It was thenexttour he was worried about.
Howl was under contract for one more album, due by the end of the summer, and a tour to follow it. If Jeff had seen their true colors as a starry-eyed twenty-year-old… well, he’d still have had to convince Max, Joe, and Trix to hold out for a better offer, to at least get their own manager. Because now he was staring down the possibility of another couple spins around the sun with Max vacillating wildly between happy and high and Trix sniping at Jeff every chance she got.
That or forking out most of his fortune to get away.
That was what he was supposed to be figuring out—whether he’d tell the three people who’d been his family the past ten years to pound salt because two of them were toxic and the label was a carcinogen. Whether he had it in him to go it alone or to start over with a new band.
Except it wasn’t so much that Jeff had been burning the candle at both ends as he’d chucked the whole thing right into the fire. He was so burnt out he didn’t even know if he had anything left to say.
He rubbed a hand over his forehead, willing away the tension.
His phone buzzed again, and he sighed as he picked it up.
Joe this time, the one band member Jeff could count on to put common sense ahead of personal feelings.You coming to this thing today?
Not if I can help it. I’m in Willow Sound.
He let that hang for a minute, watching the pulse of the three dots after Joe’s name. Finally the phone rang and this time Jeff picked up.
“Hey, Joe.”
“Hey, Jeff.” Joe’s voice was calm as always, and a little dry. “You okay?”
Jeff should’ve left out the part about Willow Sound, probably. “I’m fine,” he said, and then he realized he was showered and dressed and breakfasted before ten a.m. and that there was an anxious knot in the pit of his stomach that hadn’t been there yesterday… because now he was thinking about Howl, about their whole shitshow band and how much he loved it and didn’t want to go back. “Actually, no. I’m not fine.”
“You want me to come up?”
“Oh fuck no,” Jeff said automatically, pure reflex. He sounded like an asshole. “Uh, sorry man, just—right now two worlds are colliding enough, you know?”
But Joe was laughing. He’d heard enough of Jeff’s stories about Willow Sound in their teen years. He had context. “Relax. I get it. Just thought I’d ask. Figured if you were back in that place, you could use a friend.”
Wasn’t that the truth. Here Jeff was, thirty years old, rich and moderately famous in a way his teenage self had only dreamed of. His band had been nominated for three Grammys, they’d won half a dozen Junos, they’d played on every major talk show in North America. And he had no one. Not one person he could talk to.
He’d never been great at making friends—Joe and Trix and Max had basically adopted him in high school detention—and the past decade hadn’t afforded a lot of opportunities to form new ones. They were always moving, touring, partying. He barely talked to his dad, who was busy with his new family.
“Jeff?”
Right. “It’s cool,” Jeff said. “I think I just need to be here for a bit. It’s quiet. No pressure.”
“Sure,” Joe agreed. Jeff was pretty sure he was humoring him. “The past year’s been kinda wild, eh?”
Jeff laughed sharply. “You could say that.” If he never had to live through the fallout of Max trashing another hotel room—
“Maybe I’ll take a page out of your book,” Joe mused.
“You’re still in the city?” Joe usually went back to Barrie—well, Orillia, but close enough—when they were off tour.
“Playing host to my cousin,” he confirmed. “She’s thinking of going into Indigenous Education at U of T. Sarah’s gonna give her a tour.” Sarah was Joe’s longtime girlfriend. “They’re calling it bonding time.”
It had taken all Trix’s cajoling and endless hours of tutoring to make sure Jeff finished high school on time, and he still barely graduated—not because he wasn’t smart, but he knew what he wanted to do with his life, and higher education wasn’t it. Still—“Good for her,” he said.
“Kids these days are angrier and hungrier than we were.” Jeff could practically see him shaking his head. “They don’t take no for an answer.”
Jeff smiled. “Good.”
“Right? Anyway. I’ll be at the meeting this afternoon, so I can babysit. Any particular requests?”
“No new tour dates,” Jeff said immediately. “No firm commitments on anything regarding the new album. No promo commitments. I need a break.”
