Lara lobbed a french fry at him. “Don’t make me rescind my friendship, Jem.”
“That was a figure of speech!”
River ignored their asides and chomped into a deep-fried chicken breast. “It’s a show night. I have aroutine.”
“He passed out once between sets,” Ward offered, “and then we found out he hadn’t eaten since the night before.”
Jem looked at River, for some reason feeling unbearably fond. “The common sense God gave little green frogs,” he repeated.
River blushed and shoved a drumstick in his face.
Not long afterward, Nat returned to escort Jem and the rest of the VIPs to their booth, which was on the second floor, almost directly overlooking the stage. Eric’s wife, Becca, nudged Jem to the best seat, closest to the corner. “Nothing we haven’t seen before,” she said. Then, with a pointed look at the child half-dozing in her arms, she added, “Besides, we’re safer in the back row for a bit if Daddy wants this one to make her stage debut tonight.”
“You’re really going to let him wake her up for that?” Too late, Jem realized that sounded really judgy, especially coming from a non parent. He immediately backtracked. “Not that—I mean—”
“Don’t throw yourself off the balcony about it,” Becca interrupted, eyes dancing with amusement. “There’s only so many chances left, you know? It wouldn’t be right that the older kids got their time on stage with Daddy and this one didn’t.”She kissed the little girl’s head. “Besides, she’s Eric’s problem tonight.”
Jem wondered how that worked—wouldn’t he be tired after the show?—but he didn’t have a chance to ask before the lights dimmed and the crowd started screaming.
The session musicians filed out first. Jem recognized Lara taking a spot at the keyboards; a short guy with straight dark hair strapped on a guitar. Eric came next, tossing his drumsticks in the air and catching them as the spotlights turned the stage fog green and then teal.
When the teal bled to purple and then red, River stepped out of the wings, guitar slung over his back. Jem expected some kind of strut, or a cool toss of his hair, or arms flung wide to embrace the cheers. Which was probably foolish, in retrospect, because River was a lot of things, a ham being near the top of the list, but he was also an enormous dork. He greeted the audience with a low bow, complete with hand flourishes, before plugging in his patch cord.
The crowd laughed and catcalled. Next to him, Becca dissolved into giggles. “That’s a new one.”
Jem glanced at her. “Oh?”
“I did see him trip on a pedal once,” she said with a grin. “But usually he’s pretty aloof. It’s nice to see his goofball side.”
Ward emerged last, to whistles and screams and catcalls. He twirled the patch cord like a lasso for a moment and then plugged in his bass and leaned down to the mic. “How you doing, Los Angeles?”
The wall of sound that rose up from the audience reverberated through Jem’s entire body. This was a small show compared to what the Flat Tires usually played—he couldn’t imagine how much louder a larger venue might be.
There was no further chitchat. River strummed a loud, distorted opening chord Jem recognized as something from one of the band’s earlier albums, the crowd howled and shot to their feet, and the whole thing set off such a huge adrenaline spike that Jem realized immediately that Eric would not be tired when he got home. Eric would not be tired for like the next three days.
Jemmight not be tired for the next three days.
He’d only started listening to the Flat Tires since he met River. Sure, he’d heard a few songs on the radio, but left to his own devices, he gravitated toward chill Spotify playlists that would keep him from strangling kindergarteners. And he’d never had the money to attend a lot of concerts.
He might’ve made it more of a priority if he’d known it could be like this.
On the stage, River and Ward stood back to back, leaning against each other and into the waves of adulation coming off the crowd.
“Is it always like this?” Jem had to shout so Becca could hear him.
She dimpled. “Nah. Smaller shows are the best.”
Jem supposed that must be true. You had to be a pretty big fan to get tickets to a small show before it sold out, especially in a city like LA. Which probably explained why the entire audience seemed to be singing along to every single word. It feltsacred. It felt like communion.
Jem wished he knew all the words too. It must feel like going to a concert with four thousand friends he hadn’t met yet.
The band soaked it in. Everything the audience gave them, they amplified and returned, grinning like kids. They looked like they were having the time of their lives.
No wonder River didn’t want to give this up.
The first song transitioned smoothly into the second—no downtime, no pause for applause—so that the whole thing built to an impossible crescendo that reverberated through the building and left Jem’s bones rattling. He got swept up in the joy of it, found himself cheering along, though he tried to keep it to a dull roar out of respect for the kids with them.
Surely one more cheering fan wouldn’t tip the scales either way.
