“He’s not exaggerating,” Milo added. “They literally cut him off. No communication. It’s been, like, two years.”
“It hasn’t been that long. More like twenty months.”
“I saidliketwo years. And twenty months isliketwo years!”
Cash rolled his eyes and told me, “I texted them a few weeks ago about the tour. I told them I could get them free tickets when we play in Detroit.”
“What’d they say?”
“Nothing. They ignored it. They’ve put all their hopes and dreams into Jennifer, my sister. She’s pre-med at Florida State.”
I impulsively reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry. That really sucks. The parents thing, not the sister thing.”
Cash shrugged. “It does suck. But I accepted it a long time ago.”
“And now he has a new family,” Milo said, giving him a sideways hug. “We’ll always love you, bro.”
“Love you too, buddy.”
I turned to Milo. “What about you? What’s your story?”
“Oh, same old story. I had a full ride to Harvard Business School.Not.”
Milo threw back his head and laughed.
“I hated school. I was lucky to get Cs. I wasn’t good at sports, either. Drumming was basically the first thing I ever showed promise in. All thanks to Mr. Bremmer.”
“Mr. Bremmer?”
“My high school science teacher,” he explained. “He got sick of me drumming my pencils on the desk during class and gave me detention one day. But when I showed up, the marching band teacher was there. He gave me a uniform and a special snare drum and pointed me in the right direction. I was in the marching band for the rest of high school. Mr. Bremmer even found a cheap hand-me-down drum set from one of the other schools. And when I couldn’t take it home, he stashed it in his garage and let me practice there every day after school.”
“Why couldn’t you take it home?” I asked. “Your parents didn’t want to listen to drums around the clock?”
Milo smiled, but there was a pained edge to it. “Something like that. A few years later, I ran into Riot playing solo for five people at a bar. We chatted after the show, got shit-faced drunk, and the next morning we started Cherry Midnight.” He elbowed Cash. “So, yeah. I took a different route here than Cash, but it’s the same destination in the end. Hey, who wants another round? I know I do. I’ll get you a French 75 this time, while you two figure out where we’re getting dinner. I’mstarving.”
“That’s something you’ll learn about our drummer, if you haven’t already,” Cash told me. “He may be tall and lanky, but he eats like a horse. It’s a miracle he doesn’t weigh three hundred pounds.”
I glanced over at the drummer, who was chatting up the bartender. His pained smile still stuck with me. I wondered what he was hiding about his past.
Hopefully, over the course of this tour, I would figure it out.
12
Riot
Violet and I had a special creative connection that I’d never experienced with another person before.
Put us in a room together with our instruments, and we became a powerful team. I’d play a guitar riff, and she would instantly know what kind of background to play on her keyboard. She would fiddle with her notes, and my fingers would hear the sound and immediately know what would go with it.
That bond sometimes made Milo and Cash jealous, but they understood. Our results were undeniable. The first album Cherry Midnight released was a group collaboration, but the two albums since then came exclusively from Violet and me.
It was dark outside when Violet sighed and packed up her travel keyboard. “I’m done. My brain is mush.”
“Three new songs,” I said. “Not bad.”
“Still need Milo’s touch on the drums, but yeah. Not bad.” She smiled. “Let’s see what the monkeys are getting up to.”
I followed her downstairs to the hotel bar. The laughter from the rest of our band drifted out into the elevator lobby long before we saw them clustered around a table by the window.Mexican food takeout containers covered the table, along with at least a dozen drink glasses.
