Oh, yeah, they’d contacted her and knew precisely where she was. What she was doing. Probably what she’d eaten for lunch that day.
Then Hans decided they had to do a quick gig at Brek’s for some event Brek decided to have at the last minute. Usually, Tanner enjoyed a gig at Brek’s. But tonight his mood was not of the party variety.
Which was why he was shit company. Mach sat next to him in Brek’s little break room because he was the only one willing to tolerate Tanner’s crap mood.
Probably because Mach was in his own crap mood. With the dating app open on his phone, he still contemplated how to figure out the thousandth match. The matches came in so quickly and he had so many to sort through. It’d gotten all muddled up.
The order kept getting switched, and Mach couldn’t keep anything straight.
The whole thing was almost comical—Mach trying to count women. Ha! Scratch that. Not almost comical. Hilarious was more like it.
The one bright spot in the day.
“Anybody got a happy pill for Tanx?” Mach asked. “Maybe something to get him to stop brooding.”
“Fuck off,” Tanner said, running his thumbnail along the edge of the cracked Formica table.
He hadn’t been sleeping great. His beard had started to look like Linx’s, and the only reason he shaved it was because Hans got the styling team to tackle him.
The shaving thing wouldn’t have gone down if he didn’t have to do anything but sit there and ruminate while they did it, so that’s what he did.
“Love sucks,” Tanner said out loud.
“Preach.” Mach flicked through his screen. Then tossed the whole phone aside.
“I hate it. I hate how it messes with my head, every second of every day,” he continued.
Sam didn’t screw a shark on the football field, but he felt as lost as he had after Catiana ditched him for Brian Marks at prom.
“You get used to that mixed feeling of impending doom and utter happiness,” Linx said. “Takes a bit, but it’s kinda nice after a while.”
“You think it’s over? With Sam and me?” Tanner asked no one in particular, but also everyone present. “That’s why she didn’t tell me she’s in town?”
He could’ve reached out, but when he tried, he tripped over the bit of pride he had left and put his phone away.
“One step at a time,” Knox said, leaning back on a chair and balancing. “One step. Then the next. You won’t know until you know.”
Tanner nodded, even though he wasn’t feeling it.
The crowd at Brek’s was a rowdy one tonight. The vibe from the bar area seeped into the break room where they waited. On a normal night, he got off on it. Loved the way it made his whole body feel lighter. Untethered.
Tonight? He just didn’t want to be here.
“You’re gonna be good, man,” Knox assured. “That is a Knox guarantee.”
Knox and Irina had a moment where they’d taken a break and Knox had been a wreck. But he’d still hit the stage. Still showed up.
Tanner could do the same. Then he could head out and not feel like a total tool for ditching the guys who’d always shown up for him.
“If the one step at a time thing doesn’t work, you can always help Mach figure out what the fuck he’s doing,” Bax said. He kicked back in the chair beside Linx, balancing, too.
Somewhere in the last ten seconds they’d started some kind of balancing on two chair legs competition. This was life with Dimefront.
“I will let you handle the whole damn thing,” Mach assured, his phone back in his grip, still fat-fingering his way through Nocturnal Cupid.
“Dealing with your dating profile sounds like the worst possible way to start feeling better about shit,” Tanner said with a scowl.
“Yeah, I can see that,” Mach said, nodding, still tapping at his screen.
