Depending on the stage of the tour,practicecould mean anything from lying on the floor complaining about how they were getting too old for this, to outright napping, to running through an entire set list and tweaking it as they went.
But the End of the Road Tour was almost over. They’d had their two-month-long break, and now they had a small show in LA this week followed by seven more weeks of touring the East Coast. Their last show would be at LA’s Staples Center. And then it’d be done.
So they were a little rusty, but they had the time to knock it off, or they would if Eric and Ward could stop ragging on River for two minutes.
“He left you breakfast. Twice!”
He’d left breakfast every morning, but they didn’t need to know that. River kept his mouth shut.
“You kept the little notes.” Eric held them aloft like proof. “This is fucking precious. Did you actually eat the food? Tell me you ate the food.”
That, however, he couldn’t let pass uncontested. “Of course I ate the food, I’m not a monster.” River wanted to snatch the notes out of Eric’s hand, but he didn’t want to risk ripping them. “Will you give those back?”
For a second he thought Eric was going to keep taunting him. Instead, he looked at River’s face—bright red, River was sure, in a way that didnotflatter him the way his color usuallydid—and then at his right hand, which was clenched into a fist at his side, and immediately handed them over. Which was worse.
“Holy shit,” he said.
“Holy shit,” Ward echoed.
River wasn’t precious about his things, at least not most of them. After his childhood, he didn’t think that was surprising. Easy come, easy go. But even with Ward and Eric watching, he couldn’t keep himself from smoothing the wrinkles out of the notes and tucking them back under the magnet on the fridge.
“He’s a real boy,” Ward sighed.
Eric swatted at him. “Shut up. We can make fun of him later. This is serious.”
Oh God. “Actually, can you just make fun of me?”
“Sorry, no.” Eric nudged him until he acquiesced and sat on one of the kitchen stools. “As delighted as we are that you’ve finally bestowed your affections on someone who’s not an obvious loser, uh….”
“Your track record sucks,” Ward finished bluntly.
Eric side-eyed him. “I mean, I was going to be nicer about it, but yeah, that.”
Ward leaned his elbows onto the bar across from River. “You finally have a boyfriend we don’t hate, but he also began life as your sugar baby—”
“He began life as an actual baby,” River protested. “Just like everyone else.”
“—as your sugar baby,” Ward continued, unperturbed. “Your sugar baby you weren’t planning to sleep with, if I recall correctly. And now he’s living here—is he living here?”
“No,” River said mulishly. “He stayed over a couple times, that’s all.”
“So you’re definitely sleeping with him.”
Well, yeah, but Ward didn’t have to make assumptions. “He could’ve slept in the guest room.”
“There’s no bed in your guest room. You turned it into a yoga studio that you never use. And Iknowhe’s not sleeping in your mom’s room.”
River shot Eric a poisonous look. Whose side was he on?
Eric raised his hands. “Not that there’s anything wrong with sleeping with your sugar baby. Whether or not you’re paying him. We are not here to judge you for that.”
“I might be judging you a little,” Ward muttered.
Eric kicked him. “We’re not judging you,” he reiterated. “We just want to make sure you’re communicating with Jem, man, because communication is important in any relationship, and, uh—”
“Your track record sucks,” Ward supplied again, ever helpful.
“And we don’t want you to get hurt because of miscommunication.”
