“Someone forced me down here,” Ghost replied, shooting a sideways look at our manager.
Clara just lifted her chin and kept spreading peanut butter over a slice of toast.
“You’ve got a show tonight,” she said calmly. “And you need to start eating breakfast. It’s good for you. Unlike sleeping until it’s time to head to the arena.”
Thump leaned forward, elbows on the table, chin propped in his hands.
“Aww. Our mother hen is worried about our well-being.”
Clara glared and pointed her sticky knife at him. Then at the rest of us.
“I have to worry about you assholes. If I didn’t, you’d all be rotting away in bed with malnutrition. Or scurvy.”
“We’re not pirates,” Ghost scoffed, rolling his eyes.
“Actually,” Mick said, tapping at his phone. “Around seven percent of adults in the US have a vitamin C deficiency.”
He turned the screen towards us to show off his Google search.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Thump asked around a mouthful of waffles and bacon.
“That’s what scurvy is, dumbass,” Riff shot back. His eyes dropped to Thump’s plate, stacked high with grease and carbs. “And based on your breakfast, you could use a few extra vitamins yourself.”
He picked up an uncut kiwi and threw it at Thump. It thudded against his chest, dropped into his lap, then rolled onto the floor. Thump flipped him off and reached for a packet of ketchup, clearly aiming for retaliation.
Clara set her knife down with deliberate care and glared at both of them.
“Stop acting like children,” she hissed. “You’re worse than my sister’s kids. And they’re barely more than toddlers.”
“Careful,” Ghost smirked. “She’ll put you in time out.”
“I will put all of you in time out if you’re not careful,” Clara snapped, shoulders stiff.
That did the trick. Thump and Riff settled, and the conversation drifted to safer ground.
I didn’t really join in. Instead, I picked at a bowl of cereal slowly turning to mush, my eyes flicking between my bandmates and the restaurant entrance. Searching for a flash of pink hair that hadn’t appeared yet.
Was Iggy still asleep? Or had he gone out to eat with Half Life? I still hadn’t heard from him, even after the text I’d sent yesterday. I hadn’t wanted to push my luck with a follow-up.No, I wanted to see him in person. To look at him and know he was okay after the way we’d left things.
“You’re quiet,” Riff murmured, nudging me with his elbow.
I glanced down at my bowl and shrugged. “How’s that different from any other day?”
He chuckled and bit into a chunk of sausage. “Fair. I guess you’re quieter than usual, which is saying something.”
“I’m just tired.”
“Bullshit,” Riff said immediately. “You went to bed early last night. And I know you’ve been sleeping better since Iggy’s been around.”
He waggled his eyebrows, grinning. Normally I would’ve laughed it off. But today I didn’t, and Riff noticed.
“What’s going on?” he asked, frowning. “Trouble in paradise?”
I sighed and leaned back in my chair. Glancing around to make sure no one else was listening, I tapped the pocket of my jeans where my vape was tucked away.
“Fancy a smoke?”
Riff pursed his lips and nodded. We excused ourselves, agreeing on a time to meet back in the lobby before tonight’s show. None of us had any other obligations today, which made it the perfect opportunity for everyone to do nothing.
