Austin: I thought you were done with me.
Uri: We were friends before we were more. Thought we might able to go back there.
Austin: I don’t know man.
Uri: I liked talking to you, A. We can keep it on text. Though I’m not going avoid you at parties and bars. Sound okay?
I stared at the phone in my hand. It had been a week since Uriah walked down the alley away from me. I’d tried to put him out of my mind, but…that was about as effective as trying to rid the world of oxygen.
I liked him. Alot. Maybe we could step it down to friends. It would be nice to have contact with someone who wasn’t on the tour we were planning. Someone to talk to who wasn’t drenched in teenyboppers and their starfucker moms—and dads.
Austin: I think I can handle that.
Or, at least I hoped I could.
“How many international dates do we want?” Angela asked.
“Have we done that well overseas?” Grant asked.
Hailey pulled a sheet from her file. “Topped UK, Germany, France, and Israeli charts. Charted high in Poland, South Africa, Argentina, and Australia.”
“So, we need at least three stops in the UK, Germany, and France, three nights in Israel, two nights in Poland, South Africa, and Argentina,” Bryce answered.
“And Australia?” I asked scrubbing my hand down my face.
“We need to hit Sydney and Perth, at the least,” Taylor said.
“I was also thinking Brisbane and Melbourne would be necessary,” Bryce added.
I nodded. “Agreed.”
Luis raised a hand. “Here’s the other thing we want to think about. I’mdyingto get back into the studio now that we can do our real thing here. I don’t want to spend eighteen months on the road. Can we handle an eight month tour?”
“Even that sounds too long to me,” I grumbled.
Grant leaned back in his chair. “Right?”
Hailey projected the map of the world on the wall, and pulled up an excel file next to it. “Let’s see what we can do. If we do no more than two nights in the big cities, New York, Philly, Atlanta, Miami, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Chicago, that’s one month right there. Allow for travel time, we can call that two months. Give me some smaller venues that you have really loved playing on your other albums.”
We all rattled off a few more locations and wound up with five months domestic. After chatting it up a bit more, we got to two months international and that was below our eight month request.
“Feasible?”
“Totally doable,” Grant said. And we can take some time off from touring then and get these other albums done.”
“That sounds like perfection,” Taylor said.
“We’re getting old.” Bryce laughed.
Angela laughed. “No you’re not. Not even close.”
Hailey tapped the keyboard. “Being on the road is exhausting. I know. I’ve been there. You’re all just getting to the point where you’d rather make music than play to a new crowd every night.” She glanced at Bryce. “And since I’m going to be working with Robot Servant while you’re gone, this might be good.”
“They signed?” Bryce gasped.
“They did. They were as excited to work with me as I was with them.” Hailey grinned.
Bryce wrapped his arms around her and squeezed tight. “That’s awesome, baby. And it will be perfect timing. Since we’re kind of pressed to keep our hands off each other.”
