“Stay out of my relationship, man.” I concentrated on my coffee, not wanting to keep arguing with him.
I snoozed on and off until lunch was brought in. It was nearly as disgusting as breakfast, but I forced some of it down. “If you want to do something for me. Get me a decent dinner. Or break me out of here. One or the other.” The meal was like a bad TV dinner with turkey slices, gravy, powdered mashed potatoes, and cinnamon apples. I took another bite of the apples, sincethat was the best thing on the tray, and at least it didn’t have stray green beans in it, like TV dinners often did.
After lunch, I cleaned up and a nurse checked my vitals. Again. And I sighed, wanting to go home. Colten had gone to check in with work, so it was quiet in the room, and I started dozing off when Donny woke me. “Daddy!” He rushed in and leaned over me, hugging me tight. “I’m so glad to see you. But I’m also pissed.”
I patted his shoulder. “I’m fine. Colten didn’t need to bother you.”
“What? Why? Why didn’t you call yourself?” He glared at me.
“Because this. Now you’re here. I want to take care of you, not the other way around.”
“Shut the fuck up. I care about you. We care. We want to know stuff like this.”
I patted the bed beside me. “Come here.” He crawled up next to me, and I wrapped my arms around him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want you guys to see me like this.”
“Like what? Human? Sheesh.” He poked my chest.
“Uh, you’re right. Let’s call Kay.”
“Yes. We better. He was worried.” Donny sat up and tapped at his phone, putting it on speaker as it rang.
“Donny? What’s going on? Are you at the hospital?”
I immediately felt bad for worrying him so much. Colten had been right about all of it. “He is. And I’m fine, baby.” I squeezed Donny a little more, feeling better with him next to me. “Where are you?”
“We’re in St. Louis outside of the stadium. The equipment buses are stopping to unload, then we’re heading to the hotel.”
“Well, don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I’ll be leaving here in the morning, so you play your heart out for me, okay?”
“I will, Daddy. Oh…” he paused, but came back on with, “Joe says hello and get better soon. He’s been keeping me from being too upset.”
“Well, thank him for that for me. You’ll need to bring him with you sometime when you visit LA. He’s a good friend.” I’d heard all about how supportive Joe had been for Kay and Donny. I wanted them to have friends like that.
Donny leaned into the phone. “We should. I bet there’s some people he could meet here.” He looked at me and mouthedColton. That was actually a decent idea.
“We can always ask him,” Kay added. Then the guys told me about how they played with the Big Wheels I’d gotten them in Chicago and how everyone joined in. It sounded like they had a good time.
We finally had to hang up with Kay because they were at the hotel, but we promised to call him the next day. The tour drove to Kansas City in the morning, but they weren’t staying at a hotel there. Instead, they would get back on the bus and drive through the night to their last show in North Dakota. Maybe after the tour, they could come to LA.
“Hey, guys!” Colten walked into the room. “Chief sent me over to let you know you have the next two weeks off.” He gave Donny a knuckle bump. “Good to see you, Donny.”
Donny’s eyes lit up. “Why don’t you come on the road with us? Can you? We can fly out and surprise them in Kansas City. Please? Please?” There was no calming Donny when he got too excited.
“There are some things to think about first.”
“Eh…you should go. It’ll be good for you.” Colten patted my legs. “Help you recover faster.”
“If the doctor releases me, I guess we can.” Who the hell was I to argue?
Chapter twenty-one
Kay
I was still worried about Saxon, but at least Donny was with him. And his friend Colten was too, which meant he wasn’t alone if something wasn’t right. But it sounded like he was going to be fine. That didn’t mean I wasn’t having a hard time concentrating on doing the show.
My mind was all over the place. I sat in one of the nice chairs in the dressing room I shared with Joe and Dave. Many of these stadiums didn’t have individual rooms, but they allowed us to use the locker rooms for the professional team that played there. This one was a little nicer, but we still didn’t have individual rooms. It would have been nice to have a little more privacy. Thankfully, the guys were quiet, and I relaxed a little.
Soon, some words started repeating in my head along with a rhythm and maybe a riff. “Shit. Shit. Shit.” I raced across the room and dug through my duffel bag, where I kept a notebook and pen. I sat right there on the floor and started writing.
