“Thanks.”
It was then that the curtain on the bunk above mine slid open, and I fist-pumped in my brain because sane people don’t do that in real life. Sacha looked at me from his spot in the bed above the one I’d be taking. “Hi, neighbor.”
Chapter Four
The next twoweeks went by before I could ask what the hell I had gotten myself into.
One day we were in Boston and the next thing I knew, we’d gone through Florida, Alabama, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Missouri. The routing made absolutely no sense but it never had. Booking agents usually didn’t care how long the drives were between dates as long as they scored bands the highest guarantee possible.
A handful of fans had asked me so far, “How awesome is it to be on tour with them?”
With them.Them. Eli, Mason, Gordo, Sacha, Isaiah, Julian, Miles, Mateo, Carter, Freddy and Bryce. Ghost Orchid, the members of The Cloud Collision, their merch guy, front of house slash tour manager and their lighting guy.
I showered in gas stations. I had some kind of fungus thing on the bottom of my toes from the one bloody shower I took without flip-flops. I’d eaten more pizza over the course of two weeks than I had in my entire life.
On top of all of that, summertime was a vengeful, rude bitch that didn’t care about your comfort.
I sweated all the time. I stunk at the end of every night. I spent countless hours rolling around in a bus from town to town, and I hung out in venues for nine hours a day minimum. I lived in a bus with ten men who were like every other twenty-something-year-old guys in the world. They farted, they burped, some of them had smelly feet, some of them didn’t brush their teeth enough, or the only thing that really drove me nuts: some didn’t cover their food in the microwave.
This life wasn’t glamorous. At. All.
On the other hand, to be fair, no group of people made me crack up like they did. It had been a long time since my stomach had cramped from how hard I laughed at or with them.
Eli and I had been acting more like conjoined twins than fraternal twins, as if we were trying to make up for all the time we’d spent apart over the last few years. I’d met a lot of twins in my life; some were close and others couldn’t stand each other. We weren’t like that, though.
Before high school, we’d been inseparable. Two peas in a pod. Each other’s security blanket. My mom liked to tell people that when we were toddlers, sometimes she would walk into a room to find us on opposite sides, totally silent, as if we were having some kind of telepathic conversation. What she wouldn’t tell everyone was that if she stood there long enough, we’d randomly start laughing our butts off for no apparent reason, which in turn scared the crap out of her. Yeah, I didn’t blame her.
Even during high school, there was never any doubt that we were still more than best friends. We didn’t spend as much time together by that point, but it didn’t matter. I’d woken up plenty of times in high school with Eli on my bed, his feet way too close to my face as he slept on top of the comforter with his own blanket over him. We might not have come from the same egg, but no one knew me, understood me or made me feel as comfortable as my brother did.
I guess I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed having him around over the years as we’d each gone our own ways.
When we were in the bus, I was constantly with Mason, Gordo or Carter. When we were off of it, Eliza went everywhere with me. I’d spoken to the guys with The Cloud Collision a few times, but we hadn’t been anything more than friendly in passing. They were all always on their phones or their computers, so I didn’t take it personally. We had three months ahead of us to get to know each other; it wasn’t a big deal.
I was enjoying my time, and that was all that really mattered.
And besides the couple of times a venue had been playing one of Brandon’s songs between sets, I hadn’t thought about killing that piece of crap once.
“Shouldn’tyou go eat something soon?”
I finished setting the last cymbal on the stand and tightened it down, glancing at my brother over the top of his drum kit. He was closing the travel cases since we were mostly done setting up his stuff. We usually tag-teamed putting together his drum kit to save time; I’d done it so many times I could do it with my eyes closed. Most of the time he helped me bring most of the merch into the venue right after we got to wherever the tour package was playing, and then I’d help the guys set up their equipment to do soundcheck since it wasn’t like I had anything better to do. There was usually so much time before doors opened that I’d rather keep busy than sit around.
But today we’d gotten to Little Rock almost three hours late, thanks to a major accident. Now, everything and everyone was running behind schedule, including soundcheck.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and took a peek at the clock with a wince. Doors were opening in two hours. “Damn it, I didn’t know it was so late.”
Eli turned to look at me over his shoulder from where he was kneeling. He raised his eyebrows. “I mean, you could go without a meal or two—”
He should have known better than to talk shit when he was on his knees. I shoved him.
“Whore!” he cried as toppled over like a chopped-down tree.
“Your mother,” I muttered as I kept right on walking past him to sit on the edge of the stage before hopping down. By the time I was back on my feet, Eli was again on his knees, glaring over in my direction. “I’m going to grab something to eat.”
He was still giving me a dirty look when he said, “I can’t go with you. We gotta do soundcheck.”
I shrugged both shoulders; it wasn’t like I didn’t already know that. “Okay. I’ll be back.”
He blinked. And then he simply raised a fist with his middle finger fully extended.
