CHAPTER ONE
KNOX
“Maybe it’s time to quit. Call it a good run, and just get the fuck out.”
Matti, my oldest friend and bandmate, looks at me, shaking his head while his fingers still strum lightly over the strings of his bass, giving off just enough sound to drown out the bus’s engine as well as the traffic going by outside. “I’m not falling for that shit again.”
I smirk. “No? Have I said it too often? Too soon since the last time?” I take my seat on the sofa beside him, careful not to spill the full cup of coffee I just topped off for the second time this morning. Everyone else (which amounts to two other people – Cass, our band’s drummer and Jason, our lead guitar) is still sleeping in the back, taking advantage of our late arrival time today.
Matti stops playing for a second. “You know, I think you have been saying it more often lately. What’s up, man? Starting to fall for your own bluff now?”
I laugh. “Wouldn’t that be the kicker?” Then I shake my head. “Nah, just checking in as usual.” I bump him shoulder to shoulder. “You know me, I’m married to this life. It’s a ‘til death do us part’ arrangement.” I’m forty-two. At the rate I’m going, music will be the only lifetime commitment I ever make.
“That’s what I thought.” He chuckles, guiding his fingers to pick up the same melody from before. Then he sighs, “Same for me, brother. Same for me.” And I know he means it.
Matti and I are lifers. And it’s not for the glitz and glam of rock star life, both of which seem woefully absent when you spend a hundred and fifty-plus days a year living in a can on wheels, sharing what amounts to an obscenely smallone-bedroom apartment with three other people – a vast improvement from when we toured with only one bus and there were twelve of us bunking together. Not to mention the rest of the crew traveling with us, in and out of here at all hours of the day and night, none of which are ever spent in the same place.
I learned way back when, in the early years of playing dive bars and couch surfing, you show up for the music, or you don’t bother showing up at all.
“This thing with Emmery still getting to you?” he asks when I’ve been sitting beside him staring blankly out the window for too long. I don’t think I’ve even had a sip of coffee since I sat down, just been cradling the mug in my hands this whole time.
“I know it’s bullshit.” It’s not a real answer. I also know it’s the only answer I’m ready to give, so now seems like an excellent time to start drinking my coffee again.
“Itisbullshit,” Matti confirms. “But that doesn’t mean you’re not buying into it.”
Apparently, we’re doing this. For two dudes, sometimes I think we spend too much time talking about our feelings. I blame both of us growing up with too many sisters and their refusal to accept that brothers aren’t equipped with the same communication skills.
I take one more sip before I lower my cup to have this talk. It’s going to be a quick one. “Fine. The fact she’s suddenly going around, a year after we broke up, telling everyone back home that I got her pregnant and abandoned her, even though I did the math a million times over and there was no way I could have been the father if there was ever a baby to begin with,a baby she clearly never gave birth to, is still sitting a little funny.” On top of that, her best friend has been trolling all my social media accounts, telling anyone who will listen what a selfish, self-involved ass I am for walking out on a woman who’s stood by me the last seven years. Except, of course, she hasn’t. Wewere a mess from the get-go, always off and on, and only partly because she couldn’t manage being alone for long anytime I was away. The irony of this was never lost on me, of course. She was cheating. Me, the musician on the road with the groupies and bad reputation to spare,Iwas faithful.
I blame my sisters for that shit too.
Didn’t matter though how loyal I was. In the end, it was never enough.
And somehow, no matter how unreasonable she was, or how irrationally she lashed out, I can’t help thinking at the root of it all, I was still to blame. Whether I meant to or not, I hurt her.
“You know no one believes her,” he reminds me.
I do. Growing up in the same small town has its advantages. Despite the image I portray to the rest of the world, back home I’m still the guy who threw the best curve ball nine summers straight at all our pickup games in the field behind the Jeffersons’ barn. The same kid who showed up with my mama at the laundromat every Sunday evening after church from the time I was three straight on through high school, helping everyone fold their linens while I waited on our own loads to get done. And with a family of seven, I had time to fold a lot of towels.
Emmery doesn’t fare so well in terms of memories people have of her. Between her shoplifting escapades in junior high and getting arrested for stealing a cop car while drunk on prom night, it’s easy to see why people might have their doubts about the rumors she’s been trying so desperately to spread about me.
“Honestly, I think it bothers me most she’d even want people to think that shit about me,” I admit after mentally rehashing it all for the hundredth fucking time.
Matti shrugs. “She’s just hurt and lashing out. It’s no different now than it was when we were kids. Only this time, you’re her target.”
In high school it was her mother. For getting married again after Emmery’s dad died. He passed away four years before, but Emmery never could forgive her mother for moving on. Truth is, I think it was her father she couldn’t forgive for dying. But there’s not much satisfaction in holding a grudge against someone who’s no longer here.
“Guess I should have seen this coming.” I sink deeper into the cushions, tapping the side of my mug with the tip of my index finger.
“I think you did,” Matti points out quietly. “You just couldn’t do anything about it. Not now, any more than you could back then.”
I nod. I know what he’s saying is true, doesn’t make it any easier to accept. “Like I said. It’s all bullshit. Her feeling this way. Her being too broken to see she’s smashing everything in sight, including me. It’s all bullshit.”
Matti nods, strumming his strings a little louder. “Wanna write a song about it?”
The tension in my jaw breaks and I smirk. “That does sound like the sort of thing I’d wanna do.”
He grins. “Music. She makes a solid wife.”
