I wince, but Penn doesn’t bother looking at Calvin. Hestares at me like he’s trying to find the answer in me. “He’s not in the bathroom?”
“He’s not anywhere!” Calvin yells. Penn frowns, pulling his phone from his pocket. “Don’t you think we’ve tried that?”
Penn glares, but ignores him, calling Travis anyway. “Shit,” he curses under his breath when he gets his voicemail, too.
“The crowd is about to turn on you guys if you don’t sing something.”
Penn shakes his head. “Fuck off for a minute.”
I chew on my lip. Calvin’s right, but Penn would probably rather tear out his lip ring than sing lead.
“What the hell is happening?” Tanner barks, joining us.
Before anyone can answer him, my phone dings several times in a row. I swipe open the screen, feeling everyone’s eyes on me. It better be Travis with a very good explanation, but as I scan the notifications, my heart plummets.
It’s the band’s social media blowing up with pictures of Travis and some girl. His pants are down, and her hands are on him. They both look like deer in headlights. I bite down on my teeth as emotions I don’t want crash into me.
“What is it, Ellie?” Penn asks, his tone soft as he slides closer to me.
Just then, another photo pops up, this one of Travis up against a wall, being handcuffed. “Oh God.” I shove the phone at Penn.
“Shit.”
“What is it?” Calvin and Tanner ask simultaneously.
My mind whirls, trying to process the photo of Travis and a woman. He wouldn’t. Yet, he said he would. What the hell is wrong with him?
“Hello! Ellie! Do something!” Calvin’s annoying voice penetrates my ears, forcing me to snap out of it.
“Ok, I’ll call the police station and find out what his charges are and what his bail is. Penn, Tanner, you need to goback on stage.” I look at Penn. “Either sing or make up an excuse and get out of here as quickly as possible. This is already circulating. People are going to know what happened.”
“I can’t sing. I haven’t practiced,” he argues.
“We’ll make it work,” Tanner insists, and Penn sighs.
“I’ll work on getting this taken down online, but…” I don’t need to say more. They know once it’s out there, it’s out. The best I can do is spin it in a more flattering light, or say fuck it because it’s more rock-n-roll, right?
“I’ll go with Ellie,” Calvin says, and I internally groan.
“I think you should stay here and do damage control,” I say.
His jaw clenches and his mouth opens, but Penn cuts in. “Let Ellie deal with Travis. We’ll need you here.” I know they don’tneedCalvin here. They can manage on their own, as they did for years, but he’s throwing me a line. I want to hug him for it.
Penn hands me my phone, and I rush out of the building, ordering an Uber as I do.
It was a pain getting anyone at the police station to give me any information over the phone. I had to wait thirty minutes for my Uber to get me to the station, then another hour in the waiting room while they finished booking him before telling me where he was being held. They just kept saying, “You’ll need to be patient.” Yeah, right. Does that work for anyone? Patience is a virtue I was never granted.
While I waited, I tried dealing with the shitstorm online. I’d been fairly lucky thus far, not needing to put on my PR hat often—it’s not really my forte—but now I feel like I’m drowning. I have no idea what exactly happened, only what I’m reading online, so I can’t respond yet. Loose Threads isn’t mega-famous or anything, but they’ve built a decent following the last couple of years.
With them being in the punk scene, it’s easier to brush this stuff under the rug. People don’t care as much that he gotdrunk and…peed on a cop. Some even think it’s funny. There are at least twenty people in the DMs offering to post his bail because ‘fuck the man.’
There are still a few saying what a disgrace it is and turning it into a Blue Lives Matter debate. That’s going to be tricky to navigate. My eyes are burning from all the reading I’ve been doing, and my ass is numb from these shitty plastic chairs.
“Ma’am,” the woman from the window calls.
My attention snaps up.Ma’am?The hell.
I straighten my shoulders and walk up to the desk. “Yes?”
