tried to ignore the pain I was feeling in my chest as I sang, but every time I uttered an uncomfortable note, I felt like I was going to fall over.
Retreating back to my bedroom after we dropped Bryn off at her place, I was now staring at the very last of my pain medicine the doctor had prescribed. Should I take the last of it, putting myself out of my misery, or suffer through the pain? I had been trying so hard to not break down and resort to that stuff anymore. Pills had gotten me into a lot of trouble.
It also explained my mood swings with Bryn. When I first met her and throughout the tour with her, I quit abusing pills cold turkey. So needless to say, my mood changes were more frequent than I would have liked. I had a non-stop internal battle, contemplating going to the nearest drug store for a cheap fix and taking more than the dosage recommended on the bottle.
For a while I thought I was doing really well. I didn’t want to be this guy with sporadic temper tantrums, especially now that I had someone in my life that I didn’t want to let go of. After being in the hospital, taking the strongest pain killers I could take helped numb the pain I had been feeling where I was shot and stabbed. I had slowly become less dependent on pills to make it through the day, and all of the guys knew I was trying to kick the habit. But ever since Tyler rejoined the group, when he witnessed my tantrums after trying to stay away from the pills, he would pull me aside and threaten to tell Bryn everything. No one else but the guys in the group knew about my addiction and I wanted to keep it that way. Bryn could never know.
“What’s the worst that could happen?” I asked myself out loud, kicking the covers off to walk over to where the bottle stood. I had another two months of prescription I could use if needed, according to the label. This was bad news.
I opened the child proof lid and slid three pills into my palm. Throwing them into my mouth, I brought the bottle with me back to bed, along with some water to wash the rest down with. If I was going to make this upcoming tour my best performances to date, I had to make sure I wasn’t in so much damn pain.
Hearing a knock on the door, I heard Tyler say, “Can I come in, dude?”
Trying to stuff the bottle of pills behind my pillow, I yelled back, “Yeah!”
Tyler walked in and shut the door behind him. “Look, I just wanted to ask you one thing….” He paused, clearly battling in his mind on how to put his question. “Have you ever considered asking Bryn to move in with us?”
I was completely taken aback. My gut was telling me he knew about me wanting to fill up the last of my prescription and taking more than I needed to. My first thought was why would he even be thinking about Bryn? Besides being bandmates and friends, there was nothing between them and I could easily see that. She was mine. The thought had crossed my mind so many times about asking Bryn to move in, but with six people in the apartment including her, there would be no room.
“I’ve wanted to ask her. But can you imagine cramming one more person into this place?” I questioned Tyler. “Plus, you come into my room in the middle of the night to ask me this?”
“Sorry.” Tyler quietly chuckled. “It just didn’t make sense to me that’s all. I didn’t want her to feel left out or anything.”
“I think maybe after this tour I might try and find a place of my own,” I told him. We had all been living together for so long—minus when Tyler got kicked out of the band and therefore moved out of the apartment too— I thought it was time we all had our own space. Everyone had enough money saved up even after we went in on the new tour bus to afford a house.
Tyler’s mouth dropped. “You realize everyone is going to be hurt and completely pissed off by that, right?”
“Since when did you turn into a softie?” I joked.
“Turning over a new leaf I guess. I’m trying to quit drinking so much and grow up,” Tyler retorted. “But I think it’s a good idea. I’m surprised no one else has beaten each other up yet. I want to come home and have a bunch of space all to myself, not feel cramped like we’re on the bus.” Sitting down on the edge of my bed, he inhaled and took a deep breath. “Sorry, I’ll let you sleep, man. I think I am a softie thinking of these things in the middle of the night.”
“It’s all good,” I replied. “We’ll be on the road early tomorrow so
t
ry and sleep a little. I know how you are with no sleep.”
Tyler walked back up to the door and ran a hand through his messy black hair. “Very true. Goodnight, Pelton.” Before he headed back down the hallway, he stopped again and said, “I know you’re hiding your pills, by the way. Watch your back or I’ll tell her everything.”
The sad thing was I knew Tyler would tell Bryn. So now more than ever I needed to control my mood swings before all hell broke loose.
***
Our brand new tour bus was shiny and clean, sitting pretty in the warehouse parking lot where we practiced. Hal, our driver slash protector if someone tried to start shit at shows, had picked it up for us and drove it there. As sad as I was to see the old bus go, we had worn it out after using it for five years and we were overdue for an upgrade.
“How’ve you been, stubborn ass?” Hal asked, coming up to me. We fist bumped. “Trying to stay out of trouble?”
“Ohhh you know me, Hal. Trouble finds me wherever I go.” Usually when we took breaks off from tour, Hal would go back to his family and keep to himself until we needed him again.
“Well, I got this thing looking mighty nice. Drives like a charm too. Go check it out before we head out for Cleveland,” Hal told all of us.
Bryn reached for my hand and squeezed it. “This bus is pretty sharp.” She smiled, reaching out to press her free hand against the paint. We had our name in red and white spray painted onto the side in big bold letters, our new album cover below it, which featured the Detroit city skyline in all its glory. It looked absolutely sick. I couldn’t wait to see the inside.
“Damn, this was worth every penny.” Luke’s eyes widened through his thick glasses as he high-fived us. “Now we’re going to be driving in rock star style.”
Brand new black leather seating welcomed us in the front of the bus, along with a flat screen television against the wall. I wasn’t surprised when I saw the Xbox and typical ‘guy’ video games they’d be playing in our down time.
The amount of space we had compared to the old bus blew my mind. We even had a full-blown kitchen with a high-tech oven! Now I don’t know when we would ever use it, but it’s still nice to have in case there’s no restaurants around. Knowing how well Tyler could cook breakfast, I’d have to take him up on a few mornings of breakfast in the bunk. For my friends and I. I walked back further, noticing even the bunks we were going to be sleeping in were much roomier then the last ones, but my eyes were drawn to the back room, where there was a king sized bed against a cherry oak headboard. It looked comfortable and I was ready to call dibs on sleeping on it first!
When we got to Cleveland around lunch time we parked the bus near the venue, and decided to go walking downtown before we took our equipment to the club.
“I think we could totally stay down here another day just to check out the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame,” Raptor suggested as we walked into the Subway. “Seriously, I’ve never been there!” Luke pushed Raptor and retorted, “Yeah we have, idiot. Last time we were there you tried to take pictures where we weren’t supposed to and we almost got kicked out.”
“Jeeez, even I remember that!” Vince responded. “We were all hung over from playing that show the night before. Cale, you were the most hammered of all of us, I can’t believe you don’t remember, Rap!” I laughed as they were telling me what happened that night. I wish I would’ve been there to see Cale hammered walking through the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame. I found it hard to believe no one had reported them or kicked them out at the sight of them.