“Ellie, are you listening?”
“Huh?” I force my gaze from the table and meet Calvin’s narrowed eyes.
“When’s the next PR thing the guys have on the books?” he asks for probably the second time.
“Oh, uh”—I open my calendar app and start scrolling—“two days.”
“And you were going to wait until when to tell them?” he questions snidely.
“It was in my weekly email update, and I planned on reminding them after rehearsal, thank you very much.”
He rolls his eyes and goes back to his phone. I hate these meetings, but they’re imperative to keep this ship sailingsmoothly. “That looks like all for now,” he says, getting up from his seat and exiting the bus.
I drop my forehead to the table. The urge to bang it repeatedly is strong after these weekly meetings. He acts as if I’m an incompetent troll the guys hired off Craigslist. I have a bachelor’s from Brown in marketing, not to mention previous experience working with the band way before he ever met them. If anything, I should be telling him how to do his job.
22
TRAVIS
“What in thehell are you doing?”
I glance over my shoulder at Tanner, who stares at me with bulging eyes. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
“It looks like you’re cleaning.” The disbelief in his voice couldn’t be more apparent.
“Well, then, I guess I’m cleaning.” I squirt more Windex on the windows and wipe them down with my rag. How the hell did they get so dirty? It’s as if someone’s been running around smearing their greasy mitts all over them.
“But why?”
“Have you looked closely at these? They’re gross. I don’t know how we’ve been able to see outside. When’s the last time they were cleaned?”
“Probably when I did it. It’s not my week.”
Tanner made a cleaning schedule two months before we left for the tour. I may or may not walk past it every day and ignore it. I’m not a slob. I’ll clean up after myself and do dishes if we have any, but we eat out and use disposables. I’llalso take out the trash, but scrubbing the toilet and dusting? I normally skip out on that. Who has the time?
But right now, I have plenty of energy and I want to get shit done. He should be thanking me instead of interrogating me.
“Don’t forget to mop the floors,” he snickers, walking away.
Shit, the floors are sticky as fuck. It’s like someone spilled juice and said fuck it. I abandon the half-finished window, swap the window cleaner for a bottle of all-purpose, and spray the floor. I grab the mop and start scrubbing.
“Get it, Cinderella,” Penn teases, flopping down at the kitchen table.
“Fuck off. Hey, are you writing something?” I ask when I notice the notebook in his hand, the special one Liv got him for his songs.
He holds up the book and sends me anobviouslylook.
“I have some ideas.” Abandoning the mop, I slide into the seat across from him. I was up all night, and shit was just tumbling around in my head. I wondered if any of it would be useful. Normally, I don’t contribute much to the lyrics—I’m the voice. The face. He’s the artist and expert, but I’m suddenly inspired.
“Are you gonna finish the floor first?” He eyes the mop I dropped haphazardly.
“I’ll do it later.” I brush him off. I already forgot some of my ideas, but I put some in my phone.
“You wrote something down?” he asks, not bothering to hide the shock in his tone.
“Yes, I couldn’t sleep.” I open my notes app and hand the phone over to him. “What do you think? Anything good in there?” My leg bounces under the table. I really need to finish cleaning. I also need to send Ellie out for some more hair gel, I’m running low. Can’t style my mohawk without the right product. I wonder what she’s doing right now? Ihaven’t seen her all day. Wonder if she’ll let me into her room again tonight. I’ve started looking forward to our sneaky play sessions. It might be my favorite part of the tour now.
“This is good. I can work with this, unless...”
